the blue city...

upon our arrival in jodhpur, often called the blue city, we found a cozy little guesthouse ran by a super friendly family, tucked down an alley just below the fort.  we even had a real "princess sang"!

 

eijla and papa checking out the guide book to see what kind of adventures we can have here.

 then it was out the door and off for a bit of exploring...

 we walked by these little shops were these guys sit by little charcoal fires and make bracelets out of tree gum.  zoe found it facinating so we ended up spending quite a while watching.  they even made zoe her own little pink and gold bracelet, but sadly broke while she was playing. they are apparently not meant to withstand five year old buse.

 the blue city is well, very blue,  caught this pic of zoe leaning against one of the many blue facades, and thought it was cute.

 and you can even get fast food here.  apparently the food is so fast here, it has its own wheels! ha ha.

 there are a lot of cows wandering the streets here.  we find them very useful for garbage, the love the girls banana peels... 

 thomas got a shave with this funny character, " are you pleased with my work?" was his little catch phrase, but he let eijla help out.

then while wandering the streets we were invited in to one of the houses,  there were certainly a lot of people living there.  they had a new little baby that they let me hold. eijla absolutely loved the baby, and of course the girls were very popular with the members of the family.  it was a fun little visit.  away from the traffic, this city sure has some charm.

how do you get around pushkar?

in style that's how!  with our sparkly new shoes, and uber cool sunglasses...

 being carried by the world's strongest pappa! 

 or... the world's tuffest big sis!

 and after a hard day being carried, or carrying others around,  we like to unwind by the pool with spectators and all!  good bye pushkar it has been fun...

to shop or to swim, that is the question...

we have changed hotels to one with a pool so that the girls could have a little extra fun.  i has certainly helped with the gnäll factor.  only it is winter here, so after 15 minutes in the pool, both girls are shivering like crazy.

 the days here are pretty laid back, but it is time to start thinking about our next destination, and so we are of course shopping!  no, pushkar seemed like as good as place as any to buy a few things and mail it back home nice and slow.  rajastan is known for their shoes apparently.  and zoe found a pair of glittery ones that suited her just fine,  eijla was a more difficult customer.  we even managed to get some lovely extra pink slippers for auntie zita!

 and who would have thought this would be the place to buy handpainted doorknobs?  why not send a few home.   tomorrow it is packing, shipping, swimming, and figuring out how we are getting to the next destination.

mys i pushkar

being the mellow town that it is, we are really enjoying chillin out in pushkar.  the rooftop restaurants give great views of the village and lake, as well as tasty eats.  i think the girls are really enjoying the mellower pace of life here.

 every chance she gets zoe gets out here book and pens and creates all kinds of beautiful artwork.

 there was some kind of political figure in town today,  and there was all kinds of flower throwing and drums, a bit of a parade really.  zoe collected some of the flowers and made a love coca flower bottle...

 then i think we found our favorite restaurant.  super cozy, with amazing tibetan food, and super friendly staff. 

 but the girl´s favorite part was the restaurant´s super yummy chocolate balls.  they were a real hit!  they even showed us how to make them, so we will have to give it a go when we get back to sweden.

made it to pushkar

we survived a bus trip with no vomit and arrived in pushkar.  it is a very religious town.  they do not serve eggs, meat, or alcohol in the whole town (some sneaky restaurant do serve eggs on the sly).  the town is built up on a lake, that supposedly was formed when brahma dropped a lotus flower.  and thus claims to have the one brahma temple in india.  an interesting village with a lot of charm.  there is definitely more tourists here though mostly of the backpacking hippie genre.  zoe is happy because it means non spicy food like spaghetti!

there are tons of textiles and handicrafts on sale here.  thinking about sending some stuff home.  there was a man hand carving out all these blockprint stamps by hand on the side of the road.  was pretty cool,  zoe fell in love with the butterflies!

we found a place where they gave dance lessons, so we let zoe try, but surprisingly she was not all into it.  (she claimed because she wanted a girl teacher).  but the teacher was understanding and switched it to a drum lesson, though i think eijla was more involved in the lesson than zoe!

