Flowers the Elephant

Day 3: Woke up at 5:45 to get breakfast and head out before 7. First up on the schedule: riding an elephant. Oh, just in case you missed that- I GOT TO RIDE AN ELEPHANT! Probably top ten on the coolest things I’ve done in my life, equal to visiting the Taj Mahal. So our crazy tour guide is keen set on having our group do everything, be first, and could care less about the other groups. So we sped off to be the first in line for the elephants. On our way, we drove right by elephants just walking with their breakfast along the streets of town. You know, the usual. So we get in line and take the elephants up to the top, about a ten/fifteen minute ride or so, to the king’s palace. May I introduce the coolest elephant in town, Flowers. In Indian, of course, but my fluidity in the eleven Indian languages has gotten a bit muddled throughout the last couple years. The palace itself was pretty cool. The king had a dozen or so wives, and they each had their own rooms. His favorite would get a bath outside in the courtyard. Then, the concubines would be in smaller quarters, living together, on the second floor. Afterwards we headed to a textile place and watched how rugs are made as well as print making. Crap. There is so much behind a flimsy little rug. Each knot. The entire thing could take up to 11 months with several people working on it. After lunch at another buffet, we went to the current king’s palace. The other group actually saw and took pictures with him. We went to the market, far more exciting in my opinion. Here we go, some serious bragging rights right here- saw the world’s largest silver kettle. I know, who cares about the Taj when you could see that. Haha… I don’t even know why they make a kettle that big if you can’t even pick it up. It just sits outside with really strange tourists like myself taking ‘I’m a little teapot’ pictures in front of it. So FINALLY I got to go to a real market, not some overpriced gift shop market. FINALLY. Needless to say, I bought enough for everyone there to sustain a living for a year. Haha… What DIDN’T I buy? I bought a sari, table runner, pillow covers, over 100 bangles, shoes, a pashmina, an entire box of miniature elephants- for what, no idea, they were just cute- and I think that was it for round one. Not bad, right? Yeah… not bad for 30 US dollars. Then we went to dinner to the most adorable place, ever. It was a white building tucked away in the trees, all lit up. Our group at this long wooden table with the most adorable placemats ever- little leopard prints- AH! We were all thoroughly exhausted and not to mention thirsty- can’t drink from the tap, therefore you have to buy water EVERYWHERE, which I was too stubborn to do. So I decided to order a beer. Yes, well it sounded better than water. The waiter could not fathom why a women would order a beer. He thought it was a mistake. No, no I understand that I ordered a beer. No, I didn’t make a mistake, I assure you. Haha… Keep in mind, all the boys have ordered one at this point. A cultural thing to keep in mind. Anyways, we went back to the hotel and at this point everyone is exhausted. Wonderful night to sleep, you’d think. No. We had a 1:30 wake up call to leave by 2:30. So a group of us watched Derailed and Desperate Housewives. I can’t tell you how nice it was to see an American TV show, even if it was the first episode. Haha… the TV on ship is three channels at night only, and its movies for class. So bright and early at 2:30 we drove off for 5 hours or so, followed by a 2 and half hour flight, a one hour bus ride, and then waiting in the boiling heat with our bags to board the ship. Got to love the ugly side of traveling