Part 1- A summer jaunt to Jaipur

Rajasthan! it was a place that our family was waiting to explore… The last trip before Mahi got busy with her 10th boards.. We packed and left for the airport and the next thing we knew we landed in Jaipur International Airport. We had our close family friends coming along with us too! We drove to our hotel, had dinner at a nearby restaurant and got cozy and comfy in our beds for a good night’s sleep.�

In the morning we all went in a cab and headed towards Amer Fort, before which the driver suggested a famous Kachori shop, where we had variety of Kachoris for breakfast.

At Amer Fort, we saw different types of structures which the rulers built in their times. First we saw the main palace which looked stunning, with the colours and the construction. Then saw the Mirror Palace. The story behind it is that the queens of that time wanted to see stars in the day too, so the king got a special type of mirror from Belgium, which would reflect the light in a specific pattern when the Diyas were lit. This made it look like there were stars all around.

We got to see some intricate work done on the ceilings and the walls inside the main palace.

After Amer fort we headed towards some local shopping at the nearby Cottage Industry.

After all this, we were very hungry. So we went to a nearby hotel and had their local authentic Rajasthani lunch, the highlight being Daal-Bhaati-Churma, a local delicacy. The plate was big and the food was as delicious as it looked! �

Up next was photo-shoot and chilling time! We went to a small view point to see the palace on water – Jal Mahal

After this we all headed towards Nahargarh fort for the sunset. We climbed up to a view point area with a nice setup of tables and chairs. Some pics of the amazing sunset

As the sun went down, we listened to the harmonious and soothing music from two young musicians. This added a beautiful effect to the sunset… We headed to our car to get back. The car journey through the roads, in the dark was awesome..

The kids gang dozed off on the back seat.. Suddenly the driver applied the brake and both of us woke up in a jolt! Guess what? We saw a striped hyena run across the road and look back at us.. Seeing a hyena is a very rare sighting… Mahi felt so flabbergasted!! 🙂

After this full energetic day we all just fell into our beds and crashed.

Next day we first headed towards Jhalana Leopard Reserve for a safari. As our jeep went in, we got a call that there was a leopard pair in the watchtower… Funny how the leopard was in its own watchtower. We waited there for sometime with no sign and then moved on to seeing another one far away atop a hill.

We Came back to the watchtower again and spotted the other leopard pair too! We hadn’t expected to have seen this!

After the safari we came out of the reserve and had a good dosa for breakfast at India Coffee House.

Next up was the famous – Johari Bazaar… Each shop in the market had a neatly labeled sign board with the name and the shop number. This system of numbering the shops seemed to be really constructive and helpful for tourists to explore. 

But in the bazaar, You would have people bashing into you as they walk. We walked through the crowd stopped and shopped at silver jewelry shops, earrings, block printed shirts etc. We had short intervals in between by having some juice and finished it off with a great lunch at the famous Laxmi Misthan Bhandar.

Each shop had so much to see! We had real fun shopping the whole day and exploring the market. We then finally had to come to an end, and were ready for our next adventure in – Ranthambore National Park, Sawai Madhopur.

You can look into our part 2 if you want to know about our amazing adventure in Ranthambore…