Next stop on our tour of Rajasthan is Jaisalmer, a city of 78,000 people some 360 miles west of Jaipur, out in the Thar Desert. To get there we left Pushkar early, drove to Jaipur and then flew out west. While 360 miles might not seem like that long a drive, on Indian roads it would be a nightmare. So we flew.

One of the major tourist draws in Jaisalmer is to take an overnight camel trek into the desert. Having just come from the Arabian Peninsula, though, where they know a thing or two about deserts, we decided to pass on that. The other big thing, though, is the Jaisalmer Fort built in 1156. We’ve been seeing a bunch of forts here in India, and collectively several of the Jaisalmer forts are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This one was, by a wide margin, the best ever. Like many of the forts we’ve seen this one sits up on a hill overlooking the surrounding area, presumably a wise choice for security purposes. But unlike the other forts this one is still occupied and still a vibrant part of the city, with about a quarter of the city’s population living within the old walls. And on top of just the uniqueness of a fully occupied fort, the finely sculpted sandstone walls on many of the buildings are beautiful. The colors change subtly through the day as the sun moves through the sky, giving the city its well-deserved nickname as the Golden City.

Unless you’re going out into the desert, the fort is about the only show in town. Mark went up there every day, as the views and colors and all that made walking around a joy. As I’m still nursing a twisted ankle I was lying low a bit and, having been up there once, mostly just hung around the hotel pool. That had its own little drama, as the hotel was making some adjustments to deal with all the pigeons – many dozens of pigeons, and all the bird shit they produce – that had been attracted in the year since it had opened. While we were there they started draping netting over the outdoor space to keep them out. Unfortunately, in the short term at least, they managed to trap a few dozen pigeons in the pool area so while I was trying to read they were increasingly, frantically trying to escape. I give the hotel credit for trying to find a solution but so far, at least, it sure wasn’t working.

The other fun part of Jaisalmer for us was finding a few genuine Indian restaurants. The Marriott that we were staying in was a 20-minute walk out of town but if you walked into town (or took a tuktuk, but we’d more typically walk in and ride back) there were a few havelis, smaller, cheaper, more local hotels, with rooftop restaurants serving great views of the fort and great meals. We tried three of them and they were all great if you like local Indian food, which we do. Oh, and cheap places serve cheap red wine that’s been chilled. I know it’s not proper but we love it.

Now, with a couple weeks in India under our belts, a few quick observations:

• Currency Conversion Hell – Over the years we’ve been on this adventure we’ve learned of this Visa scam where they give you the “option” of making charges in your home currency or the local currency. If you choose your home currency Visa 1) uses a bad exchange rate; 2) adds up to five percent as a fee; and 3) still charges you a “foreign transaction fee” unless your card waives those (ours does). In other words, total and complete rip off. Here in India they use a particularly insidious version of the scam: they offer you the choice, you choose local currency, and they still charge you in USD with all the overcharges described here. Ultimately the credit card company will refund me the difference but each time I’m ripped off this way I have to file a claim with the credit card company, explain the issue, and submit my documentation. Total pain in the ass. I can’t believe that various consumer protection agencies allow this scam to persist.

• Smoking – Strange but true: there’s not a lot of smoking here. It took us a while to notice but at some point we realized that in any of a number of situations where in the rest of the non-U.S. world a group of guys would all be smoking, here they’re not. Sure, you see an occasional cigarette, but nothing like China and other developing countries.

• Time Zone – India is ten-and-a-half hours in front of the East Coast. Totally confusing. Just try to keep in mind what time it is back in the U.S. From their perspective it makes total sense; they’re able to keep the whole country in a single time zone. But two weeks into our trip here and I’m still confused.

• Exchange Rate – Speaking of confused, the exchange rate is roughly 65 Indian rupees to the U.S. dollar. Go ahead and take a restaurant bill and divide by 65 to see how much it costs.

• Small Bills – And speaking of currency, you need small bills in India. Lots of small bills for tuktuk rides and tips and just everything. Go ahead and try to get them. ATMs only dispense large bills and when you try to exchange them for small bills … everybody else is hoarding their small bills. At the hotel here in Jaisalmer I went to the front desk to get change and it took them 15 minutes to find some.

• Low Carbs? – Yeah, we try to eat a low-carb diet. Here in India that means no naan bread and no rice. It’s not ideal but it certainly works for us. But just try that in a restaurant. Every single time we eat they try to convince us you need bread and/or rice to eat Indian food. Every time we say that’s OK, we like it this way. And every single time they try to insist you can’t eat Indian food without naan or rice. Now, I love naan as much as anyone; it just makes me fat. The good news is that soon we’ll be on a Grasshopper Adventures bicycle tour. On those we have much less control over what we eat, so we’ll get some naan then.

