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Published: December 21st 2017
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Jaipur 3 (Pink City Day) Day 19. Tuesday 19
th December 2017
So a quite early start. Mal pays her food & drink tab and I explain that I will pay her room. We all see her off with Manu in the big cab, hope it all goes well for her return, she did manage to get Atithi to print off her boarding passes for this internal flight and tomorrows international one.
We all got a tuck-tuck to the Pink City and walked through numerous back-alleys, remeniscent of Varanasi. This was where the dalits (untouchables) live and they were quite surprised to see us mob amongst them, very friendly though. There were goats in coats and one goat wih enormous teats (possible mastitis?) They gave us directions and weeventually arrived at the City Palace (the nearby Jantar Mantar observatory holding no appeal to this lot!)The kids were not too bad, but there was plenty for them to see & do. We didn't pay to enter the palace proper (Rs1500) as the kids would have trashed the place. So we went for the Rs500 museum tour (everywhere but the palace) I had to leave
my driving license in order to get an audio guide.
We saw many isolated rooms, one in the center of a courtyard, was built to house foreign visitors, but now is home to the Maharaja’s costumes (good polo costumes!) and ancient (1650’s) pushmina rugs.
In a wing of a larger building were paintings and photos going back 400 years. Esmee & I soon got bored so I took her outside to avoid waking the palace guard with a huge, curled, moustache.
A Maharaja called Jai who took the throne aged 11years was the one who decided to move the capital from Amber to here due to a water shortage there, so this Pink City was only built in 1740 & named Jaipur after Jai. All my guide books talk of the increased wealth of the Maharajah at this time but not
how it was increased…
Apparently there were pink buildings here befor the Prince of Wales’s, visit in 1876 (the future Edward VIII) which was when the Maharajah declared that all buildings should be pink. This rule still applies although the city palace is yellow! A case of
“do as I say, not as I do”.
As we were leaving a boy gave Rocco his kite (without string, which had got tangled up).
Then, after leaving all this opulence with chandeliers and the largest silver objects in the world etc, we walked past a load of homeless people who were quite friendly & didn't ask for cash, but one boy asked Rocco for the kite, which he didn't want to give but in the end he did, good lad.
We then walked past the Palace of the Winds (near Mal & Shirl’s shopping area from last night)
Then we tuk an electric tuk-tuk back to Atithi which was involved in a slight crash (although no documents were exchanged and no one got out of their vehicles. I met a guy on the roof terrace who was a Dutch guy, working for UNESCO. He had been trapped in a conference in Delhi for a week and was enjoying a few days off. The air is still really bad there.
I made good stunt paper planes for the kids which kept ‘em amused till dinner at 6.30.
The
Reedies each had eggs (sunny-side down) & chips (always served on seperate plates!).
I had penne pasta with creamy sauce & cheese - very peppery good.
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