Thursday, January 1, 2009

Day 574 - Ambling the Amber Fort

Leaving our cheap hotel we snacked on fruit and lassis for breakfast we wove our way through hectic traffic to catch a local bus to the Amber Fort - a huge palace and fort complex that used to be used to defend the city. The 9 rupee fare on the local bus is a sweet deal compared to the 150 rupees to catch a rickshaw, and when it costs so much to get into sights around here, we're pinching every rupee we can!
When we arrived at the fort we were blown away by its imposing presence and beauty. We spent ages ambling around the palace and its maze of rooms - it might have been a more organised experience had we forked out for the audio tour, but our last audio tour bored the crap out of us!! Anyway we had a ball finding our own way, getting lost a number of times in the process, backtracking here and there, cracking up when we made full circles and giving ourselves a pat on the back when we found our own "hidden places". One of the most stunning aspects of the palace was the shimmering silver, gold and mirrored walls of the Audience hall: At one stage a tour guide was showing his group into a special place that he explained only tour guides knew about, just as we were walking out!!The whole time we were exploring the Amber Fort a similarly imposing figure shadowed us from above. The blood red walls of the Jaigarh Fort beckoned us up the steep stone path, that wound its way up the mountainside - perhaps one of the factors that stopped this fort from ever being captured as it defended its people over hundreds of years. After grimacing as we parted with our precious hundreds of rupees yesterday at the City Palace, today we got into the Jaigarh Fort for free because of our Palace ticket - it's always nice to get something for free!!
At the Fort we got to see the world's largest wheeled cannon, and got amazing views over Amber town, a glistening lake, and the Amber Palace below, its sheer mass even more impressive from above.

Back in town we had our final dinner at the fantastic restaurant around the road from us (so great even us stingy Adlibers were leaving a few rupees tip behind!), we just hope we can find somewhere as good and cheap in Pushkar, our destination for tomorrow.

Adlibing it into 2009.

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