Our day started with visiting Jantar Mantar. A place of astronomy instruments of great sophistication. I saw people from different states within India travel here. I saw women drive auto rickshaws, which is new to me since I left India over 30 years back. A lot has changed, women have a lot of opportunities, as I am seeing. This is a totally new India I am used to.

Prior to visiting Jantar Mantar I did some shopping for self, parents and kids. The colors, fabric and styles are unique to Rajasthan. We took e-auto for Rs. 100 that took us to Jantar Mantar, and Hawa Mahal.

As for how business is done in a place whose economy is run by tourism, is very interesting. There is a network of agents that look for cars with non Rajasthan numbers. They lure tourists to crafts and local showrooms with a package of e-autos that will save them from the pains of traveling in tourists’ personal cars and pains of parking for a low price. They will then take you to local showroom where the tourists are shown a variety of things from clothing to handicrafts to marble work etc. This is how we ended up shopping in the day. The e-auto then offers the best places to eat, because he has his own network with the local restaurants. So we ended up eating a nice vegetarian meal at a restaurant. After going to Jantar Mantar we then drove another hour to see Sheesh Mahal.

Maps app on my iPhone took us to streets that were so narrow that we couldn’t drive in them. So just as I asked a local guy for directions, he offered to take us up for Rs. 200, with no hassles. And there we were again attended by the network of agents driving the local economy.

Sheesh Mahal and Amer fort were fantastic. The guy who took us there was a great guide as well. He took some of the best pictures with tricks which we would not have known being the tourists there.

And of course after the visit, the guy took us to another place for shopping, where we ended up spending more.

All in all, the day was exciting with all the new things we saw, as well as quite tiring with all the time we spent going to different places.

I ended up interviewing two youths from different walks of life for my youth project where I am making videos, similar to ones I have made in Mexico. These will be published after I have had some time to edit, along side the videos of my travel across India.