This morning our guide Raj Singh met us this morning at the hotel and we drove to the Palace of the Winds. Singh is a surname that means Raj is a member of the Kshatriyas caste which includes warriors and rulers; this is the second highest caste. The highest is Brahmin which includes priests and teachers. The third caste is Vaishyas which includes farmers, traders and merchants. Then comes Shudras (labourers) and Dalites or outcastes who are street sweepers, latrine cleaners and generally seen as the lowest of the low.

At the Palace of the Winds we took the obligatory photos of the facade and also met a few snake charmers who assured us we could touch the snakes because they were not poison. But I wasn’t keen to put this to the test!

We then visited the Amber Fort outside Jaipur which was again, amazing. I appear to be using this word a lot but that's what India seems to do to you. Everywhere you turn there’s another fort, palace or just ordinary life to see. But life if India is far from ordinary, at least to westerners like us.

Elephants are still used to carry people up to the palace but this isn't a good thing. The elephant is revered in India but they are treated badly in some cases. This is changing slowly so don't support any activity that could exploit these wonderful, gentle giants.

There's a never ending hustle and bustle as people go about their daily lives. There's also this mesmeric charm. This seems to me like an oxymoron. It's both frenetic and calm at the same time.

After lunch we visited the city palace and observatory. The city palace is behind the Palace of Winds. It's filled with artefacts, costumes and a history of the founders and rules of Jaipur. The founding king of Jaipur was Jai Singh in 1727. That surname again!

The observatory is something else. It's called Jantar Mantar and it was built between 1728 and 1734 and it has 16 stone structures which are astronomical instruments. Some are still used today to forecast the weather. This vast array of stone built structures is claimed to be the first ‘computer’ invented. It icombines astronomy with astrology. First there are sun dials, but like you've never seen before. Then there are 12 other dials, one for each sign of the zodiac. These were used as sun dials but the king consulted them to create horoscopes.

The whole thing is spread over an area of several acres and it includes the biggest sun dials on earth. The largest is called Samrat Yantra which is 90 feet (27 metres) high.

The following day we were heading to Agra and our visit to the Taj mahal.