Day 9 – Rajasthan Trip -- Pushkar to Jaipur

It was nice to have a slow morning; we ate breakfast in the courtyard of our palace – lovely setting for coffee and the paper. Cool weather, lots of palm trees and plants, toast and cornflakes, hot chocolate for Claire.

Afterward we walked to the lake and across the bridge, holy so off went the shoes. Incidentally, all this barefoot temple business is tough on the socks. Will need to throw a bunch away and start over soon.

It was great people/animal watching this morning; we saw a wide sampling of hermit-looking types – plenty of facial hair, bony bodies, haphazard clothing, some face paint. Many of them were in the water this morning, getting blessings, some bathing – accompanied by catfish, birds, a few cows on the bank…

From Pushkar it was a relatively short ride to Jaipur, passed more marble slabs and stopped at some roadside shops to check out marble products. Gorgeous stuff – again, the mortar & pestles of all sizes, decorations for the home/garden, rounds for rolling dough, table tops, etc.

Jaipur is big – 3 million people. It has Delhi’s big city throb and modern shops, elegant apartments, what looked like a hip movie theatre (Bollywood!), lots of traffic and markets. We eventually wound our way to the hotel, a lovely haveli.

Here we were greeted w/ pineapple juice and asked how long I’d be working for the American embassy…that rumor kills me.

Our first stop was the market in the Old City for lunch; we wanted a snack style lunch rather than a lengthy sit down meal – landed at a bustling café with standing tables and counters where you could order street food specialties (which I’d been dying to try but wasn’t sure about safety). This place was patronized by foreigners and Indians, so no worries.

A lovely woman who works at the shop took us under her wing and ordered for us – pizza for the kids (it came w/ chips on top and ketchup on the side. The one other time they had pizza at an Indian restaurant it was served with ketchup, too.)

I tried three different snack items – one stuffed with peppers (YUM), another a potato cake with some kind of chickpea filling (I'm guessing on the content – it was delicious) and one other yummy sweet/savory fried item. They came w/ a green sauce (cilantro and other herbs) which I dearly love and have had several times. And I ordered another fruit lessee, tasty but I preferred the first one I had. Stuffed, we moved onto sites.

Our first tour stop was the City Palace. Located in the center of Jaipur, it’s been home to the city’s rulers since the 1st half of the 18th century. Open and airy, the complex is a blend of Rajput and Moghul style architecture.

Part of it is now a museum, which we very much enjoyed: miniature paintings, manuscripts, carpets, musical instruments, royal costumes and weapons. We saw one of the world’s largest silver objects, an urn that carried Ganges water for Mahdra Singh II’s visit to London in 1901 (he took 2 of them). The weapons (i.e. daggers and swords, had gorgeous jeweled handles. One shield was made from crocodile skin, I saw another of leather with lovely detail. Guns weighing 50 pounds were displayed, used by mounting on camels.

One of the rulers (father of the current king I think) was a polo champion of the world (1957?). We saw lots of his polo gear – winter and summer outfits, photos, trophies. A portrait of him dressed rather royally (appropo, wouldn’t you say?) was located next to a statue depicting him in the same clothes.

One ruler was 7 feet tall, 4 feet wide, 500+ pounds. His clothes, too, were on display. Talk about needing a tailor job.

Our guide said the royal family – they have a daughter and have adopted her son or her husband (this adoption of a male was/is common in the royal families we’ve been learning about – cannot deviate from the male heir concept, I guess) live in private quarters in the Palace. While the king is a “common man” as our guide noted, he’s still very wealthy and a big supporter of the arts (as are other members of Jaipur’s leading citizens, he said).

Within the Palace grounds is an art shop with artists giving demonstrations of their work and displaying wares. The artists are handpicked by the government to be part of this studio. Ava and Claire were intrigued with watching them work. Two painters whipped out elephant drawings for the kids, using dainty paintbrushes made from squirrel hair.

We left the Palace and went next door to the Jantar Mantar, similar to the one we saw in Delhi. This one had been restored so was obviously in better condition. Of those Sanai Jai Singh II created, this one is largest, with 16 instruments, some still used to forecast weather. The Unnatarsha Yanta was used to determine star and planet positions. The Laghn Samrat Yanta (small sundial) calculates Jaipur’s local time (they now use India time but prior to British rule different regions used different time zones – Jaipur’s traditional time was 12 minutes behind the current Indian standard.) The small sundial is accurate within 20 seconds, our guide told us.

The Narivalaya Yanta is used to draw up horoscopes. And the Jai Prakash Yanta maps out the heavens, supposedly for Jai Singh to verify accuracy of his instruments.

Finished with monuments for the day, we headed to the market, which was busy but not crazy busy, as it was Sunday. Kids got some beads and Claire and I got henna paintings on one hand. Ava opted out but of course on the way to the hotel wanted one…

For dinner we went to Indiana, a place recommended by our guide, with music and Rajasthani dancing as we sat under the stars. Claire shed her inhibitions and danced on stage!

A word on bikes, as in bicycles. I believe I’d seen just about every kind of good that can be transported via bike on bikes here. But today surprised me. I saw a staircase go by on the back of a bicycle in heavy traffic. Mounted horizontally, it took up a lane of traffic. The driver didn’t seem the least bit phased.