Travel With Phie

Good morning! 

We finally felt well rested after a night of ~normal~ sleep. It was such a great feeling, especially since we had a full day ahead of us. We woke up around 6:45am and met Molly & Hunter at the hotel breakfast at 7:00am. 

The breakfast buffet again was spectacular. We got a wide variety of pastries, omelets and Mac got a French toast (that looked amazing). With this, we could not get over the amount of service we received. Everyone was so cheerful and happy to assist us throughout the entire meal. It was a crazy change of speed from the US. 

After breakfast we had a full day of activities and sites to see. We used our travel agent (Claude / ChatGPT) to plan out our day and see everything that was a “must see”.

We started with making our way to the Amber Palace / Fort. Our driver was amazing and drove us all the way up to the top so we didn’t have to make the hot walking journey up the hill. Once we arrived, we headed to the ticket booth, realized we needed more cash and headed to the ATM before buying tickets. 

We bought tickets and made our way inside. The views even at the entrance were stunning. We took a couple photos and then continued into the palace. The palace was pretty crazy as you could just go wherever and there were seemingly 100 rooms to explore. We walked around aimlessly for a while. We saw the mirrored rooms, the courtyards, a saffron garden in the distance, and a room full of bats (terrifying). And a Wasp nest under a door frame (ahh)! After walking around for an hour or so we made our way back to the car to head to Panna Meena ka Kund. 

Story time: throughout our visit to the Amber Fort, so many of the workers stopped to take our photo and video. They were really into taking artsy photos and videos which was a little much but also a story to tell and a memory to have.

The Panna Meena ka Kund was a  geographically pleasing site as it was, simply put, a large four sided staircase. It was honestly stunning! The best was that there were huge fish and the largest turtle we had all ever seen which was over 100 years old living in the bottom pond. We admired the site for a while and then made our way to the car again.

The next stop was the Jai Mahal. This was a Palace in the center of the water. It was only viewable from the shore due to wanting to preserve the site. While we were viewing we had a couple people come up and ask for photos with us and once we said yes, we truly opened the flood gates for 10s more to come and ask the same. Once we were finished with the paparazzi, we got back in the car and continued to the Jaipur City Palace. 

The City Palace was the next stop of our site seeing tour of Jaipur. As we arrived at 12pm it got increasing hotter. We walked in and looked around for about 10 minutes before instantly heading to a cafe to get some drinks to cool us down. We went to a rooftop cafe in the Palace which was gorgeous, but sadly outside. Thankfully they sat us at the table right next to the fans. Molly and Hunter got G&Ts while I got a Coke and Mac got a hot Chai and a beer. I can safely say that I am pretty sure no one has had that order before. Haha! 

We finished up our drinks and headed down to explore. We walked into the varied segments of the Museum, including an artisan shop which had some lovely carvings and bangles as well as artwork. We all ended up with a little gift for ourselves. Once we explored the market we continued to the 4 doors segment of the palace. This was an area that had 4 beautifully painted doors. The one it was most famous for was the one that was like a peacock. It was gorgeous!! After exploring this area we headed out to our next stop. 

The next stop we had planned on walking however quickly decided to get a TukTuk instead. This is where Mac really “showed off” his negotiating skills. We decided to get a ride and a man came up asking where we wanted to go and we said the Hawa Mahal and then Mac goes “how much? 100 rupees” meanwhile the guy goes “50 rupees” haha! And from that moment on, Mac was not allowed to negotiate anything the rest of the trip.  At the end of the day, we ended up giving the man a 100% tip. 

We rode in the TukTuk about 5 minutes to the Hawa Mahal and Mac read online that the best place to view the site was from the cafe across the street, so we to a cafe across the street. 

The cafe was called the The Tattoo Cafe & Lounge and it was such a fun spot mainly due to our incredible waiter. He was asking us what we were in India for and we mentioned we were heading to the wedding. He further inquired on if we were doing a dance and the boys replied “yes” and showed him a snip of dance. He laughed and told him it was a female song and then went to the back and started playing their song and joined in on the dance. It was such a fun interaction!! 

We ordered some cokes, Mango Lasses and garlic cheese bread. Once we were finished up, we got a couple pictures outside with the Hawa Mahal in the background. 

After our quick photo shoot we met our driver,  and headed to a shop to get Molly and Hunter some outfits for the wedding. We want back to Manayr again. 

We shopped for a bit, got them the outfits they needed and then continued to a little market. We walked around the market and Molly & I each got a pair of shoes and I got a couple glass bangles. We were only there a short couple of minutes before heading back to the hotel. 

We got back to the hotel around 5:30pm and Hunter had made a reservation at a place called The Johri. This restaurant was on the Michelin Guide in 2025, so we thought we would try it out. Interestingly, Michelin does not distribute stars to restaurants in India.

It was 30 minutes away so we grabbed an uber and headed out around 6:30pm. We arrived at the restaurant and headed in. The outside was stunning and so was the inside. It was a fine dining experience for sure. When we arrived there weren’t a lot of people (maybe 1-2 other tables). We truly had the best service experience as I think our server was just tending to our table. 

We ordered a variety of cocktails, and every one of them was delicious! We then asked for recommendations from the server and I think we got them all. The place was all Veg but Mac had a fairly wide variety of choices which was great! 

The standout dish of the night was this truffle cheese ball. They were so good that we ended up ordering an additional order. We ordered a couple apps, including an avocado taco ish thing, paneer in two forms, a mushroom dish, and one or two other things I can’t think of. Lastly, we ordered the chocolate Gubal Jamun. 

Overall the dinner was one of the top meals of the trip! After dinner we headed back out to grab an uber and head to back to the hotel and off to bed. 

What a truly amazing day – goodnight!