the Pink city

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The pink city, Jaipur(@450m) was another traffic crazy city in India. The kind of place I disliked as touts were everywhere, taxi or rickshaw drivers followed you to the end of the world, more persistence than my shadow! Jaipur was a heavy transposition center, as the gateway into Rajasthan, action was 24hrs around the Station Road. And the number of hotel was abundant, but most of them were only served Indian, no wondered all the budget accommodation that mentioned in guidebook were full, and the price was not as budget as it should be. It took me awhile to secured a room for Rs300 next to the bus station. I personally didn't like much of the city, also I couldn't visualized any pink about Jaipur, only those renovated city gates were in pink. The old city were inside the range of these gates, and streets in straight lines crossing each others, which created many square sectors. I got no chance to be lost in this kind of arrangement and it made meandering around funless! And it wasn't the kind of old city in my book. Anyway...the old city was totally a market with each area sell specified merchandise, any kind of thing you could think of, you named it and you could find it. And gems was an important business here, jewellery shops in every corner. Hand printed with wooden block saris was the main handicraft in town, together with those colourful Rajasthan dresses hanged on shop front, it made your eyes dizzy while strolling on the dangerous road. The main sight were right in the middle of the old city, the City Palace complex, the Hawa Mahal, and the observatory Jantar Mantar, kind of like the one in Beijing. As usual I admired them all from the outside, because...you know it already...the cost for entry, and also the outrageous different between local and foreigners price, I boycotted it since 5 years ago! About 2km outside the old city, a nice walked up a small hill to the Tiger Fort, the Nahargarh was another empty fort occupied the whole hilltop in a huge area. An open theatre by the entrance occupied a dramatically location by the cliff. The empty palace got nothing to offered but graffiti from tourists. But the hilltop was the great location for sunset, and offered panoramic view for the whole city.
Foods scene was far more appealing than the last few days in Shekhawati area. Although there wasn't anything new, but the delighted was you find foods in every corner, and the chapati was bigger in size with salty favoured which I like more, tandora and masala could easily located, and tea house even had fixed price stuck on wall "3 and 4 rupee per cup",all provided sitting area in front. I find a street inside the old city got all these in it, but it gave me problem by choosing what to eat by dinner time!

Note
Bus Mandawa to Jaipur Rs80.

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