Completing India's golden triangle, an amazing trip to Jaipur!

Well May has been a very busy month travel wise, with trips to Argentina and India for work, however there were certainly some other fun times in London in between all this travel as well! I'll start with my most recent trip to India and there's two pages of photos this time as well!

To India … This time getting to Jaipur and completing the Golden Triangle!

As I was saying, I am lucky to get to Delhi each year around this time and this trip I managed to add on a day of holiday to get to the famous ancient city of Jaipiur, otherwise known as ‘the pink city’ due to all the buildings in the old city being coloured in a delightful shade of pink!

A little bit of history first... The city of Jaipur was actually the very first planned city in India and was built by the King, or Maharaja, Sawai Jai Singh II, in 1727 when the people were overflowing the city of Amber situated 10km away. Jaipur was therefore specifically planned, with the old city containing a city palace and an observatory (what every maharaja needs!) as well as public housing, all within the confines of the big city walls. The pink colour came later, around 1870 when Ram Singh II was welcoming the Prince of Wales to Jaipur and wanted to introduce a shade of paint that would reduce the intensive reflection of the harsh sun! However this tradition has been maintained and now all buildings in the old city have to be painted pink.

The invitation to blow your horn!
I decided to hire a great driver to take me to Jaipur as public transport is not great in India, despite all my UK work colleagues thinking I was absolutely crazy heading off on my own overnight with a strange man! However, as you can imagine, I was in my element heading out to explore a new place and excited to be out of the city. So I left Delhi around 8am, and it was after 5 hours of serious horn-blowing that we arrived in Jaipur. As you can see in one of the photos, all the trucks and vehicles in India actually have big signs on the back saying ‘please blow horn’, thereby actively encouraging all traffic to be hooting to indicate presence!! It seems unnecessary to me, but if it means safer driving then I suppose it’s ok… it does mean though that it’s impossible to have a nap in the car, as the horns just blow incessantly along the freeway.

Low season.. not surprising given the heat!
It was unbelievably hot in Delhi and Jaipur during my stay, an average of around 40 degrees or above each day and with only about 10% humidity, the air was just so unbelievably dry and heavy. This is not surprising though given it’s the height of summer, and also the reason that Jaipur was almost void of tourists at this time of year. Infact, I was the only person staying in my massive hotel, slightly unnerving but it did mean I got treated really well, so I wasn’t complaining!

Kama sutra seduction…
I had quite a bizarre introduction to the people of Jaipur at the restaurant the driver recommended for lunch. The restaurant had a small turban museum attached, which the driver encouraged me to visit after lunch… so of course I was interested in starting to explore the culture and customs, however I think the waiter, come museum guide, had a few other activities on his agenda for this single white female! After starting to explain the difference between muslims and hindus, where he started with the turbans, the praying and the beard, next minute I found him explaining to me the differences in circumcision between the men of each religion!! I naively thought this was quite innocent, until moments later he was showing me a large kama sutra book and telling me that lots of women come to India to have some ‘fun’ and ‘pleasure’ away from their husbands!! I hot footed it out of there rather quickly as you might imagine … and was still rather shocked by the whole experience as I emerged into the hustle, bustle and heat that is India.

Exploring the old city - Palaces and observatories
The main attraction of the old town is the City Palace which is a quiet retreat from the busy streets outside. One of the interesting facts about the palace, was the little flag flying about the royal residence, or in fact 'a quarter' of a flag. This was put up to commemorate Jai Singh II being given the title of 'Sawai', meaning 'one and a quarter' as he was apparently more capable than just one man due to all his achievements!! So they have an extra little quarter of a flag to symbolise his extra human abilities.

One of Jai Singh's interests was astronomy and he built this massive observatory next to the city palace, called Jantar Mantar which was an absolutely massive sun dial that is still able to measure time, correct to within half a second! There's also a host of other contructions designed to show the position of the heavenly bodies, position of the sun etc, pretty amazing for being built in the 1720s!

My favourite palace though was called 'Hawa Mahal' which means 'Palace of the Winds' which is an incredible construction comprising 953 small windows looking out over the busy streets of Jaipur pink city. Why so many windows you may ask? Well it was built at the time when the royal women observed strict 'purdah' or cover and were not allowed to be seen by any men other than their husbands without being fully covered. However this palace with so many windows allowed these women to still look out into the city and observe life without breaking the 'purdah rules'! It also employs some amazing architecture to make it incredibly breezy and cool, quite a feat on a day where the temperature was super hot in the mid 40s!(hence the name 'palace of the winds').

The absolute highlight of Jaipur - Amber Palace
The jewel of Jaipur has to be the Amber Palace, which is the ancient city, which Jaipur replaced when the population grew too large for the city of Amber. It sits majestically up on the stark hill side and is truly mesmerizing in its size, grandeur and structure. Infact it's so high up on the hill that there is the offer of riding up to the palace on an elephant! However I felt too sorry for the poor elephants hauling tourists up the hill and decided to walk up instead, taking in the view slowly as I went. My favourite elephant though was one that had pink eye liner on, check out the photo!

