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Published: December 22nd 2023
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With half closed eyes we ordered an Uber from the hostel and traversed through dimly lit Jaipur. We got out at a beautiful sandstone gate that was blocked by cows and dogs. We sidestepped them and began the trek up to the sun temple as the sun began to rise. Hundreds of monkeys were eating banana breakfasts and the babies were having their morning milk before we’d even had our chai! The view over the trees and mountains and the city was gorgeous and we could hear religious chanting from near by temples. This really was a memorable moment and set a lovely calm tone for the day. The block colour of different dwellings became more vibrant as the sky changed from pink to blue. We walked back down the hill now in the light, half scared and half loving the monkey business. We didn’t get our rabies jabs #yolo so we trusted in Hunuman and journeyed on. An old empty structure , coined “monkey temple” half way down was so peaceful. It stood with a horizontal emphasis with Mughal arches and columns, the negative space of which provided stunning views in between.
Back down in the bustle of the traffic
we sprinted through moving hectic traffic and accidentally found our Uber driver again! He was very sweet and found us funny. We showered and were feeling pretty smug that we had done so much by 8 am! We had a lovely pancake filled breakfast at Thapri, and admired the vessels our chai and coffee was brought to us in.
We headed to city palace well fed and ready for some opulence! Our tour guide called Sher Singh, meaning lion, took us around, he laughed hard when we stood next to an elephant carving and Hattie said that elephant was her name (what sounds like Hathi in Hindi means elephant.) He walked around the palaces textile museum where royal costumes of silks, pashmina, cottons and gold hammered thread were mounted. We circled around the gorgeous courtyard, where we admired the smartly dressed men who wore hanging red turbans and tailored navy suits and some massive pots one maharaja apparently loved filling with holy water. Grace said she wanted to marry the prince, especially relevant as this was his royal residence, Sher replied by patting her on the shoulder and saying, “well done.” We went into the market hall and were given
a private audience with a painter, who like Grace had met English royalty! He used hundred year old paper and used a paintbrush with one singular squirrel hair to achieve stunning detail and a lovely thickness of line. He showed us the Indian rocks and minerals he used to create pigment and demonstrated with a charcoal ink/ paint mixture a side profile drawing of an Indian lady with so much skill, the natural fibre of the paintbrush held a shocking amount of pigment, art had been in his family for many generations and he’d begun when he was seven. He gave the drawing to grace as her birthday was next and he wouldn’t accept money. We then bumbled to the perfume counter and had our arms completely SATURATED with opium, green orchid and musk, to the extent that we ran out of space to try more scent. Gracie bought Hattie opium sent for Christmas, what a lovely girl she is. However, a price comparison later on in a market with the same scent proved she had been HAD.
The best part was saved until the end, we had a demonstration of how to tell if pashmina was authentic pashm
fibre. We were shook when he got out a lighter and burnt the ends of the tassels. If they smell like plastic then it’s synthetic and goes hard but real pashmina smells like burnt hair and falls away like dust. A fake pashmina easily slipped through a small silver ring, another well known authenticity test, but when a strand was burnt it instantly formed dark black globules. We had an in depth conversation about the process of the hand loom weaving, some patterns were also woven which must take so much time, and others had added embroidery with pashm thread by hand. Cashmere is from the hair of the whole goat, but pashmina is just from the chin and belly - so deliciously sumptuous and soft. Apparently the name comes from the sound of the cloth falling on a table- pashhhh.
The man let us try on the hand woven silk saris in deep red and bold turquoise and showed us how to wrap them, folding and draping metres and metres with ease. Grace hasn’t worn a sari since she was 2 so felt very authentically Indian and excited to be in her Motherland’s (or should we say Fatherland’s) traditional
dress! Quite an emotional moment! Hattie found a photo of herself trying on a sari in Jaipur when she was 11 and we laughed at the similarities in the photos 13 years apart, she seemed less well behaved now.
The most productive day yet, we decided to fit another mahal (palace) in before lunch! We walked through the many levels and balconies of Hawa Mahal, constructed of red and pink sandstone contrasted with white paint ornamentation and bold bright stained glass decoration. In this beautiful setting for some weird reason people wanted photos with Hattie. After a couple of these incidents it sparked a conversation with the three of us of what they do with these photos when they get home, do they show them to their families and say, “look at this weird tall blonde creature!” Iksha joked with some people that it was 100 rupees for a photo with her, (£1) - this proved they really didn’t want the photo that badly. We danced for a minute to some live folk music and then walked to a lunch spot and drowned ourself in paneer curries of all the kinds! Grace may have now filled her paneer quota
for the day. Meeting up with our fave uncle he chaperoned us away from the more touristy johri bazaar down some side streets, over mounds of gravel, through tiny spaces between moving motorbikes, following a keen man who wanted to show us a small shop that was filled to the brim with silver jewellery. We were looking at so much, pouring ourselves over a counter with a river of treasure on it, that they told us to sit down because we’d get tired. The man that brought us here said, “im a salesman, when I wake up I start selling. This is my karma, some people fly business class, some people fly economy.” Uncle took Hattie and Graces matching signet-style rings, which had “rich bitch” etched into it, away from them so that they’d open them on Christmas Day as a present from Iksha’s mum- another generous gesture that dumbfounded us. What will Giagi think about our bad manners!? Don’t worry she can’t read English. We spent so long choosing our souvenirs that it was dark when we opened the door to leave. Uncle didn’t understand why Hattie wanted a kitch Bollywood esque pillowcase that was heavily marked, but nevertheless
negotiated a sweet price for her. We skipped dinner and passed out, the shopping had worn us out, what luxurious lives we now have!!
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