Greencaviar Travel

  Amber Fort We drove out of the city to Amer. Within minutes, we found ourselves in an utterly different world, an imposing fortress above a lake. Our guide gave us a little bit of history of the Fort: It was built in the 16th century by Raja Shri Man Singh I, one of the first war chief and trusted general of the Emperor Akbar. We stopped at a lakeside so we could take photos of the whole fortress. The view was incredible. It felt as if we were on the page of a Kublai Khan book from the thirteenth century, except that when we reached the foot of the hill where we were to set off for an elephant ride to the fortress, it became very touristy with vendors selling mahout hats and souvenirs. I must admit that I'm very sensitive to the treatment of elephants and made it a rule to only ride the elephant bareback, but our guide reassured us that there are strict rules about the elephants – they can only take two passengers and make three round trips per day and must be done by noon...

  The Pink City   I thought we already said goodbye to the shantytown in New Delhi - the last scenery I saw leading up to the highway to Jaipur. But the same scenery, if not worse, greeted us when we arrived in Jaipur. I saw street-dwellers in run-down tents, cooking food while sitting on blankets, the closest thing they have to a house, I guessed. Dirty and naked children played on the roadsides while roaming pigs and cows scoured for food from the scattered garbage. I wished it was a bad dream, but it was too real. We arrived in Jaipur late in the afternoon. After checking into our hotel, there was an option for a quick introduction to the city; our tour bus drove through the main street lined with salmon and pink colored buildings, and dropped those who wanted to shop at the bazaar. Tired from the long ride from New Delhi, I decided to stay on the bus. While the rest of the group went to the bazaar, I watched the magical sunset and saw how it added pink hu...