Thursday April 11
Jaipur is known as the pink city. All the buildings in the original city were painted pink because this was the favourite colour of the Hindu God Shiva. These days the colour is more like terra cotta and, unfortunately for me, nearly all of the important buildings were hidden behind scaffolding for renovation work.
It is quite attractive in appearance and certainly better than Delhi (anywhere is better than Delhi !) but still the same litter problem. Everywhere there are piles of rubbish that builds up and is never collected or removed. It doesn't inspire much enthusiasm for walking around and I'm quite surprised that a city which is a magnet for tourism does nothing about it.
In translation, pur=city. The ruler at the time was a chap called Jai, hence Jaipur or city of Jai. Now Jai had a "special" number which was 9. So the original "pink" city was built on a grid system (like America) with 9 blocks, The entire area within the city walls is exactly 9kms2 (I didn't check this out personally !), Every road is 108m wide ( 1 + 8 = 9 ) and all of the buildings that front onto the roads are exactly 3m wide.
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| Entrance to the Maharanis palace |
The Palace is fabulous and I had a really good guide (Rajeeth) to tell me the history. When you're inside it's very easy to imagine life with the maharajah, his wives and his entourage.
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| Maharajahs bedroom |
Vertical carpets and drapes were suspended from the ceilings and, using ropes pulled by punkawallahs, these carpets and drapes would be swung back and forth to create a draught and cool the air.
The brass and steel rings that held these carpets in place can still be seen in the ceilings.
The gl;ass and mirrors inlaid to the marble would have provided stunning lighting effects with oil lamps and candles.
Located high on the hill with the fort next door and the "crocodile" lake
below, this place would be pretty difficult to attack !
Traders outside the palace walls. Apart from the western tourists, I don't suppose this scene will have changed much over the past 200 years.
Look at the size of those wooden gates !!
Time to move on because we need to get back to Delhi tonight so that I can catch my overnight trains to Kalka and Shimla.
Just outside of Jaipur is yet another palace !
This one is known as the floating palace for fairly obvious reasons.
Two years ago the monsoons failed and the lake dried up revealing the foundations of the palace for the first time in over 100 years.
It was built by that chap Jai again and used as his home whilst Jaipur was being constructed.
Now we are on our way back up towards Delhi (can't wait !!!).
I just thought I'd show an image of the "rubbish" situation that I keep banging on about. In every Town or City you will see a pile like this every 10 metres or so. And in between, it's just strewn all over the place.
It looks even worse in the country, all along
the roadsides. Most of it is plastic.
It's an ecological nightmare.
Elephants and Camels are quite prolific in this area and it's good to see them at work rather than always / only being used for tourism. The elephants head, ears and (sometimes ) tails are often beautifully decorated.
Away from Jaipur is an elephant farm. The farm has it's own elephants which are used for tourism at the Amber Palace but, more importantly, it is a place where local elephant owners can take their animals for watering and bathing - there is a large man made lake here specifically for that purpose.
Now we have the 250kms drive up to Delhi. Sanjay has been very protective towards me so far, he only ever stops at what he calls "very first class establishments" so that food and toilet facilities don't have an adverse effect on my sensitive western stomach ! Today he was quite shocked and a little bit distressed when I asked him to stop at a regular transport cafe !! He feels responsible for me and I'm very grateful to him but .... I want to see the real India
He agreed, but only if I promised not to eat ! You can see that the drivers don't use "western" style chairs but the traditional
Indian cot where they prefer to sit cross legged. The tables and chairs in the background are for westies like me !!
How about the on-site hairdresser on the right !! They were a bit surprised to see me but very friendly and good humoured.
And I only drank bottled water !!!!
So finally, and very sadly, I must say goodbye to Sanjay.
He has been brilliant, a great guide and a good friend.
I shall miss having him around.
I'm off to get my train to Kalka and then up the mountain to Shimla.
See you there I hope.
