Diggi (Wiggi) Palace

'Money for photo'
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We slept in late after all the excitement of the bizarre and when we got up we were informed that Bablu (the rickshaw driver from the ridiculous scene at the train station) had been waiting for us for an hour. This was because we had said to him the day before that we might, possibly,may go to Amber Fort today and that if we did we would call him. You can say what you like about Rickshaw drivers but they are definitely keen.

Once in Bablu's rickshaw, which he proudly told us was called 'noity boy', "like me, I noity boy," he said grinning widely and pointing to the lettering across the back window, which did indeed say 'noity boy', we went to the city palace which was frankly a bit dull. The only really interesting bits where the Maharajah's pyjamas, which belonged to a previous Maharajah and are about three meters wide (seriously) and two huge silver urns. The urns hold the world record for the largest things made out of a single piece of silver. They were beaten into shape over wooden molds and have no soldering - pretty amazing really. Maharajah Jai Singh II (possibly the one with the very wide pyjamas) had the urns made and filled with water from the Ganges for a trip to England because he didn't trust the water there.

Nice urn
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The palace was full of guards all done up in smart green uniforms wearing  red or pink turbans, peacock feathers sticking out of the top and curly handlebar moustaches. While me and Jon were admiring the urns one of the guards insisted that Jon take a photo of me and him (the guard) standing next to the urns. No sooner had Jon taken the photo than, (we should have been prepared for it) the guard stretched out his hand and said, 'you pay now,' we thought this was rather cheeky and left him to it.

City Palace...rather dull
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After our, rather-disappointing-don't-bother-going-if you-visit-Jaipur, Palace experience, we headed for the observatory, which is much more interesting. It is a large courtyard filled with vast structures which look like sculptures inspired by Escher paintings. These bizarre structures are actually a collection of sun-dials and instruments for studying the night sky: stars, comets, planets and all that, and were built by  Maharajah Jai Singh II who was, it would seem, a keen astronomer.

Anyone got the time?
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After the observatory Bablu took us to Amber fort which is an amazing fort way up on the hills outside of Jaipur. Amber fort was built to combine a mixture of Hindu and Muslim elements and is very beautiful, it also has a stunning view of the hills around. It reminded me a lot of some of the medieval, walled-cities in the South of France with lots of little passageways twisting and turning with steps going up and down all over the place so that you lose all sense of which way you came almost immediately. It was so carefully and lovingly constructed, all of the doorways have flowers carved into the lintels and the flagstones, that make up the walkways, are carved so that they are ridged to stop them becoming slippery with wear or wet weather. Many of the windows here have filigree screens (quite amazing as they are carved out of the rock) so that women who were in purdah could look out on the world without risking being seen and therefore breaking their purdah. The fort even has a carefully thought out air conditioning system with airways carved into the stone walls that are carefully angled to force the air to circulate.

Amber Fort - Glittery, glittery ooo Na you'd love it!
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Probably the most stunning part of the fort is a series of rooms in the middle that have mosaic walls and ceilings made from silver and mirrored parts. A woman told us that she had visited the fort ten years ago and that then you could go into this part at night with a candle. She told us that it was amazing as the candle light would sparkle and glitter all around you reflected in all of the mirrors.

While we were attempting to find our way through the maze of passageways we bumped into a very giggly newly-married couple. I use 'bumped into' in the loosest sense as they had been following us and giggling for some time (us Whities are very amusing it would seem). They were on their honeymoon  and while he looked about 30 she barely looked 12. They were very sweet and wanted to know everything about us and to have their photo taken with us,something we are getting quite used to now.

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It seems that many people here get married very young. Bablu told us later that when he got married (an arranged marriage to his cousin) he was 18 and his wife was 13 (scary) and as with Shabbu, they weren't allowed to meet before the wedding.

After the fort we asked Bablu to drive us the the beginning of the walk to Jaigarh Fort (the fort that encircles and predates Amber fort). Unfortunately it was getting quite late in the day by now and the sun was starting to set so we couldn't walk up to it, but on the way there Bablu drove us through an area that had lots of pigs and piglets running around amongst the houses, in addition to the usual cows, donkeys, horses, dogs, chickens, monkeys, goats etc.

Where's Jonny?
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This was the first time that we had seen pigs since arriving in India and when we asked Bablu about it he said that this area was where the Harijan people lived the 'downtrodden' as he called them. He told us that they are the only people who eat pig and this is why there were so many piggies around. I think that the term Harijan is now objected to by lots of people and is regarded as patronising. Apparently the correct name to use now is Dalits.

It was really interesting to drive through this area and to see into peoples' homes, many of which looked incredibly bare to us. On a roof terrace I saw two women talking, one was combing her waist-length hair and they were surrounded by potted flowers. They looked incredibly beautiful in their saris, surrounded by flowers, with the sun setting behind them.

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After that Bablu insisted, as only a rickshaw driver can, on taking us to a sari 'factory' where of course we would not be expected to buy anything, erhem... Inevitably, we admitted defeat in the 'we-don't-really-want-to-go-to-a-sari-factory' conversation and off we went. By the time we arrived at the 'factory' the sun had set and it was properly dark. The owner shook our hands and insisted on showing us where and how the saris were made. Leaving Bablu behind we  followed the 'factory' owner across the road and up a very narrow, very dark alley. I began to feel rather anxious as we proceeded and was just wondering whether to insist on turning back and wondering what our chances of being murdered were when my anxiety increased as he led us into a dark and dirty stone building full of half dressed young men. However, once I spotted the many gorgeous saris hanging from the ceiling in every colour of the rainbow, I realised that this was just another one of those crazy Indian adventures and relaxed.

Carrying rocks
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The saris made here are so lovely. They dye and block print them and all of the workers are young men from the villages surrounding Jaipur. Apparently the business was set up by the man who showed us around and a Kiwi guy in order to try and create work for the people from the villages, who often find it really hard to get work. After giving us gold, glittery bindis, with some of the gold powder used for printing the saris, and trying to sell us a sari, pashmena, quilt etc we explained that we needed to leave in order to go and meet friends (James and Marian) for dinner and we were eventually allowed to go on our way.

Sari factory or mugging?
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On our way to meet James and Marian at the excessively snazzy Diggy (wiggy) Palace (we were all in Jaipur for one day at the same time bizarrely) we made the mistake of deciding to go by cycle rickshaw. Unfortunately, the guy we picked to cycle us there was completely off his face on something that comes in a little packet that you can buy at the roadside stalls (we later learned that it was a mixture of Beetle nut,tobacco and caffeine). He kept turning around to talk to us and then riding into the gutter before dissolving into a fit of giggles. It was amusing and alarming.

The cycle rickshaw guy also cycled us up the backstreets of Jaipur which, at night, are lined with homeless families under filthy blankets bedding down for the night. It is so sad to see entire families sleeping on the pavements like that. There were tiny children tucked up fast asleep while a few feet away their parents talked around small fires they had made in the gutters. If there are railings along the pavements some people hang mirrors or pictures up and you see people shaving and cooking, the homelessness here is painfully permanent.

Several hours later (nearly) and having narrowly avoided a series of close encounters with the tarmac (Jon says more like the Grim Reaper) we arrived at the Diggy (wiggy) palace and had a surprisingly unstrange dinner with James and Marian. I expected it to feel very odd given the fact that we were all in India but it really didn't.

On the way back to our hotel Jon accidentally tipped our rickshaw driver R10 and he was over the moon. Jon passed out as soon as we got back but I stayed up to watch the Indian version of 'so you think you can dance' it was very surreal.