• Cows – Did I mention cows? Yeah, there are a lot of cows wandering around. A LOT.

OK, on to the pictures. If you’ve noticed a change in the artwork here, Mark has been taking a more active role in selecting and editing the pictures. The result is both more and better. And less work for me!

Starting from our stay in Ranthambore we are spending most of our time in India in the state of Rajasthan. Located in the northwestern part of the country, Rajasthan is India’s largest state, accounting for over 10 percent of the landmass. Now that we have those tigers out of the way our first urban stop is the capital Jaipur and, with a little over three million people, the state’s largest city. Supposedly a major tourist destination (though we didn’t see a lot of western tourists), it is the home of two UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The city dates from 1727 when Jai Singh II, after whom the city is named, moved his capital here from nearby Amber. For our admittedly limited purposes here the next important thing that happened in Jaipur was in 1876 when, in anticipation of a visit from the Prince of Wales – later Edward VII – Sawai Ram Singh I ordered the city’s buildings painted pink. The order remains in effect in the old city, thus explaining why Jaipur is sometimes known as the Pink City.

I like pink so my hopes were high. Only to be crushed. By my standards “pink” would be an overstatement. More kind of a faded, dirty, peeling, crusty salmon maybe, with lots of brown smudges. After I got over my disappointment I could find a certain attractiveness to the city, but I would definitely not call it pink.

I have to admit that I’m surprised at just how dirty, squalid even, we are finding these Indian cities. I mean, we’ve been to India before and we know it’s poor. I’ve read Katherine Boo’s stunning Behind the Beautiful Forevers, her National Book Award-winning masterpiece on poverty in Mumbai. But somehow it seems as though I’ve read a lot over the last few years about how India is finally booming. And after the time we’ve spent in China, where huge cities have sparkling parks and beautiful transit systems, I was expecting a little less of, well, the filth and a little more sparkle. There’s not a lot of sparkle to be found. Stories of a resurgent India are likely true, but from such a low base. In fact, according to the World Bank India’s per capita income is just $6,490 compared to China’s $15,500. Thus the squalor we find here versus the clean parks in China.

Once you start to accept Jaipur on its own terms though – no pink, no sparkle – you can start to appreciate its own beauty interesting qualities. The first big site to visit is the Amer Fort, about seven miles outside of Jaipur and the region’s original capital. One of Jaipur’s two UNESCO sites, the “fort” – it’s really a palace – is laid out in four sectors, each with its own courtyard. As we experienced in both Delhi and Agra, the palace here again reminds you that there was once a lot of wealth and power in these places. Beautiful carved sandstone, marble, lattice-work windows (so the women could see out but others couldn’t see in…), mirrored walls and ceilings – this place has it all.

The next big site was the City Palace, the home of Jaipur’s Maharajas from the 18th century on. Interestingly, and unlike most historic royal palaces we see, this one is still occupied, and still occupied by the royal family. Even though there isn’t a royal family. Royals were eliminated in India in 1947 when the country gained independence, though royal titles were retained until constitutional changes were imposed in 1970. The Maharaja of Jaipur kept his home, though, kept living here, and people kept calling him the Maharaja or King. When he died in 2011 his adopted son – his grandson in truth – ascended to the no-longer throne and is now called the King, even though he has no formal role.

Oh, and there is a bit of scandal here. The current king, Padmanabh Singh, is the son of the old king’s daughter, his only child. Expected to marry into royalty of some sort, though, she married a commoner and, worse yet, the son of one of the king’s staff people. Imagine the horror; apparently people really were aghast. Not to worry, though; the marriage didn’t do so well and once the commoner was out of the picture the king formally adopted his grandson so he could ascend to the pretend throne.

At any rate, we shelled out big bucks – something like $30 each – for a tour of the palace. That’s really quite unlike us, as we usually don’t like tours. In this case it was the only way to see the inside of the palace – the part that’s not currently lived in, at least – and it was worth it. Nothing earth shattering or anything, but lots of pretty stuff and a better understanding of how all that royal stuff works around here.

There was one last site to visit, right near the City Palace, called the Jantar Mantar. It’s a collection of 19 architectural astronomical instruments built by Jaipur’s founder Jai Singh II and is Jaipur’s other UNESCO site. The various instruments include the world’s largest sundial, a device so accurate that it supposedly indicates the time to within two seconds. Of course, as Mark points out, our AppleWatches are exactly correct, so what’s the big deal? To be honest, I just don’t have much of a scientific bent about me so I really didn’t get much sense of what it was all about. To a junior astronomer, though, it must be a pretty interesting place.

So that was Jaipur. Not as pink as I’d hoped but a tasty treat once you get over the dirt and honking and all that. And surprisingly picturesque, we discovered, as we went through all the photos we’d taken.