To Mumbai

Our flight from Jaipur to Mumbai left in the late afternoon, so we decided to enjoy the morning with a tour of City Palace and the Observatory.  These sites are next to each other in the old city section of Jaipur.  The royal family still occupies part of the palace that is closed off to the public.
The Palace is an interesting site containing historically significant Rajasthani artifacts including royal clothing and a huge collection of arms, both ornamental and functional.  They range from swords and daggers to pistols and huge guns that mount on camels.  It was an interesting mix of old and new.

Jantar Mantar, the observatory in Jaipur, was built by Jai Singh in the early 1700s and is dedicated to astronomical study.  On the grounds are a multitude of devices on small and grand scales that map the exact position of celestial bodies.  On the grounds is the largest sundial on earth, measuring nearly 100 feet tall. It can measure time to an accuracy of about 2 seconds. It's amazing that people could calculate and measure time, position of the celestial bodies, and predict eclipses with such accuracy without modern techniques. (Below is a picture of Jai Prakesh Yatra that measures time and position of the sun that doesn't do it justice at all.)

The old city, called the Pink City for obvious reasons, also houses a huge marketplace with vendors selling everything from vegetables to textiles.  We browsed through some vendors and decided that we had already had our fill of shopping.
One of our discoveries early on in the trip was the fabled sweet Lassi.  A lassi is a combination of milk and yogurt with either a sweet or salty taste.  Of course, we opted for the sweet lassi when we had the chance!  As we left Jaipur to go to the airport, our driver stopped by a well known shop called Lassiwalla for our last taste in Jaipur. While he was in Lassiwalla, we browsed a small shop with intricately carved wooden figurines.  Once we returned, Vikram gave us each a sweet lassi and some street food which he called chana tikka.  The Lassi were in earthen cones, which I understood to be the traditional method to drink the treat.  The chana tikka was a spicy mixture of chick peas and potatoes (and probably more things as well) that tasted spectacular.  This snack filled us nicely for the airport and 2 hour flight to Mumbai.

Mumbai is a huge, intense city.  Our drive from the airport took nearly an hour (during rush hour) and by the time it was done, we were ready to get out of the car.  Thankfully we were welcomed by Akshay's family and taken directly to their house from the hotel.  There, Sarah got traditional henna tattoos and we met more of the family and friends.

Shopping for wedding clothes followed.  We had no idea Sarah needed two outfits for the wedding events; one for the wedding during the day and one for the evening reception.  Shopping in India is mind boggling.  You sit at a counter and attendants display innumerable options.  You never see one design duplicated. We got squared away with some very fancy clothes and headed back to Akshay's house for a wonderful dinner eaten in the traditional southern Indian manner on a banana leaf with one's hands as utensils. We were given spoons, but tried our best to follow tradition.  As the night came to a close, we retired back to the hotel excited for tomorrow's festivities!