GriffJon's World Tour

« Agra, the Taj Mahal, and a rant on transport | Main | Jodhpur - The Blue City »

September 23, 2007

Jaipur, the Pink City

We were mostly unimpressed by Jaipur; it had all the hassles of other cities, but the sights were, in a word, meh. We arrived more or less on time, and the hotel had sent a driver for us. A youth came up to us and asked if we were staying at Hotel Pearl Palace, which we were, and took us to his rickshaw and dropped us at the hotel, free of charge, with a card with his mobile on it if we wanted a city tour the next day. Turns out he wasn't the hotel's driver, who was still waiting for us at the station, but a rickshaw driver scouting for business. Jaipur's scam was the confidence-building to win greater and greater indebtedness, then, and we used this to our advantage.

The hotel, Pearl Palace, was wonderful. Cheap, but with luxury services and service, and a beautiful rooftop restaurant.

The next day we went to the train station to book our final ticket, and a rickshaw driver bugged us to let him take us there for free ("good luck"). We finally caved after a few blocks, and got to the station, bought our last ticket, and discussed (argued) the rest of the day with the driver. We (finally) convinced him of our plans with some of his input, and got on our way to the old city inside the walls, mostly painted pink. A was feeling a bit ill, so went back to the hotel and I wandered alone for a bit, and bought a shirt for the upcoming safari. I took a photo of walking around the back streets of the Pink City, which you can catch at YouTube:

The City Palace and Jantar Mantar

Re-connected with A, and we went off to the City Palace, which was quite a let down, but it did have a pair of Guiness-book winning largest silver urns.

After that, we walked over to Jantar Mantar, a huge stone astronomy/astrology calculator, which had a sundial of sorts that could be measured to 2 second accuracy, various instruments to find/predict stars and planets, calendars, and so forth. Again, A has the photos on her camera, so soon come. Wikipedia has a pretty uninteresting entry, but Flickr already has some good shots to satisfy your burning curiosity. No really, check it out, it's an amazing architectural place.

Commission Shop

Then as per an unspoken agreement with our driver, we made a stop at a commission shop in the Moghul quarter, one that specialized in fabrics/textiles. We bargained hard and got an almost reasonable price for a few pieces. We also visited their "factory" where we got the story that they employed people regardless of caste to work on fabrics (I'd be more impressed, except that this is a common story for all commission shops, and you learn to not believe it; I'm sure it's just a catch for unwary tourists, like, well, 90% of India.

The photo with all the spots is what happens if yhou take a flash photo in a closed, poorly ventilated room where they're heat-embossing fabric with gold and silver dust. My lungs are now plated with precious metals!!

We pushed hard next to make our driver take us to the fort for sunset, and eventually we prevailed, thouh we had to transfer to a "power" rickshaw with a stronger motor to take us up the hill.

Nahargarh

We succeeded at making it up to the fort and snagged our own private turret to watch the sunset, eat Cheese Pakora (fried Indian cheese in garbanzo flour) and drink a beer while enjoying the view of the city. A made a recording of the various Muslim evening prayer calls which rose from the city, very peaceful in a way.

Posted by griffjon at September 23, 2007 07:52 PM

Comments

Post a comment