1st Day in Jaipur

Me in Jaipur with Palace and Fort in the background.
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Got up around 7:00am and took a shower. It was interesting using the shower at this hotel. The hot water heater was in the bathroom just above the toilet and you had to turn on the cold water inlet and then turn on the shower. It was tricky to get the temperature right, but I got it to work well enough to take a shower. I then went downstairs to get some breakfast. I just got some toast, this noodle stuff, a hard boiled egg, and some water. It was the only stuff that wasn't questionable or curry. I grabbed my bags, checked out of the hotel, and waited in the lobby for the driver to pick me up. As I waited I grabbed a newspaper that was in English and read a few articles. The funniest one was this one about the government capturing monkeys in the city and this animal rights group was releasing them becauses the cages were too small. I guess the monkey menace is a huge problem in India and they have to round them up and put them in a zoo or sanctuary. I then had a five and a half hour drive to the city of Jaipur. It is a city of about 2.5 million people and is the capital of Rajasthan that was founded by Raja Jai Singh. It is also known as the Pink City, since the buildings surrounding the city palace were originally made out of red sandstone that has a pink color and the other buildings are all painted pink. The buildings are arranged with shops and stores on the first floor and then residents on the second and third floors. There was lots of animals in the streets mainly cattle and dogs, but there were also monkeys running across the tops of buildings and walls. I finally made it to my hotel, the Sarang Palace, at round 2:00pm. I checked into the hotel and as I was checking in the guys behind the counter grab a tray with two bowls on it. He gave me a red dot on my forehead with this red paste and then stuck uncooked rice to it. After I got into my room, I washed my face since that stuff on my forehead felt kind of strange and I looked stupid. I know it is a cultural thing, so I didn't complain when he put it on but I wasn't going to wear it around the rest of the day. The tour guide met me at the hotel about twenty minutes later and we left for the half day tour of Jaipur. We first stopped to get some lunch, since I had not eaten since breakfast and I was starving. It was an Indian resturant, but they made food for tourist because most real Indian food would give you stomach problems unless you were used to it. I got the Tandoor mixed grill, since I liked the Tandoor chicken the day before. It had grilled vegetables and the four things cooked Tandoor style; chicken breast, chicken legs, potatoes, and tofu I think. It was all good, but the tofu since I don't like it. The food was pretty good and rather cheap only about $7 US. We then went to the Royal Observatory known as the Jantar Mantar, which had lots of structures that still worked and a few that didn't. It was built using blue prints from Raja Jai Singh, who was an excellent astronomer. It was $10 rupees to get in and $50 rupees to take pictures at the Observatory. There were a few elaborate sun clock that was marked down to the quarter of a minute and was accurate if you added 33 minutes to get India standard time. There was also a huge one that was under renovation, but it still worked and was marked to the second. The scaffolding that they were using was just bamboo logs tied together with rope and most of the workers were teenage boys. I guess the labor laws are alot different in India. There were a couple of structures that would tell you what the current astrological sign was and then one structure for each sign. There were a couple of structures that would tell you the acute angle of the sun, but the bronze rings had been bent from kids climbing on them, so they weren't accurate anymore. We then visited the City Palace for the cost of $180 rupees and pictures weren't allowed in the art gallery or the museum with all the garments that were worn by the previous kings of Rajasthan. The current king and his family still lived in the palace, so we were not allowed in the living area of the palace. The last stop was a textile and carpet workshop and store. They first showed me how they did block printing using several different wood blocks to make patterns and fill them in using different colors. All the dyes they used were made from natural flowers and herbs. The material was then dried in the sun and the colors would change and be set into the cloth. They did a demostration and used chemicals to show the oxidation that occurs when it dries in the sun. The brown color changed to green and the orange turned yellow on the elephant example pattern they used. I then got to see how the hand-made carpets were woven together. They weave the wool or silk onto the backing by making figure eight knots with the yarn and then cutting it and moving to the next set of backing strings. They use a pattern sheet so they know where to use the different colors to make the designs on the carpet. I actually got to try my hand at making a few knots on the carpet. The really large carpets can take one person over a year to complete. It then has to be washed, the threads separated, combed and finished. I then got the sales pitch. They showed me lots of different carpets and then took me to their store that had lots of clothes, scarves, and materials that they would hand tailor clothes for you. I am on a shopping ban, so I am not buying anything that I would have to lug around through Europe. I then was taken back the hotel where I relaxed and watched a little TV. I had dinner at the hotel resturant and got some Chinese food to mix it up a little and I was tired of chicken and curry food. The bathroom was a little different in that the whole bathroom was the shower, so there was just a shower head and two knobs and the only door was the bathroom door and no walls just a tile floor with a drain. There were also some plastic buckets and a stool that I had no idea what they were for. I thought maybe laundry, but there was sign on the back of the door that said there was a fine for doing laundry in the hotel room. The toilet was also different and it had a buday, not sure of the spelling. It was a hose hooked to a faucet and connect just below the toilet seat. I had never used one and feeling adventurous, so I gave it a try. I little cold and different, but probably a necessity if you ate the spicy real Indian food.

I guess the monkey menace is a huge problem in India and they have to round them up and put them in a zoo or sanctuary.