The Pink City

On Saturday morning we boarded a flight to Jaipur, India.  This was our first stop on our whirlwind Golden Triangle (Jaipur, Agra and Delhi) tour of Northern India. Since we arrived around1:30 in the afternoon, our first order of business, after checking in to our hotel, was food. Both Nick and I were starving.  We were naïve enough to think that we could walk and find a spot, but within a kilometer of our hotel an Auto-Rickshaw driver, that called himself John Travolta, ran up and informed us that there was nothing nearby.  For a mere Rs 30 (about $0.50 US) he would drive us to MI road where we could choose from a variety of options, McDonalds and KFC to name two.  Instead, we requested a non-veg, north Indian spot.  Turns out, John Travolta has great taste because Nick claimed this was the best food he’d had in India.  My was good too, but, for me, everything is starting to taste the same.

Motorcycle and Camels sharing the road in the Pink City

After a leisurely lunch, John Travolta drove us through the Pink City (old Jaipur where all the buildings are painted pink) to a textile factory were we could see people block printing fabric and making rugs.  Unfortunately, they also sold some nice stuff which resulted in some unplanned purchases as well.  While my purchases were being assembled, I took the opportunity to “Go Native” and try on a sari. 

Next, Nick and I took in a Bollywood movie at the famous theater in Jaipur. We arrived a little after the start but since the majority of the movie was in Hindi, it really didn’t matter.  It seemed to be about a Bollywood singer/actress with low self-esteem that destroys any chance at love and happiness in favor of her career.  It was very dramatic and resulted in lots of oohs and ahs from the audience. 

One of many astronomical sculptures at Jantar Mantar

On Sunday, we hired John Travolta again to take us to all the sites Jaipur has to offer.  This included a museum, and astrological park, and several palaces.  All of the places were really fascinating for me, but tourists from India seemed more fascinated with Nick and I.  At the Central museum, I think I posed for at least 2 dozen photographs with a variety of Indians.  I had one, particularly long, photo shoot with some women and their husbands while I waited for Nick to finish his stroll through the museum.  Most people were friendly and asked for a photo, but many others attempted to take them on the sly.  It was both flattering and uncomfortable at the same time.

We continued our tour at the Jantar Mantar which is a hard place to describe. Apparently, Jai Singh II (founder of Jaipur) was a huge fan of astronomy.  It is said that he like astronomy nearly as much as war and built five astronomical observatories in India, with Jaipur's being the best preserved.   

View from Amber

Later we headed just outside of Jaipur to visit Amber and Jaigarh Forts.  These were build high up in the hills and you have three options for reaching them.  You can take a jeep, ride an elephant or walk.  We chose the latter in an attempt to burn off all of the heavy Indian food we've been eating.  The forts were a both prime spots for playing hide and seek.  There were many corridors and rooms to hide in and kids were running all over the place. The forts were pretty amazing, but it was the views they provided that really made the trek worthwhile.