The last Saturday in Jaipur we were taken by our friend Roscoe to the Chaugan Stadium for the annual Elephant Festival. We have been coming to Jaipur for years now, but never before we had even heard of this festival! Jaipur is a wonderful city to visit, full of pleasant surprises! This wonderful elephant festival was completely free! I was totally taken by surprise by that pleasant discovery. Normally in India the foreigners have to pay many times more than the Indians at museums and places to see. The Elephant Festival was free for all!
When we arrived the programme had already started, and some dance performance went on. Soon after arrival the Elephant Decoration Competition started. That was a very impressive procession consisting of about 90 beautifully decorated elephants as well as some decorated camels and horses, interspersed with brass bands and groups of dancers. Solveig was filming the whole thing with our digital video-camera and I was shooting a lot of digital photos. There was a very exciting Elephant Race as well as Elephant Polo and a tug of war. It is worth visiting Jaipur for the Elephant festival only! It was a very exciting experience!