"Pink City" a Jaipur Travel Page by Hui-Hui

When the bus was approaching Jaipur, I saw some more modern buildings of concrete matchbox and also traffic lights. Although there were prosperous city scenes, a lot of poor people just lived or owned simple shops in tents along the main roads. Some families just had few properties and stayed in the same small & short tents as poor shelter without "walls" and real "hard roof".

Our first stop in Jaipur was Birla Temple a new built Hindu temple made of white marble (20 years old). It was at noon and we had very big sun. I felt my skin got almost burnt. The temple on a hill seemed a popular tourism spot for local people as well. Especially I saw so many young girls dressing in so-called western fashion. Some of them even just wore tank tops & jeans! We had to remove shoes before entering the temple. It was forbidden to take pictures inside. We saw three statues of blue-color gods on the front stage and local people did worshipping hearty... There were also some glassic windows and carvings of gods on the marble walls but on my opinions there were not fine enough.

Afterward we went to our hotel Rajoutana Sheraton for lunch. In wide-space restaurant we also met other tour groups from Korea and Hong Kong. It was fun to see few Korean old ladies having Korean instant noodles brought from their country. For my young group memebers, Indian cuisine was great and we had no problem to have it 3 meals every day! I found an interesting salade- sour short mung bean sprouts. It was definitely different from how we cooked mung bean sprouts in Taiwan.

We took a few-hour rest in hotel room and then left for the old city center. After the bus entered a pink city gate, we were amazed by what we saw in the city walls! All the building were in pink (or better to say red-orange) with white-line decoration. The city was somehow a huge busy traditional market and there were plenty of shops, stands, richshaws, Hindu temples, people and also animals (Some cows ate trash.). Some Hindu temples were even built on traffic islands! My eyes just couldn't stop seeing any second! I was especially excited to see the famous Hawa Mahal which just situated on the down street in real! With 953 windows it somehow looked like a beehive. :-p

We first visited Jantar Mantar. It was an ancient observatory built by Raja Sawai Jai Singh 3. There were many equipments to read time, watch 12 constellations and even an extremely huge one for reading second. My sister and I found out our own zodiacs- Leo & Scorpio and took some pictures in front of the observatories. :-)

On the way to city palace, we saw snake men playing flutes and snakes. But it was unpleasant that after we took pictures they asked us 40 Rs as a tip. However my sister and I ran away very fast. :-p

The city palace built in 1726 had been a residence for royal family. Some of the buildings were museum. We saw luxury clothes and accessories of the royal family and weapons etc. I was impressed by a white pajamas of a king. It was a very beautiful and lovely pleated skirt! Many girls shall envy the king! There was a dark-red dress of 45 kg for a queen... It was so incredible. I saw guns, knives, swards, suits of armor and helmets in the weapon exhibition. The most special weapons were a metal ball covered by sharps connected to a handle for attacking elephants and some scissors to pierce enemies and then enlarge the wounds...

After visiting the museum, we went to Diwani-Khas where stood two big silver water pots. In 1902 Madho Singh 2 brought them full of Ganga river water on the trip to London. There were also four beautiful doors with very fine and colorful carvings and paintings. Especially a door of peakcocks was an amazging art.

The city palace was a luxury building structure in the center of old city. There were a lot of pretty spots worthewhile for taking pictures. However, for taking pictures with guards in traditional suit, they asked you tips!

The most exciting moment of the day was to take cycle richshaw!! :-D My sister and I shared a richshaw together. Our driver was very passionate introducing any special spots on the street though mostly we didn't understand his English and he didn't understand ours as well. It was very fun to be in busy traffic sourrounded by other cycle richshaws, auto richshaws, bikes, bus, cars, camel vehicles and cows etc.! Our richshaw had to "fight" with other vehicles even big bus for space on the road and sounds of horn never stopped! We also said "hello" and waved hands to pedestrians or passengers on the passing cycle richshaws... It was full of excitement! We stopped for a while in front of Hawa Mahal and unfortunately we didn't have chance to enter it. The driver also asked me to take a picture of him and send him the picture to his address... But due to difficulty of communication and others I didn't plan to send the picture to him.

The traveling guide gave us 40 minutes for shopping. It took so much time and engery to do bargaining. After I bought bags, other vendors introduced me shoes and then another showed me his skirt. They always quoted the first price very high. When I asked a lower price, they said "my boss will cut my neck" with ridiculous facial expression. In the end I got 2 bags (120 Rs per one), a pair of black flannelet slippers (150 Rs) and a long white skirt with beautiful gold & black pattern (350 Rs). It was not enough for me and I really wished to have more time for shopping in old city of Jaipur!!

