single default

Hi NES!

At each hotel we pay from 125 Rs. for 1/2 hour to 200 Rs. for 1 hour. Rs stands for rupees, which is what they use for money instead of dollars. 100 rupees equals about $2.20 in dollars.

Thanks for the question!

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Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 (I only know that because I asked!)

Hello! Sorry I haven’t blogged for a few days. We were busy looking for Tigers in Ranthambore National Park. We went on 3 game drives and we say many, many animals. The best thing is I found out I can download some photos from my camera at this hotel. We are now in Jaipur, in one of, if not THE fanciest hotel I have ever stayed in. We are staying at the Jai Mahal Palace. On our second game drive in Ranthamabore, we did see a female Tiger! She walked out of the brush and crossed right in front of our vehicle then passed right next to me. It was just getting towards dusk and we were leaving the park for the night. Another family caught it all on video and we are in the background. He will send me the video by email when he gets home and hopefully I can post here. I will try to post some photos tonight after dinner. I may have to figure out how to make the file size smaller to allow them to upload.

In Ranthambore we saw spotted deer, sambor, which are very large deer. They are almost the size of our elk. We also saw crocodiles, wild hogs, many birds, and monkeys everywhere! We saw tracks this morning from a leopard and another Tiger, but did not see those cats today. I washed my clothes tonight from the game drives in our hotel bathtub and it took 3 rinses before the red dirt came out. We got up each morning at 5:30 am and were in the park by 7 am. We were allowed to drive until 10 am and then we returned from 3 pm to 6 pm that afternoon. There is a temple inside of the park and the road (as usual) was totally congested with pilgrims walking and riding up to go to the temple. The first day there was also a fair at the temple and many more people than usual. Almost every woman wore the most colorful veils and saris, making the flow of people look like a colorful dance. Before Hindus enter into their temple they remove their shoes. We watched some of them remove their shoes and stash them in the branches of a tree, only to walk away and have the monkeys come down and take them!

On the way to Ranthambore we took the train. The train station was another wonderful place to take photographs. Everyone there wanted us to take photos of their children and then they wanted to see them on our cameras. My father and I could have stayed there all day.

Today we drove from Ranthambore to Jaipur. Another exciting trip! We actually got to a rather new section of road that our guide said was the interstate. It had 2 lanes of traffic going each way. It also had camels, cattle, goats, bicycles, people and the occasional car coming toward you on the wrong side! We have figured out that traffic signs, lights and rules in general are more like guidelines! I still have a hard time not cringing everytime I see a woman on a motorcycle sitting sideways behind her husband with a baby in her lap. Yikes! We have seen many schools that say public school. Our guide explained that the public schools are all private schools and that the children going there have had to pay for this school. They all wear uniforms and wave madly whenever they see foreigners. There are no nurses in any of the schools. I will get to visit a school when we get to Udaipur. Well off to an outdoor dinner tonight. I hope you are all enjoying by ramblings. Sorry if they are at times scattered. Long days traveling and some early mornings don’t make me the sharpest!

Namaste