Saturday, 7 February 2009
There is breakfast included in the hotel, so I caught up with Kathy for that, but wasn’t feeling too well, so took some headache tables and retired back to the room to leave Kathy to head out to Amber Fort for a tour. After a couple of hours I felt a bit better, so headed to the bus station to buy our “deluxe” bus tickets to Pushkar for Monday.
Kathy did a tour at Amber Fort and really enjoyed the guide who took her away from the main tour sites and she then bought a beautiful painting in the art gallery there.
As we were meeting up at 3pm at the City Palace, I headed into the city a bit earlier and had a quick snack at LMB on Johari Bazaar and wandered to the City Palace picking up a few gifts along the way.
I found the entrance to the City Palace near Jantar Mantar and tried to settle in and wait for Kathy, but there was an endless stream of touts, still I help my ground and after a few missed directions Kathy finally found me and we headed inside. Kathy did the audiotour and I tagged along, more interested in the textile gallery which shows some beatuiful fabrices with real gold and silver embroidery, just beautiful. We had a refreshing drink at the Palace Cafe where the service was absolutely dismal before heading into a new area (Diwan) to look at portraits of all the Maharana’s (although strangely, not their wives). The room was lovely with a massive chandeler (apparently the second biggest in India), it didn’t tell us where the biggest was?
It was getting late so we caught a tuk tuk back to the hotel where we did a quick back-up of Kathy’s photos and then had dinner at the hotel, ordering a glass of wine which turned out to be awful and sweet, I think the waiter me be on a commission as he kept on and on about it. The waiter kept asking if it was okay and we said no, but I don’t think they understood or wanted to understand. The food however was very good, especially the Shahi Paneer (will need to find that recipe when I get home).