From Calcutta, we flew across the north side of the country to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. The desert climate and world-famous palaces beckoned us to the Indian state known as “the land of the kings,” still the stomping ground of the maharajas.

Back in the day the maharaja painted the whole city pink, “the color of hospitality,” for a visiting Prince of Wales. The old town’s walls and buildings are still a nice salmon color.

We explored a palace, the fort above the city, the beautiful Amber Fort 11km away, as well as an interesting astronomy observatory built by the maharaja a couple hundred years ago. The giant stone objects all chart star trails, eclipses, etc. My favorite was the 80+ foot sundial. Kind of reminded me of a skateboarding park.

It’s wedding season, which means there are multiple weddings every single night - pretty different from back home in spring when people only get married on Saturdays and maybe other weekend days. Each wedding party is quite the fanfare. They parade down the street with a marching band, guys carting giant lights, fireworks, a generator truck for the lights, and sometimes elephants and camels! Very festive. But not as fun when you’re trying to get some sleep. The photo’s fuzzy, but you get the idea.

On our last night we went to a revolving restaurant downtown. Although the food was too oily for our liking, the views were awesome and you can’t beat the novelty of a revolving restaurant!

We enjoyed Jaipur, but it was a little too stressful at times. After a few days we changed our scene to the small town and hippie playground of Pushkar.