Change In Plans

Jaipur - Rajasthan - India

This post is about our second action-packed day in Jaipur.  We rode more elephants, toured the famous Amber Fort, saw a lot of sights, went for a walk in the old city, and had dinner with a local family.  We are keeping busy for sure.

We were out the door by 8am today, in order to get to the Amber Fort in time to get another elephant ride. Starting at about 7:30 am, taking an elephant up the long hill to the fort is the only way to arrive in style.  We waited in line for about 45 minutes, and were among the last tourists to actually get on elephants.  They stop the parade at 10 am, because the road is too hot for the elephants’ feet.  Several hundred people were sent away without being able to ride.

The Amber Fort is yellow in color, but the name comes from the Sanskrit word for “high.”  It is the traditional home and center of power of the kings (maharajahs) of Jaipur.  Construction on the fort began in 966 AD, and continued in fits and starts until about 1700.  It is a massive and sprawling, almost organic, set of structures, perched about 400 feet above the valley on a hillside, and surrounded by two huge perimeter walls.

Our elephants set us down in the midst of the daily carnival in the huge courtyard below the living areas.  There were dozens of musicians, snake charmers, food and drink sellers (we chose to pass on that) and people selling t-shirts and souvenirs.  As we are finding in many places in India, several people asked to take pictures of themselves with Tallulah.

We walked up two sets of broad stairs and into the palace area.  The main gate is a large rectangular hole in the inner walls, which becomes a short passageway.  The passageway turns 90 degrees to the left before reaching the stout wooden doors.  This design prevented invaders from charging the doors with their elephants, because apparently the elephants have difficulty making the hard left turn at speed.

The interior spaces of the palace are spectacular beyond words.  One room has thousands (tens of thousands?) of small convex mirrors embedded into the patterns decorating the walls.  At night, a single candle is reflected and fragmented into shimmering starlight.  Thick stone screens, looking out onto the valley below, are carved into beautiful repetitious patterns of stars and triangles.  The enormous gardens are laid out in a pattern which matches the stone screens.  Once we left the courtyards, we found a warren of small rooms and connecting passageways and stairs.  It would be easy to get lost.  

IN 1727, after three generations of having no successful attacks on the Amber Fort, the maharajah decided that the inconvenience of living (mostly the difficulty of getting water) on the mountainside was too great for his court, and they built the planned city of Jaipur down on the valley floor.  Old Jaipur, the Pink City, is laid out as a perfect rectangular grid, about two kilometers by one kilometer.  All in, the city walls contain about 400 acres.  The main road is exactly 110 feet wide, and as straight as a ruler’s edge.  The grid is full of precise right angles.  

The city’s buildings are uniformly three stories, and were painted pink, by royal decree, in advance of Prince Albert’s visit from England in 1876.  Since then, by law, every other years every property owner must apply a coat of pink paint.  Unfortunately, many of the buildings don’t look as though they get much maintenance aside from the paint.  The battered and crumbling facades, combined with the crowded chaos spilling into the wide streets, creates a strong image of faded glory.  The few restored buildings (like the Palace of Winds) are magnificent, and further highlight the sad shabbiness of the others.

After visiting the maharajah’s celestial observatory (world’s largest sun dial, keeping accurate time within 20 seconds) and touring the City Palace museum, we went for a walk on the main road.  Again, like our trip through the market streets of Old Delhi, it was an overwhelming but exhilarating experience.  There were so many people walking, pedaling, scooter driving, and driving past us.  Small shops and food stalls extended their wares and their staff out over the rough sidewalks and into the roadway.  It was loud, and smoky, and frenetic in the pace of its activity.  If there were any doubt that we had arrived in India, the walk made it clear for all four of us: India coming at you.

We are staying one more night in Jaipur, leaving to drive to Pushkar, and the famous camel festival, in the morning.  I can’t understand why I did not make a trip to India until I was 42 years old.  This is perhaps the most exciting and spectacular place I have ever been.