The Pink City, Bollywood and bangles

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A few locals had told us we´d have no problem finding a rickshaw on the streets of Agra at 5am, but leaving our of hotel I wasn´t overly hopeful. Despite the early hour and otherwise deserted streets they suddenly seemed to pop up everywhere though, one virtually running over to secure our business. I suspect what they knew at the time and we didn´t was that they were onto a seriously good deal. About the only reason we´d be after a ride to the station at that hour was to catch the train to Jaipur, a train we were to discover which is notorious for being very, very, very, very late. When we arrived at the station the rickshaw man refused to take our money, instead saying he´d wait for us... not a good sign. Sure enough inside the entrance hall locals were setting up camp on the floor, the departures board above them indicating that our train, which was scheduled to arrive @6am, was already delayed till 10.30am, with the expectation that it probably wouldn´t make an appearance much before 2pm. So with our rickshaw driver fairly rubbing his hands together in glee we got back in and had him take us to a bus company he knew, which of course would pay him a nice little commission in addition to our extra fare. So instead of the train we´d booked tickets for we took the 'non-stop' 7am bus, which only stopped about 4 times, and which left @ an hour late and even then only because the locals started complaining about how many people they were trying to cram in!

As a rule I generally don´t book accommodation in advance unless it´s right after a long flight and so far that seemed to be working out well enough in India. Except it turned out if you happened to be in Jaipur between Xmas and NY when the combination of Xmas break westerners and the zillion Indians who also decided to visit meant prices doubled and everywhere was full. After calling or visiting about 10 places that were either full, way over budget or of decidedly dubious cleanliness we finally ended up in a place that was undergoing renovation - the room was fine, just the rest of the place was a bit of a building site. Nice.

Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh and these days is the capital of Rajasthan state. It´s also known as the Pink City because the outer walls and buildings of the old city are, well, pink - the whole city was painted pink in 1853 when the Prince of Wales visited.

We made it to most of the normal tourists sites in Jaipur but it was some of the other random activities which proved the most fun, from hanging out on the street corner drinking amazing lassi´s from clay 'cups' (the extreme in recyclable products!) to bangle shopping. Many of the local women we´d seen in this part of India wore armfuls of narrow but brightly coloured, glittery bangles, (I once saw 20 on one arm!) and we were determined to buy some. Quite randomly we stumbled across our bangle shop - a small store that really wasn´t much bigger than a large cupboard and where the walls glittered with bangles in a rainbow of colours. We spent a good while there, sat on the floor whilst the guys who worked there pulled out different colours, sizes and levels of bling and we faced the challenge of trying not to buy the entire shop... in the end I think I managed to limit myself to @50 bangles....!

We´d heard of a place called Sanganer, a small town near Jaipur known for it´s handmade paper - thinking it sounded like a good shopping opportunity (Renee was becoming a very bad influence) we hooked up with a guy we´d met at breakfast and took a rickshaw out there - it ended up being one of the most entertaining days we had. We started with an interesting tour round the Saleem paper factory - peering into large vats full of the raw 'pulp' material, getting excited at finding sheets of paper in every colour possible stacked high all around, watching separate groups of men and women assemble the final products (diaries, photo frames, gift bags and much more) and the quality control man with his pile of rejects ready to be sent back to the pulp vats. The 'paper' is actually made from waste cotton, not trees, so any rejects are recycled back into the process.

On the way out we were approached by a local guy who seemed like a tout looking for some commission and who insisted on taking us to a nearby block printing factory. We weren´t particularly interested but it was on the way to lunch so we went along with it. All thoughts of lunch were quickly forgotten as the guy who worked there spent the next hour or so giving us a lesson - essentially block printing involves overlaying 3 or 4 different block 'stencils' on a piece of specially treated cloth - each stencil has a different part of the image, e.g. an elephant, missing, and is coated in different colour paint - I soon discovered I had neither the steady hand nor keen eye to be any good at it but we had lots of fun trying!

Back in Jaipur we went to the Raj Mandir cinema to tick off another 'must do' in India - a Bollywood movie. The foyer was packed with teenagers on a school trip, couples and families, all of them excited and chatting away expectantly. The film itself was 3 hours long, with an interval(!), and the locals cheered the first few times the lead male appeared, a popular favourite it seemed. It was a good film (fortunately a local had already told us the plot - being in Hindi we didn´t understand a word) but the most entertaining thing was actually the cinema itself. Going into the building we´d been strictly told 'no photos' but I would love to have snuck my camera out... the foyer reminded me of a wedding cake - the ceiling and walls all pastel pinks, blues and cream with glitter and chandeliers to boot. A sweeping ramp led up to the balcony section and inside the main auditorium sculpted waves along the walls and ceiling continued along the same theme. Absolutely mad.

Back on the more usual tourist trail my favourite spot was Gaitore, a royal cremation site for the rulers of Jaipur where cenotaphs for each Maharajah are covered with beautiful engravings. The site was peaceful and apart from one or two other tourists we pretty much had the pace to ourselves - quite a different experience from the Amber fort where we somehow managed to time our visit with what seemed like half of India! The fort was quite stunning though - started in 1592 by Raja Man Singh, Commander in Chief of the Mughal Emperor Akbar’s army, it has high sandstone outer walls interrupted by towers with great views over the valley below, large open courtyards that were heaving with people, walls and ceilings covered with bright murals, frescoes and paintings and whole rooms decorated entirely with small mirrors in floral and other designs.

It Jaipur itself we spent a hour or so at Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds. Built by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh in 1799 it has a pyramid-shaped facade that rises over five stories and is punctuated by 953 small windows, each decorated with tiny lattice work. From the outside it looks like a giant piece of honeycomb whilst from the inside the small windows allowed air to circulate, keeping the palace cool. They also would have allowed women of the Maharaja´s court, who were expected to observe strict purdah, to watch processions ouside or just look at everyday life passing by without showing themselves. Peering through those tiny windows it´s not a lifestyle I would have liked.

Finally there was Jantar Mantar, one of the five astronomical observatories built by Maharaja Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur. This one has 14 statistical instruments made from stone and marble which measure time and predict eclipses and lots of other astronomical events that I didn´t quite understand whilst standing in the sunshine on a hot day! It includes a giant sundial that tells the time to an accuracy of about two seconds and stands a massive 27m tall! Quite impressive even for those of us who didn´t quite get the 'how' part!

Next up, Udaipur - forts, temples and chilling out by the lake.

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Comments

[Donna and Neil]

Agra to Jaipur train - same experience as you!
We had exactly the same problem as you with that train...no-one told us though that it is always late so we sat on the station platform for 6 hours waiting for the train to arrive in the freezing cold, watching the times move by an hour every half hour! At least you got out on the bus...maybe we should hae done that too! Enjoy the rest of India.