I am a Prince in a Palace.

Hi, all

Today was quite the day. We woke up and after a quick dosa for breakfast, headed out for Jaipur. We made two stops on the way.

The first was Fatehpur Siki. This is a town that has built around one of Akabar's palaces. This palace is beautiful as it was built using various eastern architectural styles. The highlight of Fatehpur Siki is the tomb in the middle where you can make three wishes. This is the tomb of Salim Christi, where people travel from all over the world come to lay a cloth on his tomb, toss flowers on the cloth and then tie a string on the side of the tomb with three knots, representing three wishes. One for yourself, one for your family and one for your best friend. Many swear this to be true and take it very seriously.

On the way, we also stopped at Akbar's summer home which looks alot like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. This home is not maintained by the government and alot of homeless people have moved in. After all, If I didn't have a roof over my head, I would move into a palace too. Our driver said that he knew about it because he has done film shoots there before. (Our driver works in film production and has worked for the crew's of Slumdog and Eat, Pray, Love. )

Next was not just the highlight of my day, but possibly the highlight of my life. We checked in at the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur. This used to be the palace of the price of Rajasthan until the 60's when it was converted to a hotel. When we pulled up to the gate, we were asked if we would like to move over to a vintage coach, so as to have a proper entrance. We declined as moving all of our things seemed excessive. When we arrived we were escorted under a royal umbrella to check in where we were given a formal welcome with real handmade flower leis and sandelwood put on our foreheads. We were shown to our room, or rather our suite. We were upgraded to the Historical suite, which was one of the rooms that the Maharaja stayed in, and it has been restored to its prior glory. The room is beautiful and very intricate with decorations. They spared no detail making this room perfect. After reveling in the glory of the room, we explored the palace and ended up having a pre-dinner champagne on the lawn of what used to be the prince's polo field.

For dinner we went to this very strange Rajasthani village that was almost like Disney world. After paying an entrance fee, we ate a grand dinner of north indian food. The platter was a sampler, so we got to try everything. After we explored the village and saw traditional dancers and I had my palm read. This place was very strange, almost like the casa bonita of India.

Tomorrow is our last full day on the road, so we will make the best of it and enjoy our palace!