Category: India

We arrived in Jaipur on Saturday the 20th.

Known as the “Pink City”, Jaipur is the largest city in Rajasthan and is the 10th most populous city in India. The city is made up of the walled “Old City” and the newer city that expanded outside of the walls.

Within the walls of the Old City the law still dictates that all buildings be painted pink making this interesting in the sense that most of the buildings are pink but although alike in colour there is still an interesting diversity that is not drowned out by the sameness of colour.  Hope this makes sense.

Jaipur also has cleaner air than most if not all of its smaller counterparts and we think this can be credited to the wide use of electric tuk tuks versus the air spoiling 2-stroke engine smoke belching motorized tuk tuks. There may still be some hope for these smog filled Indian cities.

We stayed at a great budget hotel, Hotel Sweet Dream, close to the city palace with a beautiful rooftop terrace with a water feature any water feature loving person would want. The service by primarily older male staff was great. The food was excellent and the beer was cold and reasonably priced.

A family group was on the terrace celebrating their daughter’s 5th birthday and out of nowhere the young girl came over to our table and offered us birthday cake. There was a two-piece band playing Indian music and that, combined with the cake, made our evening complete.

We arrived in Jaipur mid afternoon so we visited the City Palace and left the remaining sight-seeing for the next day when we took an old original pedal-powered rickshaw to the palace and the poor old bugger doing the pedalling was probably in his forties but looked like he was 85.

We had to reassure ourselves that this is how he makes his living and it is a very good thing that both of us have lost a fair bit of weight over the past 8 months so hopefully he wouldn’t drop dead before getting us to our destination.

We were told not to pay more than 20-30 rupees. We gave him 100 rupees.

The City Palace is a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal architecture originally built by Jai Singh II but enlarged and adapted over the centuries. The palace is private and is still in use by the current 18-year-old Maharajah and the entrance fee and on-site curio shops and we assume are used to help feed the rich and send the young King to college in London. Oh, and also to help maintain the castle. Limited pictures because photos weren’t permitted inside.

City Palace 

Sunday morning we had our driver take us up to Amber Fort, a beautiful example of Rajput architecture that rises above the city on a rocky mountainside. Amber was the former capital of Jaipur state and the construction of the fort began in 1592 and houses an extensive palace complex built from pale yellow and pink sandstone and white marble.

Amber Fort

Our next stop was Jaigarh, rising high above Amber Fort and built in 1726. The walls surrounding the fort are over 20 km in circumference and offer extraordinary views of Amber and Jaipur 11 km’s away.  After Jaigarh we made a pit stop to photograph Jal Mahal, a water palace in the middle of Man Sagar (lake) before heading to Galta Jai, AKA the “Monkey Temple”.

Jaigarh and Jal Mahal

After several attempts to find Galta, our driver who has thus far assured us he knows all the spots and how to get there and only ever seems to answer “yes sir” whether it is a question, statement or observation (there will be a section soon on our experience driving with “yes sir” for thousands of km’s), we found the parking lot in front of the small, very steep road that supposedly leads to the monkey temple.

At the parking lot several stands sold peanuts which we had read somewhere will help keep the pesky simians at bay so I bought a big bag although I only wanted to get a small bag but Joyce vehemently stressed that it will save our bacon when faced with the maniacal macaques that would confront us.

Loaded up with peanuts we proceeded to get a good glute workout heading toward what was supposedly on a National Geographic special on the National Geographic Channel that aired some time ago.

Not more than 10 minutes into our climb we encountered some of the holy hairy beasts guarding the route and within a matter of seconds, a large one spotted me holding a big bag, yes a big bag of nuts and proceeded to attack me.

I looked left, he moved right and did a quick switch and he proceeded to climb up my legs and then my back while, fruitlessly I might add, trying to grab my nuts.

I swung my bag and yelled and the monkey backed off knowing not to screw with me. I looked at Joyce with a slightly evil eye and we proceeded un-accosted for the next 1/2 hour of uphill thigh-burning hell.

We reached a fork in the road. You know the story, the intrepid traveller takes the road less travelled so we turned right eyeing high upon the mountaintop what must be the famous Monkey Temple. Upon reaching the temple there was a sign. “Sun Temple”.

There were no monkeys around, there was some restoration work going on and a few old ladies were sitting around the entrance chatting and drinking chai.

Hello. Is this the monkey temple? Yes? No? Any monkeys? No. Hmm… Where are they? In the back of the mountains they said so we descended the precipice, slight exaggeration, and found our way to the other direction, turn left.

So now we are apparently looking at the monkey temple, about 750 feet below us but with one big hill in between which means a descent of 750 feet and then an ascent of 740 feet before another 750 foot descent. Damn. What to do but do it!

