Rajasthan- to Jaipur! the Pink City!

If we hadn't made this long stop at Ajmer (see post below) we might have reached Jaipur by evening, we now touched Jaipur at around 10:00 p. m. This means we drove the Jaipur Highway in the dark; somehow here, unlike on the Pune Mumbai roads, there are not many trucks, so your stress levels are on low, and the drive uneventful. You know you are approaching any major city, in India, with more lanes, and tall street lights dotting the highway on the city outskirts.

Most cities have used the vast land available along the highway to build housing complexes; those with an "older" look, are drab monotonous cheap construction with small windows and black or grey exterior, where clerks and junior government pen-pushers return home each evening on their scooters and motor-bikes. And, just across the fence of a typical cluster of old blocks, a group of row houses or modern cottages, set in parks and gardens signal the residents are the new middle class with new mini or sedan cars parked alongside garden patches.

Jaipur is capital of Rajasthan state and one time capital of the Kachhwaha kingdom of Jaipur. The city was founded by Maharaja Jai Singh the II, in 1727, hence named Jaipur; it is famous as the Pink City, most houses and structures in the "old" city are washed in cream and pink colours.

Unlike Mumbai or Delhi, all "inner" cities have no night life, streets are deserted, pollution hanging like translucent rings from street lights, stray dogs, and the usual cluster of sleeping people huddled close to stay warm........in north India, nights can be cold, at least cold for these poor whose nutrition levels are not conducive to keeping warm. (In winter, the usual pollution from CO2 emission is made worse by the poor burning old tyres and any other inflammable stuff to keep warm.)

If you get a hotel room facing the street, you are sure to loose sleep pretty early..... with the usual honking by the first rickshaws piled with children to school, and ringing bells by oxen or camels pulling carts with the usual fare (in India) of water carted in a wooden drum strapped on the cart, or carrying local goods to shops putting up their noisy shutters. (and the usual crop of city transport buses tearing down the street, their loud engines noisy from low maintenance and rough driving.) (Later in the day, a room over the local street can provide the best education-just watching the crowds.)

The Pink City, in a vast area around the sprawling City Palace, was planned along the old Indian Vedic plan, wide roads running east to west cut by others running north to south; if these are wide roads you won't find that easy to see, the traffic, even opposite the Palace and Hawa Mahal is so thick and chaotic-cars, scooters, buses, trucks, carts and cycles............a cyclist lost his balance and fell before our car.......and the dust and pollution overwhelming. (This is the usual evening "office rush hour," do your touring in the mid-morning and afternoon when the streets are relatively "deserted." ) Hire a cycle rickshaw to tour some old alleys around the City Palace.

Inspite of this awesome confusion on the streets, if you chance to enter one of the shops, just across Hawa Mahal/City Palace, looking for ethnic clothes, sarees, or trinkets, the calm atmosphere inside will surprise. Some shop owners or staff offer tea!

Jaipur has perhaps the highest number of heritage hotels, palaces converted by erstwhile royals and their nobles, after they lost their privileges- (same situation all across Rajasthan and other states.) see this link for details of hotels in J..........I have no links whatsoever with these commercial sites.........none.

The City Palace :
several enclosed courtyards adjacent to one after the other, each with an exquisite or imposing structure in the center or running along its sides, the City palace has one multi storey ed central palace, the residence of the royal family, the Chandra Mahal. The outer courtyard structures serve as museums, a great attraction, the two silver vessels exhibited there, largest of its kind, used by a previous Maharaja to carry Ganges water to England, the rulers of the Raj but nevertheless aliens!

Jantar Mantar, an observatory with sun dials and other massive measuring structures, situate next to the palace, is a fascinating place, Maharaja Jai Singh's passion for astronomy evident.

Nahargarh Fort, crowning the hills west of the city, easily visible from Jantar Mantar, has the world's largest canon, fired only once.

Amber Fort and palace, further up from Nahargarh, served as the capital of royal Jaipur known then as Dhundar, and is famous for the elephant ride up to the fort gates- some beautiful palaces within.

Jaipur can be quite a handful, a stay of three days to cover touring and shopping, the gem stones jewellery shopping a favorite.

When you leave the pink city, Jaipur, you take memories of a hill topped with a fort, a complex of palaces quite different from the Udaipur lake palaces, but beautiful buildings nevertheless, of chaotic traffic, a huge fort with elephants clambering up with their load of tourists, and of well crafted gems.