Tuesday 17th February: Shahpura

Today we drove approx 1.5 hours from Jaipur to a small town called Shahpura. We stayed on the edge of the town in a 300 year old palace! It has been beautifully restored with just 5 guest rooms.

The beautiful palace

The terrace near our room

Our bedroom - massive bed!

One of the lounge areas

We arrived just before lunch and we were asked if we wanted anything to eat and told us to meet them in the dining room at 1pm. We arrived and we were the only people in the big dining room - we then found out we were the only people in the hotel so we have a palace all to ourselves! Our lunch turned in to a 4 course banquet - lucky we are only here one night or we would be huge!

After lunch, and a rest from all the eating, we had a walk around the town with one of the members of staff. It was really interesting watching people go about their daily lives, and they were pretty interested in us as well - I have never been stared at so much in my life! Apparently they don't get many westerners so we were a bit of a novelty.

A street in the town

Cobbler at work

Hanging out with my new friends!

As with the village that we visited in Ramathra, the kids loved having their photos taken, and would shout hello and wave at us as we walked round.

After the walk, we stopped to look at the unrestored part of the palace which they are planning to restore to make the hotel bigger. We were taken upstairs and I did think I hope this is safe and we don't go plunging through the floorboards!

The unrestored part of the palace

This evening we had another 4 course meal - we still felt pretty full from lunch. It was a bit strange because, with a main meal of chicken curry & rice, they also put coleslaw, noodles and potatoes (similar to chips) on the same plate. I would have taken a picture but we had two waiters standing to attention for most of the time so it was a bit tricky! We have been hearing all kinds of sounds coming from the town this evening, from loud indian music, to a band playing and now we have some weird chanting going on - not sure if this is the norm or it is because there is a Hindu celebration going on today!

 

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