City Palace, Amber Fort, Holi, Elephant Festival

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  Jaipur, India
Saturday, March 3, 2007

Finished work Friday and rushed back to the hotel. Wendy, Irina and I got in out car to Jaipur for about 6pm. The journey was a bit busy but fairly uneventful. I managed to package a bit of left over wine from a meal earlier in the week into a plastic water bottle for our journey, I think the girls were impressed.

We had to make a few stops for tolls and at one point we had to stop for some sort of tourist permit, but instead of pulling into the busy car park our driver decided to plonk us in the slow lane of the 2 lane Delhi Jaipur highway. Luckily we had another car parked behind us - this at least made me feel a little bit safer.

Our driver didn't have a clue where he was going in Jaipur and he was on the phone and stopping at every street corner to get directions once we got there

A couple of auto rickshaws

. After a while he dropped us at what turned out to be the wrong hotel and drove off before we had time to discover this! Luckily we had his phone number and now we knew where we were. He got lost a few more times before we decided to put him and us out of his misery and I used the map in out guide book to get us to the hotel. Some of the city walls we saw from the car on the way in looked fantastic and I knew we were in for a great time.

Cold Kingfisher beers were in order once we got to the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Singh who owner the hostel were super hospitable. We got a fantastic spread when we got there, probably 8 different veggie dishes in all, and I think we were all fairly happy to have none spicy food for a change.

Nice omelet and coffee for breakfast and luckily our driver managed to find his way back to the hotel! We first visited the Central Museum, it was closed but had some fantastic architecture and a great view of the traffic, i.e. cow and carts, down the road towards some other monument. Our guide gave us a fairly decent overview of the history of Jaipur before we went on to the famous Palace of the Winds, a facade made of clay over 200 hundred years ago. I seem to recall our guide mentioning it had over 300 windows! Our stop here was a bit rushed and crossing the road to the far side to get a full view was to say the least a case of putting trust in God

Buying paint for the Holi festival

!

The City palace was next. There was a museum, but I enjoyed some of the dancers they had in the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of public audiences) and some of the painting and the metal work they had on the doors in the Diwan-i-Khan (Hall of private audiences). From this square you could also see up to the Maharajas Palace. This place like every other tourist attraction in India had once charge for people, a higher one for cameras and a yet higher one for video cameras. I guess this was one way they could get the rich tourist to pay more than some of the locals who perhaps couldn't afford high rates.

I did buy my first souvenir from here an India painting of a Maharaja that was done on an old auctioneer's paper, together with auction stamp and some Persian writing.

On our way out we met a nice guy with a flute charming a few cobras. Wendy and I sat down to join him and actually touched the cobra. When I joined the guy on the flute I became an instant hit with the snakes and rather than look at the real charmer they just stared at me! The whole experience cost us just 20 rupees!

Closeup of Lotus Flower Door

Next on to the Amber Fort. Today was the day of the elephant festival and there were elephants wondering all over town with brightly painted faces where ever we looked. After another couple of boring museums we wondered on to the ramparts where we got some nice views over the city and the Amber Palace. Next was a canon factory that was interesting before we headed off to see the worlds largest canon. This thing was meant to shoot up to 22km and took something like 4 elephants and a heard of buffalo to move! Although I'm not sure if it had ever been fired and Irina was convinced there were bigger canons in Russia!

The fort was full with monkeys. Looking down one rampart we must have see well over 50!

We stopped at the Rainbow cafe recommended by out guide! It turned out to be reasonably priced and decent and was a real treat for me at they did South India food. This was my favourite type of food from my last visit to India and we all ordered Masala Dosa along with the fantastic coconut sauce and a bowl of sambar (a curry gravy). We washed this down with a couple of tasty mango lassis.

Wendy had expressly told the tour agency that we didn't want to go to any shops. Well guess what was next? A trip to some high commission shop where some guy was trying to charge me $220 for a very nice rosewood elephant. This sort of annoyed us a bit that we came here because we discussed going to the Amber Palace, but out guide had told us we didn't' have enough time. Now we had 90 minutes left to kill as we didn't stay in this stall as long as our guide had wanted

Cobras with our snake charmer

!

We drove back into town stopping at a fantatic store selling coloured paints for Holi on the way. We didn't want to be left without any ammo once the pain started flying! We also had a wonder around town. Irina and I went off and checked out some shops before making friends with some local girls. It was all going well until Irina made a fatal mistake, she gave some money to one of the kids. We were instantly surrounded by about 8 people leading us back to our car each holding their hand out for money or their hand to their mouth to indicate hunger.

We lucked out coming down to Jaipur this weekend as it was the elephant festival! We offered to give our guide a ride to where ever he wanted to go as there was no point him coming with us. It turns out his bike was parked right outside the shop he had taken us earlier! Not to subtle of a move on his part.

The elephant festival was a highlight. All the elephants were dressed up with maharaja like people on the tops of them. They also all had been painted up with some fantastic colours. After been allowed to get close all the elephants they went off for a game of polo! It was an interesting game to watch for a while, but I don't think it's going to take off as a spectator sport anytime soon!

