Falling in Love with the Pink City

The next day, we embarked on a long car ride from Agra to Jaipur.  On our way out of Agra, we made one last stop at Fatehpur Sikri.  Fatehpur Sikri was built by Akbar, and he shifted the capital from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri.  This shift only lasted six or seven years because the water source at Fatehpur Sikri ran out, and the capital was then reinstalled at Agra.  As a quick refresher, Akbar is the emperor that had three wives from three different religions (one Christian, one Muslim, an one Hindu), so he built a palace for each wife within Fatehpur Sikri.  Of course, since he liked his Hindu wife best, her palace was the biggest, which begs the question, how well did the wives get along?  Probably not very well.  In fact, the Muslim and Christian wives were probably constantly busy plotting the Hindu wife's demise!  The carvings decorating the palaces were a mixture of Christian, Persian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish designs, showing Akbar's religious open-mindedness (as if his choice of wives wasn't evidence enough!).  At the end of our tour of Fatehpur Sikri, we had to say goodbye to our amazing tour guide, and just hope and pray that the next guide would at least not be as boring as the first.

Fatehpur Sikri

So I took this picture of these cute kids trying to
reach their arms all the way around the column
without them knowing...

And then they pretty much begged me to take a picture of them, and this is
what I got -- super cute!

The carving here is so ridiculously intricate

Outdoor pavilion where musicians would play for the Maharajah during the summer

Mosque outside Fatehpur Sikri

We, again, had the unfortunate lunch debacle on our journey from Agra to Jaipur, but this time we at least knew what to expect!  Our driver, Ajai, stopped at a temple somewhere near Jaipur, but it was pouring rain, and although we ran outside to take a quick look, we quickly opted to hop back in the car and head to the hotel, especially since we were both so hungry.  It was definitely a relief to get to the hotel and grab some lunch, but it was pretty bizarre because someone was having a raging party on the rooftop pool deck of the hotel, and the music was so loud!  We could hear it loud and clear in our room, up until 10pm or so.  Just a little bizarre.  But the beat was bumpin', that's for sure.  I think I maybe appreciated it a little more than Dad. Haha.

I wonder if he knows this is what he looked like... lol

Outdoor market in Agra. Please note the cow.

People were staring at me left and right. But c'mon, my hair doesn't look
like this! And I'm not an 80 year old woman!

CAMEL!!!

So, we saw this dude on our car ride from Agra to Jaipur. And he totally got
suckered into buying a necklace from the street vendor. It was pretty hilarious
to watch. Oh, and then we saw him the next morning in Jaipur at Amer Fort.

At the random temple (in the rain)

Random temple

Children riding home in the rain

The next morning, we met our new guide for Jaipur.  He was a really nice guy, and while not quite as awesome as our Agra guide, he was pretty great and told us some good stories.  Now a little background about Jaipur.  Jaipur is nicknamed the Pink City because all of the buildings within the Old City walls are required to be pink.  This is because pink is considered a friendly color, and the Maharaja wanted his city to be welcoming.  Unfortunately, he quickly realized that pink was a hard color to keep clean, so they slightly altered the rules, requiring that all buildings be pink or terracotta.  As a result, you will still find a mixture of these two colors making up the Old City of Jaipur.

Gate to Old Jaipur

The pink city - mixture of pink and terracotta

Our first stop was the Hawa Mahal, which was not really a building but more of a facade, built by Maharajah Sawai Man Singh.  It was eight stories or so tall and contained lots of screened "windows" (which were actually made out of pink clay).  Back in the day, the women of the court could sit behind these screens and observe the day's happenings.  The screens were covered with cloth that allowed the women to see out without being seen.  These measures were necessary because women were not allowed to go out in public or to be seen in public.  This was essentially a remedy against boredom so that the women would know what was going on in the world.  I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation.  I can't even imagine having to sit behind a screen and observe the world rather than being able to participate in it!

Hawa Mahal - Just imagine women sitting in every window...

Snake charmer on the street

Next, we headed to the Amer Fort, where I learned that we would be riding elephants (again!).  Of course, since I did not know that this was on the itinerary, I was not in my ideal elephant-riding outfit, but rather wearing a skirt and flip flops, but the skirt stayed down the flip flops stayed on my feet, so overall, it was a success.  I will say, elephant riding gets easier with practice.  It was much less scary the second time around.  However, it was Dad's first time, and he was quite a good sport about it, although I'm not sure he would ever do it again.  We were on a baby elephant (only 25 years old) whose name was Pinky, although I surmise that given that these elephants reside within the Pink City, they are most likely all named Pinky.  I think I would wager money on that.  The Maharajah built the Amer Fort to live in.  So, it was not really a fort, but rather a house.  There was another fort that was built overlooking the Amer Fort that housed the military that protected Amer Fort.  The fort itself is surrounded by two separate fortification walls, both of which were heavily guarded.  Our guide tried to compare them to the Great Wall of China, but I don't really think there's any comparison, to be honest.

Amer Fort

All-mighty fortification wall

View from elephant

Dad on elephant

Others on elephants -- at one point our
driver decided to shift into gear and high-tail
it in front of all of the other elephants. Not sure
Dad loved the new, improved speed. Haha.

