After breakfast the bus took us to the Amber Fort, which is on the city edge. We stopped to take photos of the Palace of Winds on the way. Striking architecture by day also.

The Amber fort is a series of fortified palaces on top of a hill with a lake with moat and formal inner gardens at the bottom. It is a stunning combination of sensations. Visually, the fort and layout of the lake and gardens are very opulent but then you have pigs and goats grazing the accumulated garbage on the waters edge.

There are elephants that carry tourists up to the top but Peregrine has a ‘responsible tourism ethic and discourages any interaction with animals outside their natural ecosystem. I was happy to make my own way avoiding the elephants and snake charmers. It was actually a bit nerve wracking crossing the track up the hill in places with elephants thundering downwards.

There’s a huge square at the top where the army was quartered and where Bhagi bought our ticket.

Best public loos I’ve encountered for a while (Bhagi paid).

Then we climbed the various levels: first to the administrative level, similar to our courts and governmental offices and then up to the winter and summer palaces.

The winter palace is a mirror palace and is quite stunning.

Some of the decoration is Islamic, dating from the 17th century when the fort was built and other is Hindu, which is simpler but also very beautiful.

There are a series of different private and public spaces for the men and women and the place must have been stunning with all its original decoration.

After the visit we walked down to the old town, which is a ruin, to see a step well, similar to the one we saw in Delhi. This step well has been renovated and is much squarer in shape with access down from all sides. Quite fascinating.

We then walked back to the bus past a huge queue of very slowly moving vehicles all aiming for the car park at Amber fort. Honestly they’d be quicker to walk and meet the driver for the round trip on the way back.

We stopped for a photo of another palace on a hydro lake, which looks pretty cool. Then it was into a restaurant for a buffet lunch and to a gem cutting and polishing factory where (of course) they sell jewellery. Gem cutting is a big industry in Jaipur, where they still cut stones by hand using a diamond sand paper and hand driven wheel. As the man said, there is less wastage, you can get something useful out of a stone with many occlusions and labour is very cheap – 7,800 rupees per month. That’s about NZ$160 per month. I helped the local economy and purchased some lovely blue topaz earrings and matching pendant stone which they made in white gold and delivered to the hotel by 10pm that night.

After that we returned to the hotel before heading to a Bollywood movie and then dinner. The English woman (Sarah) had organised for a cream dress to be made for her wedding when she was in the fabric shop the previous day. It was delivered to the restaurant at lunch for a fitting and all the women were enlisted for comment and advice. It needed help as I think her instructions were pretty vague. Her daughter announced it looked like a monk’s dress and Sarah thought a nightie. Anyway, significant adjustments were made after the lunchtime fitting and Jen and I provided more input at the hotel. They ended up taking away one of my dresses to measure it for shape. I think it came back better but will still need some work in the UK.

The movie (Zero, starring both Bollywood and the world’s richest actor) was shown in this lovely Art Deco theatre with an enormous screen.

It was a romantic comedy without sub-titles but we got the gist of it. Their movies are very long. An hour and a half then a 10 minute interval and then another hour. The vast majority of patrons were men and boys but there were some families with girls and women. Only 4 of us opted to stay for the second half – Ian, the English bridegroom to be and the Australian/Sri Lankan father and daughter (Gamini and Pamodi). We all enjoyed it and pretty much followed the story.

Bhagi was at our seats to meet us at the end ( he’d seen it the previous week also and loved it) and we came back by auto rickshaw. Pamodi, Gamini and I in one and Ian and Bhagi in the other.

What excellent fun. Who needs a thrill seeking ride when you can travel by auto taxi through the streets of Jaipur at night.

You get an overwhelming sense of a culture and city where it’s all about the men. They talk to us and answer questions but deference is to men and socialising is with men. I’m sure the women socialise but it’s with each other and largely out of sight. I think I’ve seen a handful of women driving motorbikes and haven’t seen any driving cars in Jaipur – but haven’t been looking that hard to be fair.

By the time we got back it was well after 9 and I still wasn’t hungry after a big lunch so was happy to have the saved banana and get to bed. Up early in the morning for our next adventure.