Fond Farewell to India ...

My day in Jaipur was the last day sightseeing and touring in India. Next day it was a leisurely drive back to Delhi, savouring all the sights, sounds and wonderful traffic along the way ! And off to the airport next morning for my flight back to London.

I've had a marvellous adventure in India. I've loved every minute of it, the vibrant colours (Magenta is indeed the beige of India !), the Life and death traffic !, the stunning beauty of the country, but above all meeting wonderful people along the way.

Thank you India .. and I look forward to coming back soon ..

Here's a little reminder of my visit to Kerala .. God's Own Country ..



Bye till next time ....

Kate

(catherine.docherty@tinyworld.co.uk)

Wonderful Jaipur

Jaipur is a wonderful city, probably my favourite of all the places I visited during my trip.

Jaipur was founded in 1727 by, (and named after) Jai Singh II, whose family had ruled a sizeable part of northern Rajasthan. The old 'Pink City' in the clip above is the heart of Jai Singh's old city and a marvel of town planning. The striking grid-plan layout boasts wide, dead straight streets, laid out at right angles and broadening to spacious plazas at major intersections. The design was created in accordance with the Vistu Shastras, a series of ancient Hindu architectural treatises, whereby the entire layout can be read as a kind of mandala, or sacred diagram, in which the city becomes a devinely ordained element of the overreaching cosmic design. Old Jaipur is a walled city, surrounded by walls and imposing gateways.

I've heard 2 explanations for the 'Pink City' title. One is that it was painted Pink as a welcome for the Prince of Wales who visited India in 1870. The other is that the Pink colour was used to disguise the poor quality materials used, and was a feature of the original design. Not sure .....

I absolutely loved the Pink City. It was wonderful to stroll around the streets and see the very colourful bazaar. It's extremely local, where the people buy vegetables and spices as well as hand painted silk scarves and all sorts of goodies. It's not at all touristy .. wonderful.


In the morning, we went to the Amber Fort and Palace. The tour started by elephant ! My elephant was called Champah. There are 100 elephants on duty every day to take the tourists up to the palace. It's quite a steep pathway up for the elephants and very narrow. There was quite a traffic jam along the way !

The Amber Palace is a magnificent complex, hugely ornate, particularly the Hall of Mirrors where the original walls, ballustrades and ceilings are wonderfully preserved and still look fresh and new.

The Amber Palace was initiated by Raja Man Singh I, who was a brilliant general and Commander in Chief of the Mugul army. He was regarded as one of the nine gems of Akabar's court. Amber had been the capital of the Kachawa kings from 1036 to 1727, when the new town of Jaipur was built, by Jai Singh II.

Here's some of the scenes from the Palace tour.





After the Palace, we went to see the Jantak Mantar, the Observatory. This is an amazing place, built by Jai Singh II. He was something of a mathematician and an astromoner and designed many of the instruments himself. Amazingly, the instruments (built between 1728 and 1734) still work !! I was fascinated by the small sun dial, pictured here. You read the time from the shadow. The line on the left of the shadow is the 11am line, and the shadow falls one notch before the Quarter hour .. i.e. 11.14 am. Now the blue sign above tells you that because true Jaipur time is actually 31 minutes behind Indian time, you need to add on 31 minutes .. that makes it 11.45 am. I looked at my watch and it showed exactly 11.45 am .. amazing for a 350 + year old instrument.

The Observatory is directly opposite the City Palace, where the royal family still have a residence. We went to see the parts that are open to the public. It houses a museum showing artifacts of the life of the royal family, after they moved down to Jaipur from Amber.

The City Palace has a gate which opens onto the main street of the Pink City. This gate is just used by the Royal family. Afterwards while I was strolling around the bazaar, I hear people say that the Maharaja was arriving and I could see a lot of fuss around the gate. I expected an elephant or a camel .. or at least gold carriage. I was very disappointed to see a black limousine with dark windows ! No pomp and ceremony at all !!

The Road to Jaipur

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Today we left Agra behind and headed for Jaipur. I found the journey very interesting .. as the little video clip shows .. (with gracious acknowledgement to my technical guru Srini, who showed me how to make the video clips - Thank you Srini !).

I had only ever seen Camels in the zoo before and hadn't regarded them as working animals, but in the dessert of Rajasthan, the camel is just the job, and we saw them doing all kinds of work today, pulling big carts of hay, moving people about, and generally acting like we'd use horses or trucks in the west .. wonderful .. it made my day.

There was only one main sightseeing stop today and that was not far from the begining of the journey, at the Fatehpur Sikri Royal Palace. This is a magnificent structure built by Akabar in 1569. It was built as a celebration for the birth of his son. Akabar had 3 wifes, one Hindu, one Muslim and one Christian. None had borne him a son. The story is that when returning from his victory over Gujrat, Akbar visited the Sufi Saint, Sheikh Salim Christi, who was famous for his holy deeds and asked him to intervene and bring about the birth of a son. It is said that the Sufi Saint sacrificed his own son to provide the soul for Akabar's newborn son, who was born to his Hindu wife, Empress Jodha Bai. The son was named after the Sufi Saint, Mohammad Salim and he ascended to the throne as Emperor Janangir (the father of Shah Jehan who built the Taj Mahal .. got that now ? !!).

Akbar considered the new town to be very lucky and named it 'Fatehpur', the town of victory, after the conquest of Gujrat. The small village of Sikri, where the new town grew up was home to some stone cutters and their work is evidenced all around the Palace.

The Palace is wonderfully elaborate with 3 place of worship, one for each of the wives, including the very large Hindu temple, a smaller Mosque and a very small Christian church. There were even 3 different kitchens to provide for the different food traditions.


