Masala baked beans are a terrible idea

Breakfast buffet included. Found out by accident. Service at the ITC Rajputana leaves a lot to be desired.

Tried the masala baked beans. Turned out to be a bad idea.

Took a tour today. Drove around the city, saw Hawa Mahal. It's got some 900 latticed windows through which the wimmen used to peer out. Didn't get to go in since traffic was bad with no place to stop.

Jaipur is not as glamorous as I thought it would be. Crumbling around the edges. Not quite pink but more coral. Or is it salmon?

Jantar Mantar, the observatory. Built by Jai Singh II in the 1700s. Quite marvellous that it's in such good shape (sections restored of course). Has 14 major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking the stars and doing fun things with zodiacs and planets. There's even a blank calibrated instrument used for testing students with an identical one built across the way with the answers on it. Overcast day so no sunshine so couldn't actually tell time or make any brilliant predictions.

City Palace next. Built in the 1700s. Parts of it still the royal residence. Mubarak Mahal with Madhosingh's massive clothes (he was a large king). Diwan-i-khas with the world's largest silver urns that hold 4000 liters of Ganges water for Sawai Madho Singh II when he went to visit England. Diwan-e-aam with very nice paintings on the walls and ceilings. Maharani Palace which is now an armory museum. Odd to see weapons in a room with jeweled ceilings. Useful things in this room that will impress the Mathisens include a scissor dagger for expedient disemboweling, swords with handy pistol attachments, ivory carved back scratchers for when you're wearing chain mail, swords with rubies and emeralds inlaid and walking sticks that double as guns.

Out to Govind Dev Ji Temple. Pretty paintings on the walls and ceiling (see a pattern here?). Lots of devotees underfoot. Advised to watch the purse. Funny how not a single person was concerned about their purse in all the Buddhist temples we went to in Lanka.

So that's a few more knocked off the World Heritage List. Back to the hotel for a giant lamb kathi roll (the chutney here is so GREEN!) because I was missing BIL and Black Cobra. A rasmalai to make me happy. Spoke to Dad which, as usual, was a disaster. Lolled about the room for a bit, then off to oil massage for the sun burns and steam for the lungs. Both feeling better now.

Watching desi television with some random dating show and Salman Khan movies that Black Cobra would have liked. Cartoon Network has fun Hindi cartoons about Krishna and Bheem. Downloaded the pictures onto the laptop and cleaned them up a bit - all 491 of them. Will label them and put them up somewhere at some point. Or you could just come over for a foto viewing party.

Paranoid that there might be bed bugs since bitten all over. In a blue funk now.