A weekend in Jaipur with Ben

So, after all the excitement of Delhi, Jaipur is a little calmer. Touristy, but it has plenty of sights to draw the tourists.

Saturday morning we hired a car and driver for the day and headed for Amber (or Amer), about 10km North of Jaipur. It is beautifully located in a deep valley with hills around that they built big walls and forts on for when it used to be the capital of Rajasthan. The 3rd Raj moved the capital to Jaipur because he wanted to build an observatory (Jantar Mantar) and the hills in Amber made it difficult there. We spent the morning at the palace with a very good guide, it was really beautiful, I can certainly recommend it!

Amber palace viewed from the lake below

 Enjoying the view into the valley from the palace

Elephants on their way up to the palace (Beth, this is how we are going to get up to the palace next time!)

Outside the entrance to the private Maharaja's palaces

 The mirrored winter palace

The afternoon was a whistlestop tour of the city palace, which I have to say wasn't nearly as interesting as the Amber palace and then on to Jantar Mantar, the observatory. We got a guide for this one and I was glad we had as the signs telling you what all the instruments were didn't make a huge amount of sense. It was fascinating and right up our street, amazing that the big sundial is accurate to 2 seconds! Definitely a place to save for the end of the day (or the morning) it is pretty exposed and the sun was HOT.

The biggest sundial

Instrument for determining which star sign the sun is in

 After a well earned rest back at the hotel we headed out to Chokhi Dhani, an ethnic Rajasthani village. It was a little strange, a bit like a fairground, but with a number of different restaurants in a resort part that I think you could stay in. In the main part there were lots of little stages with dancers, traditional music and the like as well as camel and elephant rides and a handicraft bazaar. It was slightly Disneylike, but quite fun.

Proper Nann bread cooking at the restaurant, Ben & I join a band (slightly against our will!) and a dancer

The following day we visited the Hawa Mahal, or palace of wind, in the city. It is so called because the numerous small holes and windows on both sides, and the thin building, allowed a nice cool breeze to flow cooling the occupants. The windows also allowed the women of the court to watch parades and celebrations without being seen. It was a big no no to let people see your women by all accounts!

Hawa Mahal from the street side

Next we headed back toward Amber and went to the Tiger fort (Locally, Nahargarh fort). It was quite nice inside and had a nice rooftop cafe along with stunning views down over Jaipur. Next we moved further along the hilltop to the Jaigarh fort (previously Amber fort which was the fortification part of the palace we went to the day before). This time we got lovely views over the Amber palace as well as a little look at the worlds largest cannon on wheels and a nice little wander around the walls.

It was a pretty big cannon!

Lovely view down on the Amber palace and surrounding valleys from Jaigarh fort

From there we hurried back to Jaipur and to the airport to head back to Bangalore.
So, back to real life for a day or two in Bangalore before our next adventure to Kerala. I shall tell you about that in the next installment!

Love to you all,
xKathryn