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Published: October 11th 2008
City Palace Jaipur
City Palace detail Jaipur 4/10/2008
The
General's Retreat is certainly a haven of peace in the otherwise mad city of Jaipur. In reality Jaipur is rather a nice place in that it has an old walled city to the north. It was the only place we could think of where you could see baboons, elephants,camels, cows and pigs cleaning (and fouling) the streets. Away from the madness, traffic and noise of the old town there is a modern city trying to claw it's way into the 21st century. Shopping malls and banks and hotels are springing up everywhere. We even succumbed to the lure of a giant hot chocolate at Costa Coffee ..... but declined to eat at Pizza Hut.
The family who owned and ran the
General's Retreat were absolutely charming as were all their staff.
Mr Bist and his daughter
Ketaki were both educated and refined. When I asked Ketaki where I could buy a pair of sunglasses, she insisted on lending me a pair of her own til I found some. We knew Mr Bist was a treasure when described Delhi as a dump and Agra even worse!!!
On the first afternoon we visited the
City The Pink City
Palace of the winds Palace which is within the walls of the
"Pink City" which was rather lovely but then
foolishly agreed to an hour's tour around the town for 30 Rupees in a motor rickshaw. Once again, what seemed like a good idea at the time, turned out to be a 2 hour jaunt and threatened to develop into a full scale day trip (probably by night) followed of course by the inevitable trip to the shops. "TAKE US BACK TO OUR HOTEL NOW!!!" we cried. Actually, we did see a few things we would have missed otherwise like the view over the city from the tallest tower (150m high but reached by a slope rather than steps and elephants resting after a days work. The driver's mate was a bit of a comic....... until we paid him the agreed 150 rupees and no present!!
Probably the highlight of Jaipur was a trip to the
Amber (Amer) Fort just outside the city. Inside the fort there is a Hindhu Temple and being a festival this was really busy. Apparently there was nearly a stampede the day before we went. Fortunately when we got there the service was over and the crowds had
Tower view
Jaipur from 150m gone!!!
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