Return to Rajasthan
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
54
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Jaipur,
India
Monday, March 31, 2008
When we decided to come travelling to India, we bought the Dorling Kindersley India guidebook, which has those wonderful 3D cutaway diagrams of the monuments and sights. One that appealed to me in particular was the observatory built by Maharajah Jai Singh of Jaipur. The book shows diagrams of the various instruments at the observatory, all rather massive, set out in what looks a bit like a giant playground ...... I couldn't wait to see it for real!
The first afternoon in Jaipur was spent in the hotel reading our books on the roof terrace. We didn't even bother going out for dinner, although that was because there was a quite spectacular thunderstorm taking place outside.
We weren't really in the mood for much sight-seeing, we're getting to the stage where we have seen an awful lot of forts, palaces, temples and museums, but this observatory was quite different it couldn't be missed
The reason why we stayed in!
. Some of the places we've visited haven't been as impressive as the DK book makes them look, but the Jantar Mantar observatory wasn't on of them. It was filled with strange-looking structures: giant sloping walls with semi-circular shaped bits of marble either side, large hemi-spherical pits inlaid with marble, plus many many sundials of various types and sizes.We decided to pay a guide to explain how all the instruments worked (we might not have worked it out otherwise!). The first instrument was for telling the time, that is the local Jaipur time. He showed us how the shadow of the sloping wall falls on the gauges of the semi-circular bits of marble, showing the time to a precision of 20 seconds. The Maharajah wasn't happy with this however, so he built another on that looked about 5 times as big, which could tell the time to a precision of 2 seconds. We were told that the Maharajah designed all the instruments himself, and how we was such a genius that learned people from all over Asia came to marvel at his observatory. Apart from telling the time, the main purpose of the instruments seemed to be for determining the birth and ascendant signs of babies (astrology is highly regarded in Hinduism). I felt quite bad when I admitted to the guide that I don't believe in astrology, even though I thought these instruments were fantastic! I think Ros enjoyed it as much for the photo-opportunities as for the observatory
Taking cover from the rain
!After a quick look at the Hawa Mahal (a building with screens looking out onto the main thoroughfare, used by women to keep an eye on city-life without being seen), we had a Rajasthani thali for lunch. Thankfully it didn't include curried twigs, although we noticed that was available on the menu! In the evening we went for dinner at a very smart restaurant that is on the 14th floor of a hotel with views across the whole city (this is pretty tall by Jaipur standards). And since this was a revolving restaurant we got to see the whole city without even leaving our seats! (In case anyone is wondering, we had another thali for dinner).
Oh, I almost forgot to mention ....... Jaipur is known as the pink city (all the Rajasthani cities seem to have a colour). I don't know whether it is just my eyesight, but it seemed more orange than pink to me. The city walls and all the old buildings within have been colour-washed, but I can't help thinking that the city has been sponsored by Orange Mobile! (I would describe the colour as salmon. Maybe apricot in places. Orangy-pink. - Ros)
