India 17 of April - 4 of May 2009 - Jaipur

I had a early morning flight out of Copenhagen at 6, when we left it was 5 degrees outside, then I had a stopover in Amsterdam, when I left Amsterdam it was 15 degrees outside. When I arrived at New Delhi around 11 in the evening it was still 30 degrees outside. I had arrived just a summer was catching on. I was very intersted in seeing how I would deal with the heat this time.
This holiday would consists of a few things, first a wedding in Delhi, then a wedding in Jaipur, a trip to Varanasi and at last a trip to Shimla.
The two weddings I was so lucky and attend were batch mates from IIMC that were getting married. For the first one I attended the reception. From Delhi I took the train to Jaipur, for those of you that have never been at an Indian train station, here are a picture of the platform and one from inside the train.

The train was a few hours late getting into Jaipur, but it worked out.The wedding party would be going on from Monday until the night between Thursday and Friday where the actual ceremony would take place. During these days there was also time for some sightseeing. So I got to see the Maharaja Palace Jaipur.

The above pictures is from Tuesday where we went around in Jaipur for a few hours, before going back to where we were staying and got ready for the engagement party in the evening.
Wednsday morning we left early for a long day of sightseeing, with a few of the brides friends. Below you can see a few pictures of what we saw.
We also saw Hawa Mahal

After this we drove to see a fort and Jantar Mantar. Here are a few pictures. When we came to Jantar Mantar, I had to give up and to and sit in the shadow. Being outside in the sun was over for me, after around 6 hours of sightseeing in around 45 degrees, I had had enough.

The above is a few pictures from the fort. Below there are a picture of the Jantar Mantar.

After returning from the sightseeing. I was asked if I wanted to have mehndi done, I decided to say yes, since I thought it would be a fun thing to try. Several of the other female guests had it done while we were out sightseeing. Here is a picture of my hands while I am waiting for the mehndi to dry.

The day ended up with the guys going to the bachelorette party where the groom and his family were staying. And me staying with the bride's family. We had a good dinner, and just sat around and talked. Since Thursday was going to be a long day I turned in early. Thursday morning started around 7 with puja, followed by breakfast. Then us young people playing some card and talked before we went in cars for lunch at the wedding venue. After returning it was time for a nap, and some more hanging out. Around 6 I started getting ready, since we were leaving around 8. I had some help putting on my saree since, I was still not very good at it, and I wanted it to looks as good as possible. I had brought the saree I bought for Diwali when I lived in Calcutta. Since I believed this would be the most appropriate thing to wear, because I did not want to draw too much attention.