The Pink City

Jaipur is nicknamed the "pink city" for how they painted the buildings pink as a sign of welcome to the Prince of Wales ages ago. The city is no longer predominantly pink, but there is the Hawa Mahal, which is made of pink standstone carved with honeycombs of screens, built by the maharaja to allow the women of the palace to gaze into the outside world. Yesterday, a couple of us rode elephants, whose trunks and foreheads were decorated in pastel designs, up the steep hill to the city's old fort. Today, we explored the Jantar Mantar observatory and its extraordinary collection of outdoor astrological "tools" used to tell time (it has the largest sundial in the world, accurate to 2 seconds), and the location of the sun. We're heading to Bharatpur tomorrow.