This palace was home to a number of Maharaja in its time, one who had 12 wives and separate rooms for each, complete with secret passages connecting his room to each, so none of the women ever knew which room the king was in that evening! He also only allowed unics as guards so that there was no chance of the guards taking up with his harem of women at any point whilst he was out and about! I spent a few hours at the palace, just sitting up high and absorbing the surroundings, listening to the traditional music that was being played by a band of musicians and being mesmerized by the sheer size of the very docile elephants arriving and leaving the palace court.

The end of an amazing day in the Pink City - Sunset at Jaigarh Fort
My driver had a great suggestion to finish my fabulous day in Jaipur, which was to drive up high onto the hilltop to the dominating Jaigarh Fort to watch the sunset over the pink city. This was a really special experience as there were hardly any people there and there was such a great view, I could even see way down below to a vacant dusty block where there was a group of kids playing cricket with a lot of enthusiasm until the sun finally disappeared!

So, after a week in India, whilst I was incredibly exhausted by the relentless heat and perhaps just one too many spicy curries, India is certainly a country that never fails to fascinate and mesmerize, by evoking every one of the senses. I felt very lucky to have now made it around the golden triangle and will look forward to heading further afield at the next opportunity in this amazing country.

In the month of May, however, I've also been busy with other activities both in London and also in Argentina!

Karen’s Hen's night

Starting with Karen’s hens night on the first weekend in May, great to see so many of the girls that I haven’t seen in ages! Karen's request for a sophisticated Hen's party was observed, although there was still plenty of vino involved.. starting with lunch at the Wine Wharf near Borough Markets… Then we moved onto learning a few of the finer points of wine tasting at ‘Vinopolis’, including cheering on Karen as she was talked through making a very sophisticated looking Cosmopolitan, complete with a flamed orange rind! We enjoyed tasting various wines of the world available there before catching a river boat up the Thames to Embankment. Despite being in London for 5 years now, I’d never caught a ferry/river boat before and it was a really nice way to see the city skyline.

We then got decked out in our capes, complete with mittens and fur-lined hoods to take on the sub-zero temperature of the appropriately named ‘Ice-bar’! Unfortunately I had on inappropriate footwear for the the icy cold temperatures so my toes were soon turning into little icicles, so I didn’t last the full 45 minutes, however I had fun drinking my vodka out of a glass made of ice, and looking at all the interesting ice statues inside! We then went upstairs, where thankfully it was a whole lot warmer, and had a great dinner, before heading out for a boogie! All in all, a great day with Kaz, and the last one I’ll spend with her before her wedding in Spain next month!

Hola Argentina!

The best part of my job is that it sends me to both Argentina and India at this time each year for training the teams there, and so it was in May that I found myself also heading back to Buenos Aires for a week!

I was lucky to organise it so that I could spend a weekend there before work started, allowing me to catch up with my good friends Jose and Milagros. We headed out for dinner on Saturday night together and it was so good catching up with them, albeit my Spanish was a little rustier than last time, but being the good friends they are, they were very patient, and soon we were laughing again like old times.

The next day, I headed to my favourite markets in San Telmo with my work friend Nathalie, who was in a trance with all the antiques and knick-knacks on sale. Jose also joined us for going around the markets, so it was great to spend some more time with him. (Jose - Muchas gracias por la pintura y las alfojores!)

I was shown such a good time by my colleagues from PwC Argentina as well, we had so many amazing steaks (it would be rude not to in Argentina!) as well as going to see a fantastic tango dinner show. I really love watching tango, such an amazingly skilful and passionate dance … but I think I’ll stick to dancing salsa!

Sarah visiting from San Fran

One of my travel friends from my trip to South America, who I also visited in San Fran last year, came on a holiday to London during May and luckily we crossed over being in the city for one weekend! It was great to catch up with Sarah again and rediscovering a few places in London that I take for granted when living in the city such as the south bank and Borough markets. The May bank weekend was definitely the best weekend of consistent sunshine and warmth that I can remember in my whole 5 years in London, so it was great to make the most of the weekend by being out and about.

On Saturday we headed off to Borough Markets, quite torturous on an empty stomach, with so many amazing foods on offer! So we grazed on quite a few little bits and pieces, my favourite being the Turkish delight. After stocking up on some nice cheese from Neals Yard and some French wine, we headed back to my place in Maida Vale, taking a walk around Little Venice to see all the houseboats, before retiring for a well earned vino!

The next day we headed down to the Thames and met up with one of my photography buddies to take some photos around the south bank and Westminster. It’s not often that one can say that it was just ‘too hot’ in London, but it was definitely one of ‘those days’ (not that I’m complaining)! It was the perfect day for a backyard BBQ though, so luckily we had one on the agenda and soon headed down to another friend’s place in Brixton for a BBQ in his sunny backyard. Andy and his friend had been busy preparing an amazing blend of flavours, from Caribbean jerk chicken to spicy ribs, with my favourite being the sweet potato done on the BBQ. All in all, a great way to spend a sunny day! Then the final day of the long weekend, we headed to Primrose Hill for an afternoon picnic and catch London’s sights. Most entertaining was the crazy guy constantly scouring the hill with his metal detector… he went over the ground near us about 5 times, seemingly only finding 10p or 20p here or there, which could have been the coins Andy’s friend was throwing his direction when he wasn’t looking!

So, all in all, May was a great month, and I think it's time I sign off this rather extended blog!

Hasta luego, Tamara :)

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