Roaming Redhead: Jaipur Trip

We took a Hindi immersion trip to Jaipur a few weekends ago, and I am finally getting to post the pictures up. We took the trip with people in Hindi class at the embassy, so it was a great chance to meet some new people. For those who don't know, Jaipur is the capital of the state of Rajasthan here in Delhi. Historically Rajasthan was home to great kings and scholars. Our guy Jai Singh II who built Jantar Mantar was Rajasthani king, and he also built a bigger Jantar Mantar in Jaipur as well as laid out the city of Jaipur. Jaipur is known as "pink city" as will be obvious by the pictures...

Getting to Jaipur
We hopped on a bus in Delhi and set out for the drive. There is a 4 lane highway between Delhi and Jaipur, which is really well maintained, really well laid out. I liken the roads to those I have traveled on many times in the Midwest or out in Syracuse. Basically like a US Route without the stoplights. BUT the thing that slowed us down is who uses the highway. Literally everyone from walkers, bicyclers, scooters, cars, tractors, buses. You name it. Plus there are little towns or tourist places along the way at which you can stop, use the bathroom, buy some snacks and overpriced goods. Like a rest stop, again only there is no on or off ramp, just a turn into a parking lot. So we are stopping, going, swerving, honking, etc.

Side note on honking: as a driver you honk as you are coming up on someone so they know you are there. No one, I mean no one uses rear view mirrors. So lots of honking to create space around your car and raise awareness, not because someone is driving like a maniac.

Anyhow, it is along trip, but here are some pictures from the way out:

Old Coke vending stand, dog, burning trash.

Typical of one of the side of the road small towns we drove by along the way. Cows are typical too. They can be found on any street-right here in my neighborhood too!

We are not sure what these guys are doing, but we passed hundreds of them. We think some sort of pilgrimage.

Hanging out in one of the towns we passed. Can you believe the color?

Once we got to our hotel, Sandip and our friend Bion did their best impression of the Commonwealth Games. Good thing US didn't have any teams in the competition because these guys would have definitely taken gold in table tennis.

The great table tennis match of 2010.

Wouldn't want to be on the receiving side of that, would you?

Random Shots from the city.
We didn't get to walk around the city which I would have really liked to do, but we did get to see a lot from the bus. Below are just some shots we took throughout our few days in Jaipur. You can see the buildings really are pink.

Site Seeing: Day 1
Then we set out to see a few of the famous Jaipur sites. We saw three: the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, Hawa Mahal aka (Palace of Winds), and the Jaipur Palace.

Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds)
This is in the 1000 places to see before you die book. It is a really big palace with a lot of windows right on a busy street. Designed so that royal women can look to see what is happening out on the road (parades, peeps, etc) without being seen. This palace is not very deep. Apparently you can go inside, but we did not. Truth be told these pictures were taken day two...

Pretty cool, right?

Detail of the window

Jantar Mantar
This is far larger than the one in Delhi. It is in fact the largest stone observatory in the world, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Concept is the same as the one in Delhi, and you will see similarities.

This is on a 27 degree incline (the other side is a on an incline in the opposite direction). These sides represent the hemispheres so the sun is on one side of this if summer solstice, other side if winter solstice

I forget what this tells us, but it is super cool.

There was a whole part dedicated to the Zodiac. This is Sandip in front of the Libra part .

See the similarities to the one in Delhi

Detailed measurement. The words are in Hindi

This is looking down into the ground. This instrument tells you position of the stars. Most people think Singh himself personally designed this, and is the most accurate instrument here. See the strings running across the picture-there is an object at the center of these strings that casts a shadow below where you get the reading.

I'm catching some shade near these devises. They used to be free spinning but too many kids spun them for fun. Astronomers use these to tell angle of stars.

City Palace
Three guesses as to who started building this? You got it...Jai Singh II. Though buildings were added to the complex over time. Notice this is yellow while the rest of the city is pink. The tour guide said it was because his palace can't be the same color as the common people's homes. Not sure if that is true, but makes sense to me.

Both above pictures are of the first building within the palace area. It is the Welcome Palace built in 1900. It used to be a welcoming building, and now is costumes, textiles, etc. One king's pajamas were HUGE. We didn't have the foresight to get a photo.

One of the doors in city palace. Looking from the welcoming palace through to where more buildings are.

Me in front of door. Check out the rockin arm socks courtesy of Shoko to keep the sun away. Go away sun!

This is once we walked through that door. Those are HUGE silver urns which are listed in the Guinness book of world records as the largest silver objects in the world. They were used to carry water from the Ganges.

Close up of the Urn.

Sandip in the place that is housing the urn.

How could we resist taking this photo? It to the immediate right of the photos with the urns.

Monkey on top of the wall at city palace.

The building in the back is the actual residence. We couldn't go in, but we got closer. See how it is yellow, not pink.

This is the courtyard closer to the actual residence. There were four doors: one for each season. I don't remember which season this is.

This is Caitlin. Her shirt is in Hindi and says "I am not a tourist, I live here" in Hindi. Classic.

Check out the amazing sunset we saw from the rooftop deck of our hotel!

Day Two: Village Visit, Amber Fort

Village Visit

We went to a village outside of Jaipur that is well developed and had several visits to various schools and places in the village. Below are the photos.

Lots and lots of brick kilns on the way to this village.

Me and Brooke. More on the loving of blond hair later.

They are singing a song for us. Notice how they also decorated the classroom.

Here are the boys.

Me with kids from a different school.

Girls from yet another school.

Making silly faces.

Scene in the village

Another shot in the village. I guess they are announcing praise to Vishnu, one of the three main Hindu Gods.

Amber Fort

Wanna guess who built this thing? Well, it was Jai Singh, but the first (as opposed to second who built the Jantar Mantar, city of Jaipur, etc). This fort is before Jaipur, and was used as the main citadel until things moved to Jaipur in like the 1720s. After that still used for ceremonies, etc.

We got there as a group and-surprise-got a con put on us. We were told you had to take jeeps up to the fort even though you could clearly walk. The rationale was there was a festival. But the bus driver even confirmed this so the group agreed to pay for this jeep. (note, the festival was happening, but plenty of people still walked). Jeep dropped us at the exit, not entrance so we were like salmon. This did not bode well for a pleasant start point, but it was still a great sight.