Jaipur and the stadium in general were full of beggars. Most of the tourist looked pretty distressed as they were constantly bombarded with requests for money.

Another thing you notice in India are the guys who are around, they constantly seem to be adjusting themselves or having a quick scratch

Coconut vendor in Jaipur

! It seems pretty normal and nobody apart for the tourist blink an eyelid!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at an ATM. While we waited for an old lady who had obviously never used and ATM before to get some money a guy ran down the road with a stick of fire lighting a whole line of bonfires that had been placed on the roads all over the city - I think this was the starting of the Holi festival - the fires where to scare away the evil spirits.

Back at the hotel the hot water wasn't working again. Wendy and Irina told me later that I needed to turn the cold tap on for hot! I wish they mentioned this earlier!

That evening we went to a 'cultural village' or what is more commonly known as a tourist trap! The place was called Chaca Khani and it wasn't that bad. Our driver of course had no idea where he was going as stopped about 20 times on route for guidance.

For about 200 rupees we got a nice meal that included about 9 main course dishes. We were sat on the floor and the waiter was insistent that I donned his turban

Eating our meal at Chaca Khani

! The highlight of the meal had to be a pile of lentils with a dollop of sugar followed by a ladle of ghee (fat) placed on top - very tasty.

After dinner we wondered around the place where they had all sorts of dancing, music and magician acts going on. We was some ladies who could bend their bodies into the most amazing positions, but this got a bit too much when after bending over backwards one lady picked up a needle, point first, with her eyelid!

Next we had a massage, or should I say we got beaten around a bit. Those guys are rough, after rubbing my head for a while like they were polishing a bowling ball they proceeded to push their fingers into my eyelids. Luckily my eyes were closed by this point! The back was next, whatever they were doing with my back was tickling and I spent the whole time laughing. To finish me off they pulled my arms behind my back until my chest bone cracked before proceeding to pull every one of my fingers also until they too cracked! I gave the guy 20 rupees, he gave me a look of disgust and we parted ways!

Next day was the Holi festival proper! We went into town hoping to do a bit of sightseeing but everywhere was closed

Elephant festival

! We did stop outside the Palace of the Winds where some local kids covered me in purple! A shop keeper whose house was opposite the palace invited us up to his roof for some superb views of the palace. When we left I tried to slip him a tip, but he refused and just passed us his card asking we visit him next time we were in town! This must be a new first for India! From the roof we did see a group of about 10 tourist all dressed in white full length dresses, they were already covered in colour, but it looks like it was a good way to go during this festival of colours!

Next on the agenda was a gems deal. Not for me though, I've see too many people end up losing a lot of money by getting involved in these types of deals, but nobody was going to mess with Irina. She got a nice amethyst bracelet and some other gems she was going to make into earrings. It was excellent once the guy went into his safe and bought out box after box of semi precious stones! I also managed to get some free Chai while waiting, always part of a long drawn out deal!

Back to the hotel where the Holi festival turned into a full scale riot with water and the lot. After a lot of wet money and broken cameras and cell phones we were all totally multicoloured and soaked to the skin. Irina's hair was yellow and looked like it was going to stay that colour for a while!

After a quick change of clothes - our driver insisted on this for some reason! - we were back on the road to Delhi. The Singh's were super hospitable and a joy to stay with. We also met a guy who hired a car for a full 3 weeks for $500 including petrol! This gives some idea of how cheaply some things can be had for in India

Elephant festival 2

.

Traveling back up was mainly passed wheat crops. Some thoughts came to mind in the car journey on the way back to Delhi. Nearly every single truck on the road are these small orange truck with signs on the back like use your horn, this is much the same as it was 11 years ago last time I was here. The cars back then were mostly these old 1940 style Ambassador, the bikes were mostly Enfield bikes, still built to a 1940 British design from a factory left over from the time of the British rule! Now most of the cars were from overseas as were the bikes. We even saw some Mercs, but who in their right mind would drive a Merc on these roads is beyond me!

The road back to Delhi was mostly rural, but this causes problems of its own, cows, camels and carts, tractors, push bikes and vehicles driving in the wrong carriage way are all common sights! Some of these slower vehicles would often pull into the fast lanes at times without warning calling for decisive action from our driver!

The road were really quiet due to Holi and we would see plenty of people stumbling along the road who couldn't walk! A bit too much of the Holi festival juice! We saw 2 bad accidents coming home, one that unfortunately resulted in a what looked like a fatality as one guys was laid out in the middle of the road.

I got back to my room at the Park Plaza, where the hotel manager had left us all a card and pastries and sweets for the Holi festival.

What a great weekend.

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Elephant festival 3	Elephant polo	Joining the Holi festivals	Juice Store
Monkeys fighting at Amber Fort	Musician at City Palace	Palace of the Winds	Snake Charmer
Some local kids	Street scene in Jaipur	Three young street girls

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