Rajasthan Holiday Part 1 - Jaipur

The Pipe family arrived on my birthday and stayed with us for two weeks, which meant that they had plenty of time to explore other parts of India.  They were happy for us to arrange a trip away from Mumbai to see "authentic India" (a brave move), preferably incorporating the Taj Mahal in Agra.  After much deliberation we settled on a six day tour round an inverted version of The Golden Triangle; including Jaipur, a tiger safari in Ranthambhore and finally travelling to Agra to see the Taj.

Our first stop was Jaipur where we spent two nights and an action-packed day exploring the sites of the city. We stayed in a charming homestay in a traditional Rajasthani house, run by the family who have owned the property for over 50 years.  As is traditional, the house was set around a central courtyard with wide balconies running round the property, all designed to make the space as cool as possible in the hot summer months.  The family were friendly and welcoming and I soon relaxed into holiday-mode, supping masala chai happily on the balcony.

Our base in Jaipur

Central courtyard...yet to be decorated by Alf (see later)

We had one day in Jaipur in which to cover the key sites; The Amber Fort, several miles to the north of the city, and The Pink City, the old fort in the city itself.

We started early and ventured out to negotiate a fee with the local autorickshaw drivers for the trip to the Amber Fort...there are no meters in Rajasthan so lots of bargaining was necessary!  Henry and Alfie seemed to really enjoy the autorickshaws and this easy mode of travel was one of the highlights of their trip.

The Amber Fort is, like so many forts in Rajasthan, astonishing in its scale and opulence.  Unfortunately, the elephants that you can usually hire to travel up to the fort were resting for a festival, but we hired a guide who steered us ably around the area (he did try to permanently borrow David's hat, but was otherwise a good guy).

The Amber Fort viewed from the road across the lake 

Henry models the sunglasses-turban combo look outside the fort 

Doorway separating two parts of the fort - the intricacy of the decoration is amazing

The doorway close-up...the bright colours are typical of Rajasthani palaces 

More zoom on the palace 

Posing for a group photo / sitting in the shade for a rest.  It was VERY hot (probably 40ish). 

Part of the palace of mirrors.  On reflection, this was my favourite part of the fort. 

 Looking happy (in the shade)

Looking out from the front of the fort.  Note the walls climbing up the hill in the background...there are fort walls all around the area.

Following the tour, our guide took us down to the village below the fort where we were, as expected, taken to a handicrafts shop full of tat.  Once we had extricated ourselves from the shop, we were taken to the main attraction of the villages, elephants rides, which was a must for Henry and Alfie.  

The queue looked a little long, so Cecilia and I went to look at a block printing museum up the road, but I'm told that the boys had an excellent time.  David, Henry and Alfie shared an elephant whilst Phil acted as chief photographer, although his photography was unfortunately curtailed by a gang of locals who appeared to want to keep a monopoly on taking photos of foreigners on elephants.  Phil stated trying to take some snaps but was surrounded and firmly removed from the area to make sure that David would have to buy photos from the villagers if he wanted any at all!  These photos were an exorbitant price but the boys eventually managed to negotiate down to a reasonable level and keep the photos to remember the experience.

The boys find a friend... 

...and some more

The rather excellent block-printing museum, where we saw demonstrations of traditional block printing and wooden block carving, in a quiet, cool environment.  If you look closely, we can be seen enjoying ginger lemon sodas whilst waiting for the boys under the parasol.

After a cooling drink, we travelled back into Jaipur to see the Pink City, including the Hawas Mahal (Palace of the Winds), City Palace and Jantar Mantar.

 

Our trusty steed 

The Jantar Mantar - a series or giant astronomical instruments.  A sun-dial lover's playground. 

A very big gnomon 

The front facade of the Palace of the Winds 

 Part of the beautiful palace, where the women used to watch the world go by without the men being able to see in from outside.

Looking into the City Palace.  We had a casualty by this point.  Alf was feeling under the weather and fell asleep at the cafe table. 

In the central courtyard of the City Palace.  The highlight of the display in the centre of the courtyard was two giant silver urns, each with a capacity of over 14,000 litres, which were used by the Maharajah to carry Ganges water to the UK for the coronation of Edward VII in 1901.  He didn't trust British water so he took his own Indian water instead! 

Sheltering from the sun in a doorway.  The 200 rupees that I spent on the floppy hat I'm wearing in this picture was a very good investment. 

David and Henry

After a long and hot day, we headed back to the homestay for a relaxing evening (dispatching David and Phil to pick up some refreshing cold beer on the way back) and home-cooked vegetarian food prepared by our hosts.  Unfortunately, it was all a bit much for Alf who vomited spectacularly over the courtyard when we arrived, which then deteriorated into 24 hours of a distinctly unsettled constitution.

Alf drinking electrolyte solution (with great reluctance!).  Cecilia wasn't feeling much better than Alf by this point either...

Needless to say, with Alfie and Cecilia both under the weather, the Pipe family did not have a great night, but Phil and David managed a morning run and detour to a local barbers.

I'm told that this establishment smelt unsavory but it was an authentic experience at least.

We left Jaipur that morning to travel by train to Ranthambhore, but returned to Jaipur several days later at the end of our trip.  For our final night, we stayed in a luxury Taj hotel (a converted Maharajah's palace) and spent the day swimming and playing table tennis, pool, chess, cricket as a relaxing end to the holiday. 

At the Jai Mahal Palace, playing chess with pieces that were almost as big as the boys. 

Our hotel

All in all, we found Jaipur to be an excellent mini-break location and most worthy of its place in The Golden Triangle.  There are many more forts around the city which we did not have time to see, so we may well be back in the future!