“The Land of cows, curries & chaos”

Another early start for our sunrise bike tour with “Le Tour de India”. We were told that the locals would be delighted to be greeted with “Radhey Radhey” (a holy blessing) and sure enough as we weaved our way round the streets the reciprocal greeting was well received. We fed some cows, admired the palace, partook in public laughter yoga at the park, immersed in Lord Krishna temple’s second ceremony of the day, weaved through the flower and spice markets and sampled samosas and ladu (condensed milk and coconut sweets). A spectacular morning.

We then visited the official residence of Jaipur’s royal family, who despite having no power still reside at the palace. We were treated to some drum/bell festival music in the courtyard, before admiring the publicly accessible areas.

We stopped at a textile outlet for a spot of quality shopping, before splitting off into smaller groups - Yan, Julie and myself opting to hop in a tuk tuk to explore the local markets.

After a successful shopping afternoon (and some assisted haggling by expert Yan), a real highlight of the trip has been visiting a local family for a cooking class. Shree, Rashaka and Mandoushri were so hospitable, and welcomed us each with a blessing and jasmine flower necklace. We learned to prepare cardamom tea, vegetable pakhora, chickpea curry (my highlight), aubergine curry, cumin sautéed potatoes (with aum- cho - dried green mango powder), and were served a delicious semolina pudding to round things off.

It’s been a long but beautifully immersive day - will be glad for a lie in and some down time tomorrow!Read more