Care for a Cuppa?
We made it to Jaipur flying Jet Airways once again. The flight was an easy 45 minutes but they still fed us Fresh Lime and a croissant for breakfast. (Mona tells me many Indians take Fresh Lime in the mornings to lose weight because it flushes the body of excess acids in the stomach that cling to fats.) We were up at 3:30, so it was still dark, and breakfast on the plane came early, so at our first stop in Jaipur - Rambagh Palace: an old palace that had been transformed into a Taj hotel - Mona and I finished up the visit with a cup of green tea and a plate of fruit at the hotel restaurant.
The day started out drizzly, but soon the mist and darkness burned off and it was all of a sudden about 85 degrees. The palace was beautiful - you really got a sense of how the maharajas lived, with luxurious well-designed gardens in extensive courtyards, beautiful cool marble-paneled corridors, and lavish architectural elements like cupolas, sandstone embellishments, and jalis (which is the word for the window latticework you'll see in later photos). The tea wasn't bad either.