"The Journey is the Destination"

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."

Chris Kelley was the first to share this concept with me and although the words aren't his or mine, they are VERY appropriate for the weekend we just experienced. I couldn't have imagined that our weekend would take the twists and turns that it did and it was clear we needed to give ourselves up to the "journey" and enjoy it vs. trying to direct it. The weekend also seemed full of contradictions - I can't seem to think of them all right now but I know this thought kept coming to me... again and again. Is it a contradiction that I can't remember the contradictions now?

Our 3 hour journey to Jaipur Friday night took 6+ hours. By some miracle, we did come across a McDonalds on the ONE very straight road to Jaipur from Gurgaon which made the traveling easier and kind of fun for the boys. I think Owen is going to turn into a french fry.

We had quite an entourage on this trip - there is a picture of our crew above. Our driver Mickey and another Google driver named Lilett (who drove two other Googlers) were ultimately in charge of the trip and our itinerary. As I said earlier, we had to give ourselves up to this. It involved some "duty" on the drivers part to take us to family shops and family houses - again - part of the unique experience. It was Lilett's brother who made our hotel reservations and drove one of the cars. Micky drove our car. We had been told we were staying at the Imperial Hotel (5 star - $70/night? this should have told me something was wrong!) but the name of the hotel was actually Hotel Empire ($70/night - not 5 star). We met the others for a drink in the restaurant and the word creepy was used often and references to The Shining were made. I've never seen The Shining but I didn't think this was a good thing. After one night with no hot water, buckets for showers and 4 very stiff single beds for 6 of us (our nanny was with us) - we left. It was actually perfectly fine since we arrived at midnight, slept for 8 hours and left. The journey, the journey, the journey...

After meeting up with everyone in the morning (our Jaipur guide went to the Imperial Hotel - not the Empire Hotel), I pulled out my Fodor's guide and quickly made reservations at a fabulous hotel. Why not? We had just saved a bundle on our first night so we splurged on our 2nd night. It was fabulous - an old fort/castle place called Raj Villas - http://www.oberoirajvilas.com.


Now Jaipur - WOW. Forts, Castles, Camels, Elephants and fun shopping. What more could 3 boys and I want? OK - Owen might want some french fries. Jack, Matt and Owen were troopers and handled all the touring well. They were rewarded the second night with a fabulous pool, croquet and yes, for Owen some french fries (and for me the spa). Jaipur is very ancient and full of interesting things to see and watch. I think the car rides between the site seeing on day one was more interesting than the actual sites - the journey thing again...

If anyone comes to visit us - we will highly recommend this destination for one or two days - totally worth the crazy drive on roads with no rules and mostly giant trucks full of people (in the backs of the trucks) and the goods/produce going between the two state capitals.

I will post a link to more pics of our weekend.... we are all relaxing this morning after a very late arrival last night at our apartment. School will have to wait until after lunch. Think the boys will comply?

ps - it is now after lunch and I wouldn't call this complying!

pss - the other twist is that we chose to stay in Jaipur for the whole weekend instead of going to Agra (Taj) - we'll make that another weekend journey.