Day 8 Jaipur 9th Nov 07

Today is Dewali day!!!!!! Our driver Ramesh and his assistant Sanjay had decked out our bus with garlands and garlands of flowers and tinsels.Agenda for the morning is a quick visit to the City Palace to view the museum of paintings and textiles and then its off to the local cinema to view the international release of the Bollywood movie "Saawariya" ("The Lovers"). It was really a hoot and the whole experience is very interactive. Audiences singalongs, whistling, mobile phones going off and clapping and catcalls throughout the cinema. The girls and I enjoyed ourselves immersely and this was our very first introduction to a real Bollywood movie.

The Jaipur Times also did a front page feature of us today.

It looked a bit hazy. Hopefully Terezka will have a copy of the paper and do a scan and emailed it all of us so I can replaced this picture but in the meantime it will have to do. I am on the second row third from the left and Leanne is up the front, first from the left. We had to do all sort of hand poses.

We had the rest of the afternoon off to get dressed up for the Dewali fireworks celebration tonight and Leanne and I can't wait to wear our saris!!!!!!

Don't we both looked stunning??!!!!!! It was fun playing dress-up with all the makeup and jewellery. Notice the bindis on our foreheads?

We all went to the Lakshmi Temple to pay respect for this auspicious day and for the new year. The temple was built entirely out of white marble and it is so beautiful. There were lots of Indians there and they looked really happy to see us dressed up in their tranditional clothes and joining them for prayers.

Dinner was at the Singpura Haveli. We all had our hands henna as it was a auspicious occassion. The artwork looks so intricated.

There were lots of fireworks going off everywhere around us. It was awesome to watch and the whole skies lit up with so many colours and glitters sparks everywhere. The fireworks went on and on for hours and when we went to bed around 2am-ish, it was still going on. This is definitely event that I won't forget for a long time.