Jaipur – A City of Wonders and Confusion

Jaipur is the first city we visited on our own since staying in Rajkot with Annie, Hubert and the hospitable Kaneria family. 

We visited a number of sites including the sacred Monkey Temple at Galta where (primarily Indian) pilgrims bathe and cleanse literally and spiritually.  And yes, there were many monkeys, but you see one, you see them all.

---

The Amber Fort, the original city of Jaipur, is a beautiful sight to see and it provides great views of the current city of Jaipur. Apart from the sounds of other tourists walking around, it’s a quiet and peaceful retreat from the noise of the city.

Jal Mahal “Water Palace” photo taken on a quick stop along the way to Amber Fort.

---

The Pink City in Jaipur, founded in 1727, was built to accommodate the rapidly growing population and scarcity of water within the walls of Amber Fort. It was considered to be ahead of its time with progressive urban planning on a grid system. It has since expanded well beyond the walls of the Pink City!

---

In 1853, when the Prince of Wales visited Jaipur, the Maharaja of the day ordered the walls of the new city to be  painted pink as a sign of hospitality. It has been maintained that colour ever since. Within the walls of the Pink City, our first stop on our whirlwind tour of Jaipur was the Hawa Mahal, a distinctive pink sandstone fortress built in 1799 for the ladies of the royal family to watch processions and celebrations in the streets in utmost privacy. They looked down into the street  through the honeycomb holes where they can see out, but you can’t see in.

---

David’s geek side was piqued by Jantar Mantar, an astrological observatory started by Jay Singh in 1728 featuring fourteen larger than life devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking star location as the earth orbits around the sun, etc.  Each is a fixed and 'focused' tool. The Samrat Yantra, the world’s largest sundial standing at 90 feet (27 m) high, still  tells the time of day to an accuracy of about two seconds. Understandably, this impressive observatory was designated a World Heritage site  and it continues to wow thousands of visitors, including us.

---

Our tour of this day was quite interesting and thought provoking.  Read on about our observations about our own faulty planning and misguided trust gone wrong.