Mumbai Sights...

While Mumbai is a huge city, we only spent a quick day there on a whirlwind tour of some of the major sights - Good thing too as the air pollution was brutal and most of us are fighting colds at this point from the dirty air we are breathing nearly everywhere we are traveling...

A beach in Mumbai and a partial city skyline:

Gandhi's former headquarters and now his museum:

His bedroom:

The richest man in India's home, a 26-story building:

The Laundry, where Mumbai's clothes and sheets are washed:

 Victoria terminus railway building:

The Gateway of India Monument:

Bundi Stepwell and Palace

We left Udaipur and headed to the small city of Bundi, before catching an overnight sleeper train to Mumbai.  But Bundi was well worth the stop because we explored one of the most spectacular palaces yet.  It's privately owned and unfortunately the remaining family members barely take care of it.  But there are still murals painted in vegetable dyes from hundreds of years ago in excellent condition on the ceilings and walls.  It was an absolute miracle that with all that neglect, they can still be seen so clearly...  We also got to see our first stepwell - Again, not in great condition and with trash littering the bottom of it, but still a cool sight to see.  They are all over India and used to be community gathering water holes.

The Bundi Stepwell:  (Yes, that little purple dot is me!)

The Bundi Palace:

The incredible elephant details on the columns of an inner courtyard:

 

Some of the murals inside:

One of the ceilings:

Cooking Class in Udaipur

We spent a fun afternoon at an Indian cooking class in a family home in Udaipur, learning how to make everything from chapatis to veggie appetizers.  While our female "chef" spoke only a little English, cooking techniques and ingredients were easily explained with hand gestures and some guesswork.  She had just started offering these classes in her home to make money to contribute to her family's income and it was great to support a female entrepreneur!

Cultural Heritage Dances in Udaipur

For our last evening in Udaipur, we visited a cultural heritage center and we treated to a show of traditional Indian dances.  The female dancers were a blur of colors!

 

The Monsoon Palace in Udaipur

The Monsoon Palace in Udaipur is actually privately owned, unlike most of the palaces around India which are government-owned.  The owners dedicate a majority of their profits to community causes, (greatly needed as there is immense and heart-breaking poverty everywhere.)  We were led on a tour through the inside and in the evening, did a sunset cruise to view the palace from the lake surrounding a portion of it.

A view from one of the towers, overlooking Udaipur:

One of the typical windows with colored glass:

One of the interior courtyards with tiled and mirrored mosaics:

The view from the sunset cruise of one wing of the palace:

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel...

Yes, we actually got the opportunity to visit the famous hotel where The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie (and the second one too) were filmed.  We had a lovely tour with the owner who showed us all the rooms from scenes in the movie, then we ate lunch while watching the movie in their lounge area.  A perfect afternoon for a movie aficionado!

The "lobby" from the movie where they had the reception desk:

The courtyard:

The "street" outside the hotel, which looked like a town during the movie.  It's actually an empty parking area:

The gate they walked through after leaving the motel:

Jantar Mantar - Astronomical Instruments Park

Jantar Mantar is a wonderful park in Jaipur which was completed in 1734 by Rajput King Sawai Jai Singh II.  He loved astronomy and built 19 huge instruments to learn about the planets, stars and night sky.  

A Rasivalaya, which measures the celestial latitude and longtitude of the celestial bodies, and there was one for Zodiac sign:

The Vrihat Samrat Yantra, a giant sundial that tells the time with an accuracy of 2 seconds:

Unnatamsa, which measures altitude:

The Yantra Raj is an astrolabe, which measures the positions of celestial objects:

Jaipur...

We spent a few days in Jaipur and made a quick stop at the Wind Palace before moving on to explore the Amber Palace, set a top an entire hillside, protective walls stretching out in every direction around it.  They offered elephant rides to the top, but we did not partake because of the animal cruelty issues - Nonetheless, the elephants were beautifully painted with natural dyes and I couldn't resist taking an up-close picture of one. 

We ended the day with a Bollywood movie at a famous movie theater - The movie was called Pad Man and yes, it was about women's periods!  Apparently it is fairly taboo to discuss in India and back in 2001, an Indian man went about trying to break the taboos and help his wife.  Most women at the time (and still some today) use dirty rags because they can't afford sanitary pads.  The story unfolds as he tries to create a cheaper, yet still safe pad for women, while changing the beliefs held at the time that women need to segregate themselves while they have their periods - They weren't allowed to sleep with their husbands, cook in the kitchens, etc. for five days.  And while the story is 18 years old at this point, when we asked our guide during the movie's intermission, he told us that it's still a taboo in some areas and even tampons are very rarely used in this country...

The Wind Palace:

The Amber Palace exterior:

An interior courtyard:

The mirrored design of one of the royal family's room:

An elephant carrying passengers up the hillside to the Amber Palace:

The Bollywood movie theater:

Baby Taj and Agra Fort

We visited the Baby Taj and Agra Fort this week, taking in the impressive stone carving work at each location.  It took dozens of years and thousands of workers to complete them...

Baby Taj:

The intricate stonework up close on the Baby Taj building:

One of the nearby buildings in the Baby Taj complex:

Some women working in the gardens surrounding the buildings:

The Agra Fort's front courtyard (once you are inside the drawbridge, which had a moat full of crocodiles and a ledge full of tigers - back in the day:

The stonework on one of the doorways:

Another interior courtyard garden:

One of the buildings inside the complex, where the king would meet with his ministers:

The main hallway from the building above: