The Terrific3 travel blog

Ok I have to start with what time we woke up…it was loud getting to sleep as Jaipur is a busy, crowded city, so I fell asleep to the cacophony of honking horns, buzz of people and various other city noises. I awoke at 245am to a pack of very loud howling dogs and thought, no way, this can’t be it. Luckily the kids were still sleeping so I was able to fall back asleep with the earplugs in and a sound app turned on on my phone though I heard those dogs the rest of the night. The kids said that they woke up around 4am to the dogs but luckily they stayed quiet until 530am and I finally caught up on days of missed sleep. My Garmin body battery finally hit 💯 this morning!

Our hotel, Shahpura house, is a heritage hotel, renovated palace, and is full of charm and beauty,. Here are some photos below.

After a good hotel breakfast., we met our driver and local guide (Vance) at our hotel to start sightseeing. We saw several things in Jaipur, but the things that stood out were Amber Fort, which we rode up to in a jeep (other option was elephant but I had ethical qualms about this). Before I saw it, I thought, gosh another fort. But I was awed when I saw it. Spacious, beautiful architecture nestled in the mountains as a palace and a fort, surrounded by an 18km wall, the third longest wall in the world, apparently. Amber was the capital of Rajasthan before Jaipur and the royalty lived here for many years.

We had some time to kill before lunch and I had told the kids we would do some shopping so our guide took us to a textile factory where they taught the kids how to make block prints.

They spent a lot of time showing us carpet making and trying to sell me a carpet. I finally had to shut it down and tell them I really just wanted clothes. The carpets are gorgeous but I didn’t my really *need* a new rug.

Both boys picked out material and measured for Nehru suits, which are nice lined vests and both picked out ties for themselves….these are their Xmas presents as I haven’t had time to buy before I left. But the man in the textile area seemed more interested in selling me something and kept wanting to buy fabrics for myself. I finally told him I didn’t want a salwar kameez as I have too many and not enough occasions to wear it. I would love a cute knee length tailored dress with gorgeous rajasthani fabric. So they made it happen then somehow convinced me to buy a second one and the same pattern with much cheaper block pattern fabric. By then, the kids and I were done with shopping (I’m not a shopper by nature and kids can only take so much so I had a good out by saying they were hungry. They tried to sell me shawls and blankets and more carpet, but I am generally against excessive consumerism, but do know what I want and like. They’ll be stitched by tonight and we’ll try them on for fitting tomorrow or the next day.

Our last big experience of the day was going to an elephant farm and meeting, greeting, hugging, feeding, and (for the boys) briefly riding the elephants. We were all a little hesitant about the riding as had read it was bad for their backs but the owners convinced us they were used to lugging 800kg on their backs and 2 little kids wouldn’t hurt them so they got on for 5 minutes. Z was waiting all day for the experience and loved it, and S was a bit more reluctant but enjoyed it too.

Let’s talk about another kind of learning. Part of the reason I want my kids to travel to places where there might be vaster poverty than they know is that I want them to understand the breadth of human experience, and understand their relative privilege. A couple things happened that highlighted this to us recently. Yesterday, we saw the aftermath of an accident between a tuk tuk and presumably larger vehicle. Many injured passengers were lying on the side of the road with bloody faces, being tended to. Both my kids were distressed to see this; it gave us an opportunity to talk about profound sadness, how to feel instead of repress it, safety, poverty and what might’ve lead to this chain of events for these poor passengers.

Another thing that has come up is begging. I remember being highly affected by this as a child visiting India, yet no one talked to me about it. Yesterday, a man who had a lower leg deformity started asking me for money and soon after he did, so did 2 young children about the age of my kids. S was very affected and told me I should just help them. Later that afternoon, I brought it up and we talked more about poverty, begging, and the right thing to do and why handing over money may not always make sense. Today, our guide talked to us about the human trafficking mafia rings that traffick these kids and use them to earn money by begging. I also told the kids yesterday that sometimes these kids are intentionally harmed, limbs or fingers amputated. to make them more profitable for begging. It was a pretty intense discussion; on one hand, I felt I was robbing my kids of their youthly innocence; on another, these are important things to learn about the world. Though poverty and homelessness exist very visibly at home, these topics are often more apparent with travel (and the time I have to focus on them with the kids).

After the elephant experience, we drove Bach through intense Jaipur traffic to our hotel. When we arrived in Jaipur yesterday, I thought, “oh gosh, just another crowded and polluted Asian city.” But wow, even after a day, I just love the culture, history and natural beauty of this area and see why it’s high in a tourist list.

We ended the day with some time in the pool for me and Z, foot massages for all, a game of pool, and restaurant light dinner. It’s 830pm now and the kids are asleep and I’ll follow soon. It was overall a great day. Getting sleep and S adjusting and calming more has made the travel more enjoyable today than the past 3 days and I’m grateful for that. I’m still making the kids write journals, and in fact, Z is going to go back and do a presentation for his school so we are collecting photos for him.

Tomorrow we do a 630am yoga class and then a camel safari. Never a dull day. I’m loving our tour and our tour company z. They are just so knowledgeable, flexible and friendly. Namaste and good night.