Another view from elephant

Double fortification wall < Great Wall of China

The fort is made up of three different pavilions: the public pavilion (open to all), the semi-public pavilion (by invitation only), and the private pavilion (limited to the Maharajah and his hordes of women).   The public pavilion housed a gorgeous hall that the Maharajah had had built for public forums.  He invited Emperor Jehangir to come and see it, but the Emperor had a last-minute engagement, and sent his advisers in his place.  The advisers were so jealous of the Maharajah that they misreported to the Emperor that the Maharajah was trying to one-up the Emperor with his hall.  So, the Emperor visited the Maharajah to see what the fuss was about and requested that the Maharajah not use his hall for public forums.  I guess it's fortunate that the Emperor didn't order the Maharajah to tear down his prized hall, but on the other hand, the hall was never once used for its intended purpose.  The semi-public areas housed two pavilions: the house of glory and the house of pleasures.  These pavilions were all "wheel-chair accessible" because the women used to wear outfits adorned with gold and jewels that were so heavy that they needed to be wheeled around the compound due to fatigue.  Some of the heaviest outfits weighed up to 20 pounds! Talk about a good workout, although if you're being carted around all day, I guess it kind of defeats the purpose.

Public pavilion

Inside Amer Fort

It was around this time that our guide asked me, "Now Priya, you know that Rosewood and Sandalwood are very fragrant woods known for their scents.  Can you name the three other woods that are well-known around the world? Surely, you must know them."  Well, I didn't.  I couldn't think of any other famous fragrant woods.  Neither could Dad.  We were stumped.  Do you know the answer? Think hard now.  You'll kick yourself when I tell you the answer.  Got it yet? No? Okay, here goes: Hollywood, Bollywood, and Tiger Woods.  Ha. Ha. Ha. I guess it's kind of funny in the knee-slapper kind of way? But I mean, at least it made our guide interesting!

In the house of pleasures, there was the same kind of gorgeous glass-on-the-ceiling concept that we had seen in Agra, but it was also closed off to the public due to the same theft problem.  Jeez people, really? You see something shiny and feel the compulsion to rip it off the wall?  I don't get it. At all.  This guide didn't have the same kind of hook-up as our last guide -- too bad.  Similar to Tu Doc (Vietnamese Emperor), our Maharajah was quite the busy man.  He had twelve wives (who needs twelve?!?!) and -- get ready for this -- 350 other ladies (i.e. concubines).  Whoa.  Let's do some quick math here.  That means that he had 362 women total.  This man only got three days off all year long! Honestly, it's pretty gross.  Those wives must have been pretty ticked off.  And you'd think that the court would be rife with cat-fighting, or something, with all those women competing for his affection, but he was a pretty clever man.  He used an elaborate secret tunnel system so that the women wouldn't know which lady was with the Maharajah at any given time.  Similarly, this kept the women from knowing which women were his favorites. Super sneaky. Sheesh.

House of Pleasures

Beautiful embedded glass work

Ceiling

See that guy in the mirror with the camera? That's Dad.

View from the top of Amer Fort

Afterwards, we headed to the City Palace where today's Maharajah (although mostly a figurehead) still lives.  The palace was full of different museums where we were able to see wartime exhibits of guns and swords, shields and sabers.  We also got to see the twenty pound dress -- so I can say for sure that it exists, and although it was quite exquisite, I don't think it would ever be enough to make me want to wear it.  So not worth it.  I'll wear my jewels in my ears and around my neck... maybe on my fingers, but not on my clothing too.  Our guide led us through this palace and specifically pointed out two giant jugs made out of sterling silver, which are in the Guinness Book for the world's largest jugs (hehe).  Each jug holds 900 gallons of water.  That is a ridiculous amount.  Apparently, back in the day, when the Maharajah had to travel to England for a meeting, he didn't want to drink "foreign water," so he had the two jugs filled with water from the Ganges (i.e. holy water) and transported (presumably by horse or mule or donkey) from Bombay to London.  Wow. That must have taken forever.  He probably didn't even finish all that water.  I mean, that means that he had 1800 gallons of water transported for his sole use.  I bet he used it for bathing and brushing he is teeth too.

The birds are everywhere! Kind of like the flies...

Gorgeous -- at the City Palace

Another snake charmer

City Palace

Giant Jug

Jaipur is known for block printing.  All of the dyes are made without chemicals
and all colors are derived from vegetables.

Our last stop of the day was at Jantar Mantar, the sun dial observatory.  Basically, the Maharajah had giant sun dials constructed, immediately next to the City Palace.  Although the sun had been hiding behind clouds all day, we lucked out when it decided to peek out for a few minutes while we were at the observatory.  Apparently, the Maharajah was obsessed with knowing the local time.  We (as civilizations) constructed time zones for convenience and continuity, but since time technically depends on the sun's location, the exact time will be different in two places twenty miles from each other.  Because much of Indian tradition (and especially this specific Maharajah's beliefs) centers on superstition, it was important to know the exact local time.  To this end, he had more than one sun dial constructed to verify that they were accurate.  He also constructed a sundial to calculate where in the zodiac cycle we are, but he also constructed individual dials for each zodiac sign and we couldn't for the life of us figure out how they worked or what they were supposed to show.  Still pretty cool that it was done on such a large scale.

Sundial

Sundial

Zodiac finder

My zodiac - thing that we couldn't figure out!

That evening, Dad and I indulged in massages.  Wow were they ever amazing.  Now, on this trip, I've gone from never having had a massage in my life, to having had four! I wish they were this cheap back in the States.  We had to wrap up early and hit the hay because we had a super early morning flight out of Jaipur the next morning on our way to the Himalayas!

Overall, I think Jaipur was my favorite city.  It was charming and pretty, and marginally less dirty than other cities (although, compared to Agra, anything would look pristine).

Over and Out.

-- Priya/Pri/P/Preesh/Pixi/LPJ/P-Money/Baibiya