The Pink City
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2002
1
122
129
Trip End
Sep 22, 2003
Jaipur, Rajasthan,
India
Saturday, August 23, 2003
We went to our chosen hotel which had gone more than a little up market since it's entry in the Lonely Planet. We negotiated and got a very nice room in a lovely quiet hotel with a garden and little people running around in white suits and red berets looking like Captain Sensible to look after us. While I was negotiating, the driver that we got from the train station was showing Pip his family photo album in a bid to convince us to book him for the next day.
22nd Aug - Sightseeing Day 1
Spot the odd one out
. Jaipur is known as the pink city as the old parts of the city, within the city walls, were painted (unsurprisingly) pink as a sign of welcome to the Prince of Wales who later became King Edward VII. It's kind of an orangey pink and not everyone keeps up with this but you do get a pinky feeling in the old city nonetheless. We drove through the bazaar area which is actually shops rather than any ethnic type market and we walked around for a while trying to find the entrance to the Heaven Piercing Minaret. Eventually we found it out the back of a shop and wound our way up the slope to the top. It was quite dark because there were pigeons nesting in the trellis windows and we saw lots of newly hatched chicks (aaahhh). From the top we had amazing views over the city with thousands of flat rooves and the mountains surrounding us studded with temples and forts. After this the days sightseeing went a bit wrong. We had said that we wanted to see the bazaars, which we believed we had, but our driver wanted to take us elsewhere. In usual tuk-tuk style, he would get money just for taking us to a shop plus commission for anything we bought. We went to the government place to check prices but the quality of the goods wasn't up to much. Then we went to the place he wanted to go to and it was pretty rotten there too so after a few hours of looking and being pressured we came away with nothing but a bit of knowledge about what we did and didn't want. They ticked us off in this place straight away by trying to tell us something was hand stitched when the million trillion stitches were all exactly the same length. To try and prove his point he pulled a thread and a long line came away which made us even more distrusting about the quality.
We were starting to run out of time and had intended to go to a particular fort a little further out. Instead we negotiated with him to have another day tomorrow with a car, as we wanted to go to another fort that was too steep for the tuk-tuks. Instead of the original plan we went to the city palace where the maharajah ruled from. The buildings were so ornate and stylish and we found ourselves taking lots more photos. There were several small displays dotted around the enclosure - textiles showed the various styles of turban in Rajasthan as well as saris and some of the maharajah's clothing. There is a huge coat from one of the maharajah's who was over 6ft tall and weighed over 250kg!! There was a weapons display as well featuring the most ornate guns and knives we have ever seen. They were encrusted with jewels and carvings and made from all types of precious and semi precious stone. They were also very well displayed and some were laid out in patterns with one set forming the word "Welcome". (This seemed a little weird - "Welcome" in guns...) There are also 2 urns displayed here that are the largest single pieces of silver in the world and they were used by the maharajah when he went to visit King Ed in Blighty. Apparently he filled them up with water from the Ganges as he didn't trust the English water - how ironic is that! The guards around the compound wore smart white suits, bright red chunri's (turbans with tails) and had fab curly moustaches and we took a classic photo of one of them hiding behind a pillar. It's all the more amusing as the guard is a person of restricted growth and was about 2.5ft tall. (Look out for this picture on day 3 of our slide show). We got asked for our photo pass here so we think he was actually a plant and we were glad we had gone back to get a pass as we would have been fined!
We got back to the hotel and haggled some more with our driver who told us the price for the next day included two shops but we were adamant we didn't want to go which of course meant that the price went up. We settled on a price but he asked for his money for today and yesterday so we suspected he wouldn't appear in the morning. Relaxed in the quiet gardens with some tea watching the squirrels - how British!
23rd Aug - CORRECT! - no driver. Went to McDonalds instead and booked a car through the very helpful people at the hotel. Our driver Sightee (how appropriate) was dressed in the white suit again and was extremely helpful and never once tried to take us to a shop or restaurant. We went to Amber fort first overlooking Jaipur and opted to walk up the steep cobbles. You can take an elephant adorned with paint and decorations but it was quite expensive. At the top we had amazing views over the surrounding areas and the fort palace itself was beautiful. It never fails to amaze us that the Indians made such stunning and intricate buildings so long ago (this one built in 1592) and yet now they seem to have no pride in them, for here, yet again, the walls and floors were covered in red splashes and blotches from betel nut chewing, which really show up on white marble. Standing on the steps admiring the views of the fortress walls tracing the mountains around us, and watching the elephants and listening to the old men playing instruments was all very atmospheric and we decided that we were really starting to like India, even if only Rajasthan. The women are more colourful and jingly here with very bright dotted and tie-dyed saris and lots of silver on their feet and gold on their ears, noses and foreheads. This is more the Indian we hoped we would find! This palace fort had an amazing mirrorwork ceiling and the usual intricate marble lattice work and inlay work and the whole thing was a fabulous example of Rajput architecture. Slightly higher up the hill was Jaigarh fort built in 1726 and this was a complete contrast. Very fortress like plain walls and lots of narrow corridors with guards making sure you didn't stray somewhere you shouldn't. High up on one of the ramparts is Jaya Vana, the largest cannon in the world. Further up the hill still was Tiger Fort which is the one we needed the car for. We only got a quick look around as it was about to close but it wasn't too big. There were 9 identical rooms, one for each of the maharajah's 9 wives so we only looked at 2. The views from the flat rooves here were the best of all and we could look at all the places we had visited in the last couple of days. It was also here that we enjoyed our first beer in India! We had one purely to celebrate that 4 weeks today we will be home in Britain! It started to drizzle a bit but we went up to the ramparts anyway to watch the sunset. We had great views but the sky was cloudy and we couldn't see the sun at all. Nevertheless the sky turned the most amazing magenta and purple colours so we felt it was worth the trip for sure. Very romantic and a wonderful end to our first stop in Rajasthan.
