This has been the sort of day to bedevil anyone – well me anyway. The Amber Fort – which to my mind is really a palace with a few fort like features – and the elephants were spectacular. Minor problems however all day – our hotel room while lovely doesnt have a functional shower or heater – neither of which were repaired despite our requests. Our driver Anil who is an absolute sweety took it upon himself to organise a guide for us for the day but that caused problems when I agreed to use him but didn’t consult with the others – which is rather typical of me as I’m sure you all know and then we weren’t interested in going to all the places where he gets a cut if we purchase things. There was a snafu with our itinerary which would have sent us back and forth to the same place twice but everyone wanted to make sure that there wasn’t a legit reason for the doubling up so that delayed us the better part of two hours. Mary and Henri are delightful travelling companions but my brain is very fatigued from listening to Mary’s excellent french – a bit of a chatty cathy – and Henri’s more “fuzzy” words – I suspect he is a bit deaf and so he mumbles. Poor Barbara has fallen afoul of a travellers tummy and tonight will be a rather quiet one – which suits me to a tee. The process of switching rooms was – in retrospect with a glass of wine – a comedy of errors. The first choice was an enormous and pretty room but over the kitchen so it smelled yucky, the second had a single bed – for Barb and me – NOT and finally a “just right” room with a working shower and heater.

And just to finish whinging it took me the better part of an hour to get the damned internet connection up and working!

There – done.

we did however spend several highly pleasurable hours at a jeweller who only carries loose stones – an Aladdin’s treasure trove indeed! Both Barbara and I made some purchases and i know my jeweller is going to have alot of fun designing settings for our pretties.

I’m still being frustrated trying to upload photos – and I have some great ones I think – so I may try Pikasa or something – let you know.

TTFN

Namaste