After a brief visit to a town called Pushkar, where I fell prey to a dodgy stomach and a conning 'priest' we pressed on towards Jaipur. The hotel we were staying in was in a quieter suburban area of the city so we hailed ourselves an auto-rickshaw and made our way into the more central region of Jaipur.
We had a pretty unpleasant walk, due to the traffic, hassle factor and constant smell of piss, towards the public gardens and the city museum. By the time we arrived there I was in a foul mood and Dave was getting all the blame! We stopped to take a look at the map in our travel guide and were immediately surrounded by a crowd of people peering over our shoulders and generally making a nuisance of themselves. There is only one thing that can rescue a situation like this in India and that is an encounter with some genuinely lovely people and luckily for Dave one such family found us just in the nick of time. The father approached us and as I was carrying the camera asked if I would take a photograph of his rather large family. I was wary, as generally if someone asks if you want a photograph of them this is followed quickly by a request for money; but they all stood in front of me looking so serious and apprehensive about having their photo taken I couldn't turn him down.
Having snapped the first photograph they all crowded around to see themselves on the screen and were delighted by what they saw and laughed and giggled happily. Feeling braver now they wanted another taken and they all looked a little more relaxed for their second photo shoot. We said our goodbyes and they went on their way obviously very pleased with their encounter with the camera. My mood was lifted as you can't help but smile with people like this.
Soon after, the rain began to fall so after sheltering from the worst of it we then made our way through the city walls of the 'Pink city'.
The bazaars were just on the other side, but the rain had transformed them into muddy, wet, awful places; so stopping only for a freshly squeezed orange from the juice wallah, we picked our way through the puddles and back to the main road. We auto rickshawed our way back through the Jaipur rush hour to our hotel and wondered how we made it in one piece!
The next morning our first stop was Hawa Mahal, which was an extremely impressive building built in 1799 for the important ladies of the day to relax and people watch the streets below while remaining unseen behind the honeycomb like lattice work covering the 953 small windows. The lattice work also allows for the desert winds to blow freely through the windows and that is where the name Hawa Mahal came from, it means Palace of the Winds.
Our enjoyment was diminished by the constant pestering of the hoards of hawkers trying to get us to 'just look' in their shop or to ride in their rickshaw. It becomes impossible to turn them down politely and I have now employed the strategy of completely ignoring them as if you utter a word they take this as a sign of interest.
We escaped back into the car and made our way up to the Amber fort where an Elephant ride was on the agenda. I was already not too keen on this idea as I had heard reports of mistreatment and poor living conditions for the animals, but as we arrived we were swept along by the process and before I knew it we were sat precariously on top of an elephant. As we lumbered up towards the fort it became clear that we had the slowest elephant on the block, consequently as the other elephants came around to overtake we were pushed against the wall which meant that every time we swayed to the left we dangled over the precipice on the other side. I was close to freaking out and if I could have climbed down I would have, unfortunately that was not an option so I had to cling on for dear life until we finally, 40 minutes later, reached the top.
If I am smiling on this photograph it is false or I'm just happy to be so close to the end of the ordeal.
We decided not to do yet another tour inside of a fort and instead struggled through the crowds of hawkers (Jaipur is definitely the worst yet!) back to the car.
After stopping for a quick photo call at the Water palace,
the next attraction was Jantar Mantar, a collection of architectural astronomical instruments used for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars' location as the earth orbits around the sun and other things which made no sense to our shrivelled brains.
As we walked around we concluded that, in fact, this was an oversized cosmic playground for the Maharajahs of Jaipur.
The afternoon activity had already been decided upon , a trip to the cinema to watch a Hindi film with Kanaram, our driver, acting as interpreter. After buying our tickets we made a trip to the Lassi Wallah across the street. Opting for the sweet lassi we watched him blend the yoghurt and pour it into a large ceramic cup, the Indian equivalent of a disposable, and then scoop out a chunk of curd skin to lay on top; a taste sensation!!
Film time was almost upon us so we bought our popcorn and found our seats in the huge Art Deco theatre.
We flouted all the rules by photographing everything in sight and then thoroughly enjoyed the film, mainly because of the raucous audience participation. Each joke and significant moment in the film is cheered, clapped or whistled at and is so much more fun than our hushed movie theatres.
