Jaipur

All pictures are now uploaded...except for the video of the dancers.

 Our hotel "Umaid Bhawan" is fun.  It is done in raj architecture, lots of pictures of maharajas and visits by english royalty.  

Our room door has a huge padlock and slide bolt on the door, 

Rajasthan paintings around pool, shrine to Ganesh in the courtyard, rooftop restaurant with Rajasthan music and dancers

On to todays activities in Jaipur.  The Amber Fort is the heart of a city established in 1600 on the site of an eleventh century fort.   the kings or maharajahs Man Singh and Jai Sing created a magnificent palace in the heart of the city. Their family still rules from Jaipur where the capital was moved in 1727.

 A 5-mile wall that runs along ridges (like the Great Wall in China) protected the city. 

Our guide was Vijay Singh who was very good at explaining the monuments  as well as the history and the basic beliefs of Hindus.  We took an elephant ride up the main road up to the palace.

There are almost too many things about the palace that were beautiful and unique.  The Ganesh Pol is a gateway decorated with beautiful designs that are created like a fresco: ground semi-precious stones (for colors) are mixed with lime and applied to wet plaster using stencils.  The colors are still very bright 300 years after they were made.

The Shesh Mahal is a huge room covered with mirrors.  You can imagine how it would have looked with candles lighting it.

The palace had baths, steam rooms, in fact a whole spa.  The water was lifted by a series of camel driven gears and pullies that lifted pots of water over 1300 vertical feet to tanks on the roofs.  Water was also used as a cooling system: it dripped from gutters with tiny holes creating evaporation in the hot wind that cooled the rooms. They were had some great practical applications of  sciences in the 1500's.

In 1727 the king decided to move his capital from Amber to Jaipur.  He built palaces, walls (this time a 1 km square enclosure) and fancy gates.  One of the most fascinating things he built in about 1730 is the Jantar Mantar, the royal observatory.  It looks like a  collection of modern sculpture but is actually composed of large masonry and metal instruments that tell time, track the seasons, the signs of the zodiac (he was interested in both astronomy and astrology), the angle of stars and planets from the equator and many more things.  It's too much to go into detail here but definitely worth a google search for anyone interested. In the picture the 23 degree incline ramp casts a shadow on the calibrated semi-circle showing that it is exactly 1:00 PM.

The palace also features the two largest silver objects in the world (water jugs) that king Madho Singh used to transport water from the Ganges river when he went to the London in 1901 with 300 or so courtiers.  Equally magnificent are all the furnishings in the ceremonial hall such as solid silver chairs that weigh over 800 pounds each and a throne that weighs twice that (sorry, no pictures allowed).

The royal family still lives in a part of the palace (in yellow) behind the part open to the public (in pink).  When India got independence in 1947 the local maharajas (led by the Singhs) agreed to give up their monarchies in favor of the new democracy.  In return they got to keep their palaces, lands and riches.   Oh yes, and unlike the French Revolution they also got to keep their heads. According to our guide they are much revered and loved by the people.

There are many examples of the old and new together.  Outside the palace a street vender selling fried bread (from a basket placed right on the sidewalk) was chatting away on her cell phone.

In all on the small villages running water means going to a central hand pump and filling containers.

On the newly constructed highways crews of women are squatting down sweeping the sand and rock off the edges of the road. They use these same hand brooms in the house or to sweep leaves from lawns, brooms never have handles here!

Milk is delivered fresh by the "Doodh Wallah" or milk man on his motor bike with the milk cans on the side.  Yes, it is pronounced the same as dude.

As we start out in the morning for the next city our driver, Siddu, stops at a fruit stand to get us some oranges, bananas or grapes for the ride.  He is in the white coat in the center.