To tell you the truth, these places are running together.  Too much time on the road in the car and too many historical places that are hard to keep straight. Jaipur is the pink city, because at the time of some maharajas visit, they painted everything pink. It’s still pretty much a salmon color. The city is walled and gaited; it has the Amber Fort where we took an elephant ride and saw a real snake charmer. Like many things in India, snake charming is a family business passed down through the generations. Successive generations venture into the wild to hunt for cobra which they defang and depoison (supposedly). There is something about  Infdia that lends doubt to the claim that the snake is harmless. Two other things about the fort- it has flush toilets that were clean- either one of these things on their own would be memorable.

The other thing is the elephant ride which was a bumpy experience. You didn’t feel it was quite stable enough to keep your camera out and I worried my slip on shoes might slip off and down into great piles of elephant dung but that didn’t happen. Just another unreasonable fear as Jim would point out. Also, right in front of a huge sign that said “no tipping” the elephant driver asked for money. I wiggled a 10 rupee bill out of my pocket without dumping us off the elephant. He refused it – saying “I want a 100.” That was a gamble that did not pay off for him.

An update on Jodhpur later.