Mel and I stayed the night at Hotel Pearl Palace were we enjoyed a peaceful breakfast up on their patio. Recommended by many travel sites and tourist if and when staying in Jaipur, do it here!

Ali was our driver for today. We met him the night before when he picked us up at the train station. He had a package available for us if we decided to go with him. At first we took his offer because the price seemed ok with us, but later into the trip we really found out how much people were really making on a monthly basis and this guy was doing really good for himself as a driver. The service was ok, we missed a couple spots on the map, I’ll get to that later, but when he found out he wasn’t getting a huge tip with his already high prices. It was like he didn’t even know us anymore once we paid him -- pretty disappointing.

Today was a bad day to be a tourist on a schedule in India. The passing away of a government official led to the closing of all palace, and temples entrances. We had to made due by cutting out the city palace, Jaigarh Fort and Nahargarh Fort.

Galtore

One can easily reach Galtore from the city by taking local buses, rickshaws and taxis. Located just 15 kms from Jaipur it lies in west of Amber. Here you can find Cenotaphs with typical Rajasthani Carvings, but they weren’t all that impressing. Don’t have a lot to say for this place except good luck with the steep climb if you’d like to see a view of Jaipur from this area -- make sure you bring lots of water

Jai Mahal (Lake Palace)

Built in the 18th century by Madho Singh, ruler at the time. Another monsoon would’ve helped to replenish the scares shallow lake on the day of my visit. Now abandoned and closed to visitors, the causeway which use to reach the temple has also disappeared. It’s still impressive and in past times must have been a peaceful retreat for the rulers and their families. The palace has beautiful chatris on either end and the garden doesn’t look like it’s doing to bad.

Monkey Temple (Galwar Bagh)

A bit aways from the city, the Monkey Temple can be reach roughly 20 on foot. Apparently there are supposed to be 5,000 monkeys in this temple, but I have my doubts about that. Watch for your belongings because once the sun goes down the monkeys get aggressive and gang up on tourists -wasn’t willing to take a chance anyway. You can see monkey’s everywhere, they climb everything, swim in the pool, groom themselves and even yell at each other from time to time. You many pick up food from the guard for a small tip but get ready to get jumped. The only thing fascinated about the temple is that it’s surrounded by sharp cliffs extruding from around it. It’s a temple, and there are monkeys -- what else do you need?! Take one home, dress him up in a butler outfit and train him to get you a beer. On the way back the sunset presented us with a beautiful overview of Jaipur. As we snapped a couple photos I decided to film a part of my trek back down.

Welcome to India -- wasn’t that just the strangest thing you’ve ever seen! Animals have rights too, they can do whatever they want! Ya you heard me, ANYTHING! Disregard my commentary, lol

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuUNlQk0MkU

The day was over and Jaipur was accounted for. As we got ready for our 8 hour overnight train ride to Udaipur, we found the sleeper class wasn’t exactly what we expected.  Makes sure when booking this class, that you have your own blankets because it gets really cold! We learned the hard way!