When we got on the bus, a lot of touts standing in front of the door showing their goods. I bought a bronze statue of peakcock (100 Rs). (Probably the marvellous door of peakcocks affected me too deep.) Then we headed to a jewerly shop. None of us did a buy because everything was very expensive! I saw some silver ear rings at much higher prices than ones in Taiwan! It was unbelievable that one small amber ball cost 20 USD. My twin sister had bought a pair of amber ear rings in Denmark at only 10 USD. How come consumer price in developing Indian could be much higher than in Denmark, a high-developed country in Scandinavia??????

On the way back to the hotel, it was fun to see night view on the city. Although it was already evening, the streets were full of light and still very busy! At dinner I found out a special dish--white daily cubes with white sauce. I thought that they were cheese but I was wrong. They tasted like wet toasts. What were they? After dinner we went to an alcohol shop in front of the hotel for buying 6 bottles of Kingfisher beer. It cost 60 or 65 Rs per one at fair price.

My sister and I got up at 5:30 am in order to catch a yoga class at 6:30pm. We met up other group members in the swimming pool and all of them looked so sleepy. :-p It was very relaxing to do yoga in beautiful garden full of flowers in the hotel. The Indian teacher was very kind who didn't ask us to do hard acts. In the end he showed up some very difficult and professional acts and did some promotion about his yoga business. Every Indian seemed good at business. :-p

During breakfast time my sister requsted a waiter to take a picture with her. He was so happy and chatted with us for a while. (Almost every Indian loved being taken pictures.) I found a dish very special. It was a rond white bread dipped with red power and yellow oil. It looked and tasted a little bit like a Taiwanese traditional cake!

On the way to Amber fort, we passed though the pink city (old city). It was always interesting to watch the street scene there and I even saw one monkey on a roof… We also passed Jai Mahal, a palace built on a lake! When we approached hills, I saw Tiger Fort and Amer Fort lying at left high. They looked a little bit like Great Walls in China! This spots gathered a big amount of foreign tourists and most of us waited in a line for riding elephant. We first climbed on a concrete stage which was as high as the back of elephants. When an elephant stood besides the stage, my sister and I sat with the whole legs. My sister was in the front and I was in the back of the back of the elephant. To my surprise, the ride was very smooth and stable and it was very comfortable to watch the view of a nearby town, hills and a small lake.

The elephant rider behind me helped us take pictures of us on the elephant. He took about 6 pictures and then surprisingly asked us a tip of 1 USD. I will never forget his greedy facial expression but as he was always behind me and already helped us take the pictures, my sister and I were willing to give him the tip… My sister had a chat with our elephant rider. It was incredible that he was only 15 years old!! On the way to the Amber Fort I also saw a black-face monkey and few photographers taking pictures of foreign tourists on elephants… The thing really started getting more and more interesting.

The entrance of the amber fort of yellow-color was magnificent which marked evidently that some great personages once had lived inside. There was Hall of Public Audience made of red rock in front of the gate where the King was used to receive officers and people for discussion. The residences mainly consisted of summer palace, rain palace and winter (mirror) palace. There was a source of water in the summer palace and water flew through inside canals of marble walls for cooling down the room temperature. Rain palace was the upstairs of winter palace. There was a bronze pipe fixed on exterior wall of the door. Before a long curtain was hung there with water flew from the pipe up to down for making ambiance of raining day. Mirror palace was decorated with countless mirrors and carvings. It was said that to light on a candle inside at night made a dazzling scene of stars on the sky. Unfortunately I didn’t have opportunity to see such marvelous kind of scene by myself!

When we visited three palaces, some Indian women in bright-color sari walked around with plates on the heads. My sister noticed that when tourists took pictures of them, they asked tips… We took jeep to leave the amber fort. It was less exciting and shaking than I had expected. So far camel riding was still the best! :-D

Before lunch we visited a carpet factory to see how people make such expensive products. After seeing the complex procedure, we realized more why in general prices of carpets were so high and none of our group members purchased them. The last meal in our hotel in Jaipur was a little sad because we really liked the place. The waiters served us very actively and they were so lovely! (They still remembered my sister who had taken pictures of them in the morning so they treated people at the same table like kings and queens!)