Jaipur

Photos of Jaipur...

Mike – Another lost day in Jaipur. No time to see forts, but we did get to walk around the pink city and check out the sights contained therein. The City Palace was very nice. It was nowhere near as extravagant as the Raj Palace we saw in Mysore, but it definitely had a unique flavour to it. The architecture looked to me like something of a Lousiana/Mughal hybrid.

I also had my first encounter with a snake charmer (Teg wouldn’t go near it). The cobra was surprisingly calm. It only snapped at me once when I was holding it’s neck too hard (it wasn’t poisonous, don't worry). Teg captured the moment in a pretty funny series of photos, if you're interested, click here...

The Jantar Mantar was an exhibition of ancient astronomy practices. Teg and I left it wishing we’d gotten a guide (which is unusual for us because neither of us are very keen on guides). From the little I picked up from eavesdropping on the guides around me, the whole thing was pretty ingenious.

My general impression of our short time in Jaipur was pretty positive. It has a very vibrant history, and some great restaurants. It was a tad bit expensive, relative to Indian standards, of course. Part of me wishes we had another day to spend here, but I think we are both pretty tired of cities and are excited to be out of them for awhile. Plus, we’re onto the final month of our journey, and suddenly, it seems we are very short on time…

Teg- I agree with Mike, Jantar Mantar was such an amazing observatory but it was so hard to figure out how it all worked. I found myself eaves-dropping on other guides as they described how this or that instrument could tell time, then excitingly asking their followers to check their watches which should agree with what he’d just measured. The time was always bang on. The other thing that made Jantar Mantar so great was that there was a nice park on one end where we were able to escape the madness within walls of the pink palace and relax for as long as we liked. I had to eventually (hours later) pry Mike off the book he was reading so we could continue checking out all the crazy astronomical instruments that were set up all around us!

The day was jam packed with different places to go, but what made it so do-able was that everything was within walking distance of each other. We entered the pink palace and wandered along a few crazy-busy bazaars before reaching Jantar Mantar. Within minutes of leaving the Observatory we had bought tickets and were walking through the gates to the City Palace. Oh wait, this wasn’t of course before Mike had a little snake-love on the street outside the gate! It was pretty funny to see Mike take a seat next to the man, wear his turban, and attempt to charm the snake with his squeaky flute playing!lol

Not too much to say about the City Palace really. The highlight for me was seeing a Christmas tree dead center of Diwan-I-Khas, this marble-floored private audience hall. The same hall that has holds the world’s two largest sterling silver vessels, once used to bring the Ganga river water up to England. Each with a capacity of roughly 4000 litres I was told!

Our next stop after the Palace was Hawa Mahal, definitely the place to go if your looking for great views of the city and surrounding area! Apparently this place used to be the home to all the women of the royal family??, It was amazing. Weirdest part about this place (that I found) was that instead of climbing up through a stairwell to get to the top, it was a narrow, small, ramp-well. Easy access for all I guess!!

We didn’t stay long, the views are amazing and that’s all you really get. After declining a few too many people asking for “1 photo?” with us, it helped quicken our departure back down the ramps. From here, our rickshaw driver offered - for a great price - to take us to a few places unlisted in the LP which sounded pretty cool. Sunset was fast approaching at this point so we didnt have too much time. A couple quick stops left and our time in Jaipur would soon be over!

We quickly stopped off to view Jai Mahal, what looked like a floating palace on this lake named Man Sagar. In actuality, it’s half under water, which when you get close enough you can see. Mike and I started making bets on how many floors this palace actually had. Neither of us won. As we hopped back in our rickshaw, our driver told us there are 5 floors, 2 of which are completely under!

Last stop, or so we thought at the time, was this elephant ‘something?’. I couldn’t understand what he was actually calling it, but it was this little open area in amongst some old buildings where 5 elephants were hanging out. We were told this is where they keep them in between festivities, and though it sucks to see them with a chain around one foot, it was still pretty awesome to get right up-n-close with them. Love them!

So lastly, as we think we are heading back towards our hotel to get some din-din, our driver insists on making a ‘quick’ little stop at this handicraft store. We agree - which is abnormal for us - but it turns out to be not the quick stop we were expecting. After maybe 30 different duvets are laid in front of us, we weaken and succumb to purchasing one of them!!! So in the end, we all win. Driver makes a percentage and we walk away with an amazing duvet!