After a busy and fun-filled day we retreated back to our hotel to prepare for our journey to Agra the following morning.
We had a pretty unpleasant walk, due to the traffic, hassle factor and constant smell of piss, towards the public gardens and the city museum. By the time we arrived there I was in a foul mood and Dave was getting all the blame! We stopped to take a look at the map in our travel guide and were immediately surrounded by a crowd of people peering over our shoulders and generally making a nuisance of themselves. There is only one thing that can rescue a situation like this in India and that is an encounter with some genuinely lovely people and luckily for Dave one such family found us just in the nick of time. The father approached us and as I was carrying the camera asked if I would take a photograph of his rather large family. I was wary, as generally if someone asks if you want a photograph of them this is followed quickly by a request for money; but they all stood in front of me looking so serious and apprehensive about having their photo taken I couldn't turn him down.
Having snapped the first photograph they all crowded around to see themselves on the screen and were delighted by what they saw and laughed and giggled happily. Feeling braver now they wanted another taken and they all looked a little more relaxed for their second photo shoot. We said our goodbyes and they went on their way obviously very pleased with their encounter with the camera. My mood was lifted as you can't help but smile with people like this.Soon after, the rain began to fall so after sheltering from the worst of it we then made our way through the city walls of the 'Pink city'.
The bazaars were just on the other side, but the rain had transformed them into muddy, wet, awful places; so stopping only for a freshly squeezed orange from the juice wallah, we picked our way through the puddles and back to the main road. We auto rickshawed our way back through the Jaipur rush hour to our hotel and wondered how we made it in one piece!The next morning our first stop was Hawa Mahal, which was an extremely impressive building built in 1799 for the important ladies of the day to relax and people watch the streets below while remaining unseen behind the honeycomb like lattice work covering the 953 small windows. The lattice work also allows for the desert winds to blow freely through the windows and that is where the name Hawa Mahal came from, it means Palace of the Winds.
Our enjoyment was diminished by the constant pestering of the hoards of hawkers trying to get us to 'just look' in their shop or to ride in their rickshaw. It becomes impossible to turn them down politely and I have now employed the strategy of completely ignoring them as if you utter a word they take this as a sign of interest.We escaped back into the car and made our way up to the Amber fort where an Elephant ride was on the agenda. I was already not too keen on this idea as I had heard reports of mistreatment and poor living conditions for the animals, but as we arrived we were swept along by the process and before I knew it we were sat precariously on top of an elephant. As we lumbered up towards the fort it became clear that we had the slowest elephant on the block, consequently as the other elephants came around to overtake we were pushed against the wall which meant that every time we swayed to the left we dangled over the precipice on the other side. I was close to freaking out and if I could have climbed down I would have, unfortunately that was not an option so I had to cling on for dear life until we finally, 40 minutes later, reached the top.
If I am smiling on this photograph it is false or I'm just happy to be so close to the end of the ordeal.We decided not to do yet another tour inside of a fort and instead struggled through the crowds of hawkers (Jaipur is definitely the worst yet!) back to the car.
After stopping for a quick photo call at the Water palace,
the next attraction was Jantar Mantar, a collection of architectural astronomical instruments used for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars' location as the earth orbits around the sun and other things which made no sense to our shrivelled brains.
As we walked around we concluded that, in fact, this was an oversized cosmic playground for the Maharajahs of Jaipur.The afternoon activity had already been decided upon , a trip to the cinema to watch a Hindi film with Kanaram, our driver, acting as interpreter. After buying our tickets we made a trip to the Lassi Wallah across the street. Opting for the sweet lassi we watched him blend the yoghurt and pour it into a large ceramic cup, the Indian equivalent of a disposable, and then scoop out a chunk of curd skin to lay on top; a taste sensation!!
Film time was almost upon us so we bought our popcorn and found our seats in the huge Art Deco theatre.
We flouted all the rules by photographing everything in sight and then thoroughly enjoyed the film, mainly because of the raucous audience participation. Each joke and significant moment in the film is cheered, clapped or whistled at and is so much more fun than our hushed movie theatres.After a busy and fun-filled day we retreated back to our hotel to prepare for our journey to Agra the following morning.
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