Jaipur

My friend Emma and I left Narita airport in the afternoon on Saturday and arrived in India at 1am (after a short stop in Beijing). Emma hired a company to take care of us for the first few days of our trip, and it definitely paid off. We were greeted at the airport and driven to the lobby of a nice hotel where we brushed our teeth (with bottled water) and napped on the couches. Our driver for the next few days, Darshan, met us a few hours later and we drove down to Jaipur. I'd like to say that the drive was lovely and eye-opening, but honestly, I slept through most of it. In fact, I slept through most of the long drives with one exception (which I'll get to later).

The name of our first hotel was somethingsomething Palace, but my expectations were still pretty low (White Castle isn't really a castle and I've never met Wendy at Wendy's... yes, I'm writing this right before lunch). However, I was surprised to find that it was a pretty cool place. There were stone elephants hanging out by the pool, the common areas had a fish pond and parts of the walls were delicately designed with thousands of tiny mirrors. Plus there was a tiger in our room



After checking in, Darshan drove us around some of the less famous sites of Jaipur including the Palace of the Winds, a garden and a smaller palace. We also watched some block printing and carpet making. We got back to the hotel, had dinner, and I fell asleep around 8pm. Poor Emma is a night person, and if you're reading this, you probably know I prefer the morning. True to form, I woke up bright and early at 6am the next day. We set out to Amber Fort and Palace a couple hours later. We rented an elephant for about $10 and rode up to the fort. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of us on the elephant, but here's a picture of the animal's tail taken when I was on it.


The fort and the palace were absolutely stunning. Many of the buildings were in the process of being restored, but it was fascinating to watch the workers. We saw a group of women carrying clay to repair walls and a man with a tiny tool who was cleaning the cracks between mirrors. As with most of the sites, it's hard to explain how amazing it was, but here's one of my favorite pictures (for more photos, as always, see facebook).

In the afternoon we visited Jantar Mantar. There are actually 4 or 5 Jantar Mantars in the northern area, but the one in Jaipur is the best preserved. The guy who built Jantar Mantar was obsessed with astronomy, but he found that the instruments used at the time were too small to be accurate. So he built his own. He had tools to track various constellations including this one of Taurus (my sign!). This is one of the smaller sculptures, and it was still twice as tall as me.


Next we went to the City Palace. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited in the most interesting parts of the palace. The weapons room showcased hundreds of different weapons and weapon-type type memorabilia, many of which we couldn't figure out. The main receiving room was lavishly decorated with portraits of past maharajas and gorgeous paintings, but the centerpiece was the seating area. This area looked exactly like how I imagine a royal receiving chamber with two huge chairs at the front and two rows of chairs facing inward lined up down the room. Alas, no photos. Interestingly, there was a mini-market in one of the outer buildings.


Finally, we went back to the hotel. I didn't bring my swimsuit, but went swimming anyway. It was definitely a good way to end a sweaty day. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take a photo of the pool. Oops. Anyway, we had curry for dinner on the roof of the hotel and saw a wedding party parade through the streets. It was a great way to spend our last night in Jaipur.

Coming up: Agra and Delhi!