Rajasthan - Part 1

Leaving hassle filled Agra behind us, we got a bus for about 6 hours to Jaipur - the Pink City. It is known as the pink city as a huge section of it is painted pink (clever name!), although it’s more a peachy orange colour (not such a clever name then after all!). It’s the capital of Rajasthan and has about 2.6 million residents, but feels remarkably calmer than Agra despite its size. Our hotel was sweet and relaxed and after a lazy lunch, we were ready to explore.

We found ourselves a tuk-tuk driver and hired him for a couple of hours and the whole of the following day. He spoke good English and when I told him of our experience in Agra and that we would NOT be wanting to go shopping at all, he understood and promised faithfully. All agreed, we headed to the Monkey Temple to watch the sunset over the city. Driving there through the old city was another crazy ride as this tiny 2 stroke engined tent on a moped wiggled its way through the traffic, people and animals. We got to the foot of the hill with the temple and climbed past cows, pigs, goats and hoards of monkeys to the top. The temple is pretty underwhelming on its own and is in a state of disrepair. A family appears to have moved in to the temple and they show tourists a shrine and tie a good luck piece of string round your arm. We give them a small donation. The highlights of the temple are the sunset view which is dusty and misty but good, and the monkeys. On our way down we feed them with nuts, being wary of getting to close for fear of rabies. A man pulls up in a car and clearly has no fear of rabies as he is surrounded by monkeys as he feeds them piles of bananas. He doesn’t seem to work there, he's just simply a nice chap who had a spare 200 bananas to give away. We watched for sometime and then got hungry for our own dinner.

The following day we toured the palaces and forts of Jaipur. The main Palace museum was fascinating with an excellent audio-guide that explained the history and current status of the Royal family of Jaipur. It is a palace of mixed architecture and styling with Mughal (Muslim) and Rajput (Hindu) influence and the marble and decorative work is beautiful. We also got to see an artists' show where the local clever people create wonderful paintings, textiles and crafts. Next we visited the Royal Observatory, with old enormous sundials that are accurate to within 2 seconds and many astronomical pieces.

We then whizzed through the old pink city again to see the Amer Fort on the outskirts of town. We could have travelled there by Elephant, but the cost was huge and the animals didn’t look particularly happy, so we snuck a photo and declined. The Amer Fort sits proudly atop a hill and was good to see, although the audio-guide was rather childish and the day was hot by then. Indians are fascinated by westerners and often stare both blatantly and endlessly, which we had become fairly used to. Here again though as at previous tourist attractions we were asked to stand with a wife / husband while the other took our photo. A bit strange, but makes you feel all famous! On our way home, our driver casually mentioned that if we’d like to see some shops we could and he promised they were not hard sell, so we said we’d have a quick look at one or two. We ended up spending about 2 hours there, but this time it was all our choice. The shops were good and not hard sell and we bought some jewellery, skirts, scarves and Matt even got some Aladdin pants.

We really enjoyed Jaipur, but the following day, got another early bus to our next stop - Pushkar. This small mountain town surrounds a lake that legend claims sprung from the ground when Brahma (creator of the universe) dropped a lotus flower here. It is surrounded by temples and Ghats (holy bathing steps to the lake) and is one of Northern India’s most holy places. Because of this the town allows no meat, eggs, alcohol, drugs, or holding hands. We were surreptitiously offered the first four often, but only accepted the offer of one beer one night. Upon checking the can, it was 8% - talk about rebelling! Pushkar is also the home of cheap shopping heaven, if you like pretty clothes and soft furnishings that is. Matt waited patiently as Chrissie (queen of haggling!) went to work, snaring us many bargains which we packed up and sent home.

Next up was Jodhpur, home of posh peoples' trousers and of course another fort and palace, but I shall say more in the next blog.

Love

Chrissie and Matt
x x x

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