Day with a guide

hey hey hey! 

Today we started our day by having a nice breakfast of eggs and toast. no one wanted to eat their toast (my dad and mom). so i had a total of about 7 pieces of toast. which were very delicious (4 had nutella!). 

Anyways after breakfast we met with our driver (Himroj) and our new tour guide (Vicral). from there we went out and started our day beginning at the observatory. 

Funny story, once we reached the place to see the observatory we got out of the car and there was a snake charmer right there. now, i don’t really like snakes (like AT ALL), so seeing this kinda freaked me out! my dad mom and sister all held it, i decided against it.

After that traumatic experience we then headed for observatory, where we saw how people used to study the stars and the way the light worked to tell time. it was very educational. i would try to explain what our guide said, but i don’t believe that i would do it justice, for i don’t remember like half of it...

We then saw the palace of wind (or something like that) we didn’t go in it, we just kind of looked and took pictures of the outside. 

After that we headed to the palace of the ruler of India. which was absolutely magnificent, it was beautiful!! the ruler still stayed inside this abode regularly, and wandered around its endless hallways and beautiful courtyards. 

Then we tried (with no luck) to see the Amber fort today as well. we got there and realized that the traffic to get up to the fort would be about 2 hours. but when we realized this we were unfortunately on a one way stuck in traffic of a bunch of cars that weren’t moving. in America you would just have to wait here until you could move far enough to turn off the one way. however we are not in America! so Himroj (our driver) turned the car around (on the one way) and made his way down the street the opposite way down the one way (and no one really cared)! it was very tight but somehow we made it.

After this we went to a stone shop and a fabric stamping shop. both of which showed us how they made things and then convinced us to buy the countless items they had made. this is always extremely hard because you’re like the only person in there. and they are so set on you buying something that they follow you around and anything you look like you have some interest in they pull out and hand to you. so then knowing that you don’t have the budget to buy half these things, you have to say no repeatedly and sternly. and then slowly walk out. feeling really weird. but it’s ok!

Lastly we went to an elephant place. where you could ride, wash, paint, or feed the elephants. here we fed the elephants bananas, but however did not ride them. because, one, we are riding them down south, and two, because, it was super expensive. to do all four of those things it was 600 dollars per person!! even the feeding was expensive, 30$! to feed some animals. but that’s ok because it was fun! kind of...i have realized that animals don’t really like me (example: crab bit, elephant bucking me off almost, monkey scratching me, etc.). so i tried it...and let’s just say it wasn’t the prettiest thing (picture below).

Then we headed back to the hotel to eat dinner and get ready for bed.