9 years ago today...

we walked into the forest in tyringe and got hitched.  been an interesting ride, and still going.  zoe and thomas surprised me with flowers this morning.  sadly they will not travel well, as tomorrow we are off to pushkar, but i have enjoyed them today.

 we stopped by the gem side of town and watched how they cut and polished stones, before we bought a couple semi precious ones ourselves.  even got myself an amethyst to put in my ring for eijla. 

 then it was off to the city palace in the old city.  we did a bit of exploring before heading on.

 zoe helped a guy feed the birds over 50 kgs of seeds,  apparently his family members always feed the birds their weight in seeds every year on their birthdays. those are going to be some pretty fat birds!

 then we made it to the hawa mahal, before it closed!  yeah!  it was a pretty cool building.  they built them so that the ladies could still look out onto the happenings of the world without being seen themselves.  lots and lots of windows.  but once again, the girls were maybe photographed more than the site itself! 

then we found a yummy little restaurant for our anniversary dinner, the girls even had very chocolatey ice cream!  excited to see pushkar tomorrow!

a more convenient way to see jaipur!

so today we were a little smarter and hired an autorickshaw for the day to take us around.  we headed off to the further out sites so we were really grateful for the convenience.  the girls love riding in the autorickshaws.  though of course they would never fly in sweden, which we have to explain to zoe multiple times a day, though the last few times she asked, i just blamed it on the swedish weather!

first we stopped at royal gaitor, basically a cemtary for the big guys, lucky for us it is not big the tourist trail (both indian and westerner).  so the girls could run around and explore and have fun without being harassed.  they had a great time,  and i found the carvings to amazing.

 then we headed up to amber fort,  up on the hills overlooking jaipur.  eijla managed to throw up on me and her just as we got there, so after we cleaned ourselves up, thomas and eijla took it easy out in the courtyard while zoe and i went in and explored the fort...

 the fort was an amazing maze of all kinds of interesting rooms and buildings, but luckily we found our way out in the end and back to thomas and eijla.  eijla was of course charming all the indians.

 she even made friends with one of the cleaning ladies.  everyone finds her doll so interesting and asks where we got it.  funny the things different cultures find interesting.

 then zoe stopped to feed the pigeons outside the fort.  she could not get them to eat out of her hand no matter how much she tried,  maybe it is because five year olds are very wiggly!

 on the way back to town we stopped for some food and then at the jal mahal,  well, okay near the jal mahal.  a "floating" palace, a damn they have built here has drowned out the first few floors of the palace.  all in all a great day.  even met a magician boy who wowed us with his magic. 

we walked and we walked and we walked....

jaipur looked so much smaller on the map.  thought it was only a short walk to the old city, but i was wrong.  we walked, a lot today.  the poor girls are almost constantly harassed by indians wanting to touch them or take a picture, but we found this little rooftop temple where we could relax for a minute and get our breath back. 

 we walked around most of the old city.  and stopped off at the jantar mantar, an observatory type complex built some hundreds of years ago.  quite interesting all kinds of things to calculate the time, or the position of the stars.  here we are by what they say is the worlds largest sundial.  by the end of the day we were exhausted from walking, so it was a autorickshaw back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

a little cuteness in delhi

Yesterday was our last day in delhi.  looking forward to getting to a slightly smaller big city.  we walked around.  checked out random things and stopped for chai and a lassi when the mood took us.  managed to get a cellphone and sim card. but apparently getting a sim card is similar to getting a visa, so it was a hassle to get passport fotos and everything, but in the end somebody finally sold us one. 

 then today it was our first indian train ride.  the girls loved it.  zoe build a fort up on the over bunk, and they crawled up and down and all around.  so tomorrow jaipur awaits!

the wilder side of delhi

as per zoe wishes we headed off to the zoo yesterday, after spending a couple hours getting our train tickets for saturday.  it was a warm afternoon, so i think  a lot of the animals were feeling it.  but zoe took lots of pics, and you can see some of them on her new blog.

 we saw deer, crocodiles, jaguars, lions, and even this super balancing monkey (okay, so it is a gibbon).

 zoe found her own wild animal in the zoo,  after seeing the bengali tiger, eijla decided she was a cat too.

we even saw a white tiger, my first. pretty amazing looking animal.

 

it was a fun day at the zoo, but if was off to dinner and a bit of market wandering...

 

after a long day, and we wound down with some delicious indian chai and coffee.  and of course some snuggles from a very tired little girl.