Sam recently turned 21 years old and her dream for her time
in India (which is rapidly drawing to a close to our great dismay!) was to ride an elephant. So, we
took a two-day trip on a double-decker train to Jaipur last weekend and spent an afternoon with
elephants! First, it was amazing…a day
none of us will ever forget!!! For all the struggles that we endure living in a different culture (not trying to have a
pity-party just speaking truth), there are many amazing things that we will get
to experience here that make the struggles seem less exhausting. Spending an afternoon with elephants was one of
those experiences! WOW! Seeing Sam
thoroughly enjoy the experience was such a gift as well. Here are a few photos
for you...
I have to share with you about our hotel experience as
well. Traveling with a party of 6 is
challenging, as some of you well know.
We had to have 2 rooms, which can be quite costly. I did a lot of research and found a cute, inexpensive "mom
and pop" 1940s palace turned into a bed and breakfast that had great reviews. The greeting was fabulous and the rooms were
really nicely decorated…despite smelling of moth balls. The pool, which was a must for the kids, left
a lot to be desired. We had to be our
own “pool boys,” spending hours cleaning the pool of bugs, rocks, even rusty
wires and screws. Fortunately, this did
not deter us from spending hours swimming…the kids had a ball…we just had to
keep saying please keep the water out of your mouths! The dining room was
lacking some very necessary updates, including the need for extermination…as we
had a steady trail of ants crawling down the back of the seats that Sam and the kids
sat on both mornings for breakfast. We tried room service the second night to avoid the ants. We ordered off their menu, but they didn’t
have or didn’t even know what several of the items were that we asked for. We
ordered sweet and sour chicken and were very excited to get it until it arrived
as a soup, with tiny crumbs of chicken and bone in a brown gravy which was
neither sweet nor sour! HAHA!
Despite the few minor let downs from our hotel,
we had an amazing experience and a very much needed break from life in
Delhi. I believe experiences like our afternoon with elephants will help the kids love India, in spite of
the many difficulties of living in another culture. We had a
wonderful experience including our first ever ride in a double-decker express
train! There are definitely many great
things about India to write home about!
