Day 15 - Mar 7 Elephant ride to Fort Amber in Pink City

Another action packed day:  1- Fort Amber via elephants, 2- guided tour or the fort, jeep down the hill, 3- mini bus to the Water Palace, 4- visit to the textile cooperative to buy a carpet, 5- bus tour of the Pink City and the Wind Palace. After a nice lunch we tour the UNESCO Observatory, a jewelry factory (where they collect the gem dust for the paint), than back to our palace in the country. 

For this ambitious schedule we are again up early for the 45 minute trip from Samode to Jaipur to catch an elephant before they quit due to the heat of mid-day. The big tourist attraction is to pretend we're riding up to Fort Amber on elephants just like the rajas of the 16th century… and we do! 
Again, IE and our personal caretaker, Vijay, have arranged everything so we wait only a short time and hop on the elephants for the ride up. They had prepared us for the hawkers and the line moves quickly. They meet us at the top and guide and explain what we're seeing in the fort…which seems more like a emperors residence…which it is.  They arrange a jeep to meet us so we don't have to walk down to our mini bus. Such good care.

Then off we go to the Water Palace, built in the middle of a man made lake and used for recreation and duck shooting.

Up to the Amber Fort

Janet and Dan in the elephant before us

View of the city from the road up

16th Century style Traffic jam

Another use for that pigment we saw in the market

Right.  Drive the motor bike right under the elephants!

view of the courtyard from the emperors quarters' porch

the paint is made of jewel dust and had not faded in 350 years

Persian style garden in the lake

meeting area for emperor's business

over every door the god who looks like an elephant - welcome and good forturn

Again, these decorations are painted with jewel dust mixed in secret formula.  Not restored since first painted

Mogul Air Conditioning!  Water comes down the wall and flows across marble.  Dense marble sucks the heat out and the cool water cools the rooms. 

the water ingeniusly flows down through the rooms and patios.  At the bottom they use an arab bucket system to lift the water back to the top cistern which is also made of marble (ror its cooling effect.)

hand made mirrors

4th longest wall in the world.  The place was not conquered in 700 years - 124 battles.  The 125th battle the emperor thought he might lose so he married his sister to Akbar and that worked to keep the city from being captured. Such a deal.

The Water Palace goes a couple stories below water level.  This is a reservoir made by a large dam on the other side from our view.  It saves monsoon water and is great for the emperor's duck hunts and parties.  No real living facilities here... just a party house.

Again, the original fresco from 16th century.