This ostentatious stage surrounded by a large pond of rose water was for the muscians to amuse the Emperor and his wives.
Our visit to Fatehpur Sikri was quite early in the morning and there were no crowds at all, so it was a very comfortable visit.

On to Jaipur itself, where I checked into the Mandawa Haveli, a wonderfully traditional building which has been converted from a Maharaja Palace to a hotel. Many of the Palaces have now been converted to hotels, as the Royal family have had only an honorary role in Indian society, and therefore no income, since Independence in 1947, when a democratic state was founded.

After settling in, it was off to dinner and a special kind of Fun Fair at Chokhi dani (an ethnic village resort). It was a really great evening. I didn't see any other foreigners, so it's obviously a place for locals or visiting Indians. The fair included games for children, rides on Elephants, Camels, Donkeys and oxen, Palmists, stalls selling local crafts (and blissfully no hassle from the traders !). The dinner was fantastic (once you got used to the seating style on the floor !). It was traditional Rajasthani food, which I really liked, quite spicy but not overpowering.

Here's some of the action from the fair ...

Awesome Agra ...

I don't think there are words to describe the absolute enchantment of the Magnificent Taj Mahal. As you enter through the East gate, you get a glimpse through the archway of the gate. I couldn't take my eyes away from it until I was standing in front of it and had a full uninterrupted view of the most beautiful building in the world.

My first thought was that it couldn't possibly be as old as it is. It was built between 1630 and 1653, by the Emperor Shah Jehan, in memory of his wife Mumtaj Mahal, who died delivering their 14th child. She was his third and favourite wife. It's said that when she died he had no more than 20 white hairs in his beard, and within 3 days his head and beard were totally white ..

The building looks pristine as if it were finished yesterday, or at least has very recently had a major facelift or steam clean. It hasn't ! It's spotless. It is made of white marble from nearby Jaipur, which never needs maintenance. It took 20 thousand men and 18 years to build. (The other 5 years from 1630 to 1653 were for the surrounding mosques and gates). The environment is very well preserved. There are restrictions on the type of vehicle which can drive into the immediate area. We had to park at a car park and take an electric car to the site and any cigarettes, cigars or matches, lighters etc., are confiscated at the entrance.

There were crowds on the site today as I'm sure there are every day. However, it was still possible to find quite spaces to savour it and to take photos. The 'Princess Diana' bench is very popular and there were queues for photos there, but the queue moved along in a very orderly way and no one was unduely delayed. The queue to get inside the building took a little longer, but that was fine. You could gaze up at it and see the detail more closely while queueing. You're not allowed to take photos inside, so nothing to show from there. The complex coloured designs look like paint, but in fact they are inlaid precious stones, absolutely beautiful and again look very recent and not at all 350 years old.

Inside, it's quite a small chamber where you can see a reproduction of the tomb. The real one is placed below the surface in the same place. The Taj Mahal is totally symmertical down a line which runs through the centre of the building and the grounds. The centre line bisects the Empress's tomb. The only piece within the entire complex which breaks the symmerty is the Emperor's tomb which is placed at the side of his wife's. Obviously, there is no Emperor's tomb on the other side.

It was very hot today, but there's quite a lot of shade in the arena as there are plenty of trees, so the heat wasn't oppressive. Also, we had waited till later in the day to visit the Taj, to save the best of the conditions for the masterpiece.

It was a truely aweinspiring experience to spend time today at the Taj Mahal and definitely a major highlight of the trip.

We had started the day leaving Delhi quite early and driving to Agra. We stopped along the way to take a photo of a snake charmer .. well I thought I was just going to take a photo, but the charmer decided to make his slimy friend part of the action and place the very large snake around me. As you can see I wasn't too sure at first ! but I got used to him when his fangs were directed out of my face ...

My hotel in Agra was the Raj Mahal, a brand new one, which only opened 2 months ago. It's lovely and the staff are wonderful. They could not be more helpful, and the food was fantastic. I really enjoyed my stay at the Raj Mahal.

Our first call today, before we went to the Taj, was the Red Fort at Agra. This is a magnificent citdel on the other side of the Yamuna River about 2km northwest of the Taj Mahal. The river was very low today and there was hardly any water, but when the river is full, it almost looks like a sea between the 2 sites. The fort was built between 1565 and 1573, started by Akbar the Great. Akbur was the grandson of Babur, the founder of the Mugul empire. Babur had sent his son, Humayun to capture Agra, which he did, but in such a benevolent manner that the family of the previous ruler, the Raja of Gwalior rewarded Humayun with many fine gifts, among them the Koh-i-noor Diamond, now one of Britain's Crown Jewels. The ancient city of Agra maintained it's position as capital of the Mugul Empire for over a century even when Akber's grandson, Shah Jehan (of Taj Mahal fame above), built a new city, Shahjehanabad, now known as Old Delhi, his heart remained in Agra. The Red Fort of Agra was comissioned and started by Akbar, but it was his grandson Shah Jehan who had most of the principle buildings erected. The Fort became the seat of the Mugul empire for many generations.

Shah Jehan built his wonderful monument of Love, within sight of the fort. You can see the Taj from a few places around the fort. Later after the Taj Mahal was built, Shah Jehan was placed under house arrest by his son in the Fort, where he sat daily and gazed at his creation. When he died he was buried alongside his wife in the Taj Mahal.

What a memorable and exciting day. It was wonderful and I felt quite drained at the end of it all.

Tomorrow it's on the road again to Jaipur.

Here's some highlights of the day ...