Today was a long day! We started off by making a quick stop at the Wind Palace (Hawa Mahal), which was just a facade set up so that the queen could look out at the city but no one could see her. We took pictures before moving on to our first stop.
We drove to the Amber (Amer) Fort, which is a large complex in the mountains. There were walls all along the hills surrounding it. We had an elephant ride to the top, where we sat in a little couch type thing. The Fort was beautiful and since it was up on the mountain, there was a great breeze! We got to see meeting rooms and the apartments where all of the king's twelve wives lived. The paintings on the walls were still so clear and colourful, and our guide explained to us that it's because the colour is made from the dust of gemstones mixed with glue, as opposed to paints that would fade over time.
Afterwards, we made a quick stop to look at Jal Mahal, which is a palace sitting in the middle of a man-made lake called Man Sagar Lake. We took a couple pictuers before moving on.
We then visited some places within the city, starting with Jantar Mantar, an observatory built by the Rajput King Sawai Jai Singh (Sawai means he is a king and a quarter - which they called him because he was so smart!). The complex has the worlds largest sundial. We tested a smaller sundial to see how accurate it was (very) and we saw monuments dedicated to each horoscope. Afterwards we walked to the City Palace, which is where the king of Jaipur lives. He wasn't in at the time, we could tell because the flagpole only had the Indian flag, not the smaller quarter-sized flag that indicates the king is there.
We did some shopping as well, since Jaipur is well known for their textiles and gemstones. We saw how hand block printing works, and it looks complicated. We also visited a jewellery store and saw how they work on the stones. In the City Palace there was an art gallery/shop where we saw how they paint using the powdered gemstones.
Our final stop of the day was the Monkey Temple, where we got to see tons of monkeys and also help feed them! We each were climbed on by a monkey, which was really cool!
Edited and pictures added in June 2019
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