Day 9: The Astrologer

Hey there Readers,

It’s been really nice staying at our hotel but tomorrow we are heading back to Faridabad to continue our work. Once again we ate breakfast and were off to Jaipur with Abdullah and the Family. The day started off with a trip to the Monkey Temple. As you can imagine I was a little nervous, looking back at my past experiences with Indian Monkeys, but I decided to go on with it anyways. Once we arrived I saw that the temple’s fauna was not limited to only monkeys. There were also a bunch of other different animals like goats, cows and dogs, but the temple was mostly dominated by pigs and of course, monkeys. There was a rather steep path that led to the temple and we started up here. On top of the hill we snapped a few pictures and then returned down the path to the car. No monkey bothered me this time! While we were driving I noticed that although Jaipur is called the Pink City, the walls looked more salmon-orange colored, possibly because of the dust and pollution that they are constantly exposed to. Soon we arrived at our next destination, the jewelry store where this well known astrologer worked. We went inside and it looked like a normal store with a few people behind the counter. One of them came over and asked who wanted to go first. This was obviously the astrologer and he looked like a normal guy. Julie decided to go first and he brought her into a separate room where he closed the door. The rest of us were waiting, trying not to eye the beautiful jewelry that lined the shelves. After buying so much at the textile store the previous day, we didn’t want to spend more money. Of course this effort went to dust because Ryan and Morgan had not been with us and started asking about certain pieces and stones and eventually we were all involved. Julie emerged after about 15 minutes and Ryan went in next. Naturally we were all curious what happened so we asked Julie and she said that he was pretty spot on with most of the stuff. For instance he knew her age, how many kids she had, etc. My mother and I were both skeptical so we took this information with mild surprise. Now the question was how accurate was he but we had to wait to find out because after Ryan, the astrologer had to run an errand for an hour so Abdullah brought us to the Hawa Mahal – the Palace of Winds - to take a few pictures. When we returned Mom went in and we waited for the third time. When she emerged we looked at the jewelry some more and we decided not to buy any. Well, Mom and I didn’t, the Family was a whole different story. I asked mom if the astrologer told her anything interesting but she said that he was very vague about everything. She wasn’t really too impressed about this whole thing. Afterwards Abdullah brought us to a restaurant that uses purified water in its cooking so that we don’t catch anything nasty and I had a grilled cheese which was pretty decent. My favorite part about the place was that in the ketchup they put chili seeds giving it a nice little kick that I really appreciated. Sadly I was the only one who did as everyone else at the table started chugging their water after tasting it. As we were finishing lunch Ryan and Morgan decided to visit the textile factory once again to see what they missed yesterday. We went once again and I sat there bored for an hour while they went through all of the fantastic bed covers. Once this was over we called it a day and returned to our separate hotels. In the car we found out that the Family had booked a cheap flight to New Delhi and when we arrived at the hotel we immediately checked and saw that seats were available. We booked the flight and now I have to wake up at 4am which I can’t say I’m excited about but I guess it’s better than the train and the crazy train station in Delhi. We said our goodbyes and gave our thanks to Abdullah for giving an awesome tour service, and we prepared ourselves to leave luxury and return to the real world.