1 Nov Jaipur Our Anniversary Dinner Rambagh Palace

We had a special dinner organised for us by A&K, to help us celebrate our Anniversary.

We went to the foyer at 7pm and were met by a young woman from Guest Dining Services (she was more preoccupied with her phone and other things than us), she led us through the Palace to the rear gardens and an area beside the Gazebo.

The path to the gazebo was lined with candle lit lanterns. At the end was a cane sofa and chairs with a coffee table, just for us. We were served champagne and canapes, and then some musicians started playing traditional Indian music and 2 girls in traditional dress came out and danced for us. It was very special and spectacular. The highlight of the dancing was when one of the girls danced with an urn on her head and then they gradually added more on top of that until she had 3 urns balanced on her head as she twirled and twisted to the music. After their dancing routine finished they invited us up to dance with them, we did our very best “Bollywood” dancing with them. It was so much fun.

We were then led to the gazebo, in front of the gazebo was a carpet of Marigold and rose petals, which we walked over to get to our table. Once seated we were given personalised menus for the night, which contained a picture of the Palace as a keepsake. We had chosen to have an Indian feast tonight,  We started with Tandori prawns and chicken pieces, followed by a Tomato and Corn Broth, and then a tasting platter of 5 dishes, followed by a dessert of Fried pancakes and Rose Petal Icecream. There was so much food and is was very good. 🙂

All through dinner we had 2 guys playing, a Sitar player and a drummer. They were amazing, the music was very good, they played everything from Traditional Indian to the Beatles and “If your happy and you know it clap your hands” We had lots of laughs with them and I was invited to go down and play the Sitar. I got a quick lesson, and played a few notes. I have a new respect for sitar palyers, the strings are very fine and would slice your fingers very easily. The instrument was very old and beautiful, with inlays of Mother of Pearl, onyx and ivory.

We estimated that there was upwards of 20 people involved directly in our dinner, at one time we counted 10 staff in our view. We had two servers for the whole time, there were 3 dancers, 3 musicians and a couple of helpers for them, a floater, who seemed to be there to fix things if they needed to be, a manager floated around adjusting and having things adjusted, simply amazing, just for us. 🙂

All good things must come to an end, unfortunately, and we headed back to our room at around 9:30. As we walked into our room we were astounded to see a flower made of Rose and Marigold petals on the floor of our entrance foyer, such a beautiful touch to end the night.

A little time after returning to our room I saw a mouse run up to the front door, then retreat to the dining room at the back of our room. We called the front desk and they sent 3 people to catch it, 1 to supervise, 1 to carry the necessary equipment and 1 to do the catching. First thing they did was set a non-lethal trap, which consisted of something similar to old fashioned fly paper, but extra sticky. This was laid across the floor at the entrance to the dining room. Then they went in to look for the mouse. It wasn’t long and they were carrying the mouse out in a towel, its little head poking out from the towel and its whiskers going a hundred mile an hour. It looked very cute. 🙂 .

A very different way to finish our day, and time in Jaipur