Des and Kathy's Travels: Jaipur.Forts, Food and Fights Over Plastic

Travelling west from Agra we came to Jaipur. After a struggle finding our hotel we checked in. The hotel itself was nice enough. Clean and well presented with a subterranean restaurant. Food was fine and reasonably priced and breakfast was plentiful. Our 2nd floor room had a floor to ceiling window which if opened put you at some risk of falling straight through onto the ground below, as there was neither a balcony or guard rail.

Jaipur itself is really rather convenient for the tourist, as most of the main sights are in the centre of town and within walking distance from one another. The only noteworthy place slightly out of town, though there are many places a distance from the town is the Amber Fort - more on this fabulous place later.

The most interesting place in town was Jantar Mantar. Built in the early 18th century by Sawai Jai Singh II it is one of five observatories built in India and apparently the best preserved with 16 giant stone structures to assist in celestial identification, astrological prediction, and the telling of the time. It is fascinating and has instruments that even now tell the time to within 20 seconds. Well, that is they tell the time to within 20 seconds of Jaipur Standard Time which, for some mysterious reason, is 34 minutes behind modern day India Time. Its a fascinating place, right in the centre of town but strangely very calm, even though there were bus loads of schoolkids on field trips. We wandered round there for an hour or so trying to work out some of the instruments but as neither of us are technically gifted much of it remained a mystery.

A few hundred yards away is the Hawa Mahal. This is a one room wide, five story building built right at the side of the main road. Currently undergoing some much needed renovation it was built so that ladies of the harem could sit and watch through grilles and hatches the goings on in the streets below without the possibility of being observed by men. If`you don't mind being pestered by salesmen it is possible to go up on the roofs of the shops opposite to get a picture of the grand facade. Its worth the entry fee to the place itself to get a sense of the segregated female existence in the late 18th century.

A short walk south-west, or a 10 rupees rickshaw ride will bring you to the Jaipur Government Cenral Museum otherwise known as, for no sound reason that I can detect, The Albert Hall. It has recently been renovated and now has labels and signage in English so is an interesting and informative place to get out of the heat for an hour or so. The building itself is quite grand but but there are thousands of pigeons flying around, both outside and inside the building, so watch out.

A few kilometres out of town is the Amber Fort. Perched on a hilltop you can get to the main gate by elephant for a fee, if you wish. Alternatively there is a well maintained pathway from the main road to the fort. This path crosses the elephant path half way up and as elephants have a pretty big stride their speed, even uphill, is faster than you might think. Choosing our moment to cross with great care we soon made our way to the main gate and entrance courtyard. This is where we discovered that there is a 2-day composite ticket available that covers all the places I've mentioned so far plus the Nahargarh Fort a little further out of town for 300 rupees (for foreigners of course - its virtually nothing for locals). If you plan on visiting the sights I've mentioned then the composite ticket is good value and you'll come out 150 rupees ahead of the discrete entry fees.

Anyhow, the fort itself is pretty amazing. Its certainly large and imposing and you can get a sensation of how it would have been when court proceedings were being undertaken. There's a great pillared Diwaniam where public meetings would have taken place as well as ornately decorated private rooms, chambers and gates. They also had a turkish bath which I imagine would have been unusual in 16th century India. Outside there is a great lagoon with fabulous recently restored gardens, once apparently used for growing saffron for the court. All in all a fab place and well worth the short trip out of town.

On the way back we stopped by the pretty Jal Mahal.This translates as 'water palace' which is appropriate as it sits in the middle of a lake accessible only by boat. It was inspired by the lake palaces in Udaipur (more on those later).

The town centre of Jaipur itself, which is a big place of over 2.3 million inhabitants, is unusual insofar as it is a small grid which does make it easy for the tourist to navigate around. The main drag, the Tripolia Bazaar, is one big shopping opportunity from spices and paint at one end to plastic goods at the other. In between is where Kathy was able to get some replacement spectacles for the ones lost at Agra. We also tried the street food and had a terrific dish of aloo tikkas (fried potato patties) with chick peas, and spicy gravy. on a disposable plate for 20 rupees each. They were really tasty but quite spicy, making the lips go numb for a minute or two.

Wandering around the shops we noticed a real scramble at the eastern end of the street. Lots of pushing and shoving with large indian women in flowing sarees elbowing one another out of the way. Voices were raised and arms were being waved in all directions. The source of this agitation was a new delivery of plastic Tupperware - like boxes and small injection moulded footstools. The footstools particularly were proving immensely popular with the women (and it was all women) and they carted away huge plastic bags full of these 18" x 12" stools all nested together in packs of 10. It was bizarre at the bazaar and there were women with maybe 40 or 50 of these stools forcing them into rickshaws before forcing their own ample frames in afterwards and then speeding off like getaway cars at a bank raid. We still don't understand attraction of these stools and why anyone would want to fight over them; its all rather mysterious.

So Jaipur gets top marks from us for an enjoyable and interesting couple of days. Next stop a sleepy town of 15000 people, which might be nice. Pushkar.