As we reached the second valley we approached what looks like a small temple compound and not many monkeys and we of course were approached by a temple priest with an eye for naive foreigners. He must show us his temple and bless us and tell us they rely on donations and yes this is the entrance to the monkey temple and we ask why are there only one pair of shoes at the entrance when we saw several tourists hiking down in front of us and we realized, duped again by a holy one.

We removed our shoes and were respectful and we respectfully declined his blessing and dropped 100 rupees into his scam tray, sorry, and then proceeded to get ripped off at the real entrance to the temple. 50 rupees for a camera, 150 rupees for a video camera, no charge for an iPhone which takes great video and photos and they can be posted on FB instantly if you have 4G on your phone.

This is a very big complaint we have in India so far. No charge for a smart phone, a small charge for a camera and a huge charge for a video camera. It doesn’t make sense in this day and age.

Finally we turn a corner after the entrance and we are confronted with a sight out of sci-fi heaven. Wow! Narrow cliffs surrounding water pools, monkeys, ghost town temples further down. A very cool sight and not one monkey gave me a hard time or tried to steal the remaining nuts I had. Sure, a few eyed my bag of peanuts so I proactively threw a few to them but aside from the one earlier non temple monkey who doesn’t know the meaning of karma all was calm and the monkeys were well behaved.

Galta, the Monkey Temple

This is great. We’re almost caught up but it is still “yesterday we arrived at” etc.

Yesterday we drove from Ranakpur, backtracking part way towards Jodhpur, and then headed east to Pushkar, a prominent Hindu pilgrimage town where devout Hindus should visit at least once in their lifetime. The town curls around a holy lake which is also surrounded by 52 bathing ghats where the pilgrims bathe in the sacred waters. We arrived around 3:00 pm, found a nice hotel and decided to relax and update the blog with the plan being to sleep in and tour around the sacred waters of Pushkar today!! Our first stop was to take the ropeway to the hilltop Saraswati Mata Temple. This is a very small temple with some resident Southern plains grey langurs and fantastic views of the edge of the Western Desert Plains and to the East the Aravalli mountains. Arriving back at the base safely, we headed over to town and made our way to the lake’s edge just in time to be de-shoed, sat down at the lake’s edge by a fly-by-night guru and blessed through a series of chants, hand washing, more chants, throwing a flower into the water, more chants, holding a coconut and chanting, and finally getting a red bindi smudge on our forehead before saying goodbye to 1,000 rupees that will definitely go to the local heritage fund and help save all the starving children and teach everyone to read. The bindi, combined with the red cotton string wrapped around our hand, will fend off any further gurus wanting to bless us and ask for money. We were so blessed to experience this. All kidding aside it was a serious ceremony meant to bring good karma to us and our loved ones and also grant us a wish. It was actually pretty cool and we weren’t bothered by anyone the rest of the day….except of course once we left the lake side.

We stayed at the Pushkar Fort Hotel, a very nice property a few km’s from town because (a) they serve alcohol, as it is not allowed in Pushkar proper, and (b) it is a really nice quiet resort for a very decent price. Just outside of the rear hotel gates is a Kalbeliya village, known as gypsies in the lower caste system, they live in makeshift tents, tend to their cattle and camels and live a semi-nomadic desert existence. The Bopa are another group in the area and are known for their music and fire dance shows.

 

After two nights in Jodhpur we departed to Ranakpur on Wednesday the 17th. Our original plan was to see the sights in Ranakpur in the afternoon and then drive to Udaipur and spend two nights in Udaipur, essentially having only one day to explore Udaipur since we probably wouldn’t arrive until early evening. We decided to explore the Jain temple in Ranakpur, spend the night in Ranakpur and then skip Udaipur and head straight to Pushkar. We’re gaining one night by skipping Udaipur which we will either use in Jaipur or Varanasi where we really don’t want to feel rushed. We know Udaipur would have been great to see but we unfortunately can’t see everything and we would like to slow down a little in Jaipur and Varanasi.

Ranakpur is home to one of five of the most important Jain temples in the world and the renowned temple in Ranakpur is considered to be one of the best. It contains 1,444 exquisitely carved marble pillars and no two are alike. There are five distinct ceiling domes carved in marble (the whole temple is carved in marble) and the detail in the domes and quite frankly the whole temple can only be described as mind blowing. The temple was built by 2,500 craftsmen and took fifty years to build. Walking through the temple was one big WOW!

There are several other smaller temples in the area and, on our way back to our car, right across the parking lot was what we were told is the Kama Sutra Temple. I couldn’t find anything specific about this temple or if it is in fact called the Kama Sutra Temple, but the carvings were exquisite, with a few intertwined bodies and body parts. Inside, “Photography Is Forbidden.” Joyce happened to mistakenly get a good pic of one of the many Jain deities.

We’re trying not to fall too far behind in the blog. Keeping the dates accurate and the sights, smells and sounds clear in our minds is a bit of a challenge at times but I think so far so good. We departed Jaisalmer on Monday, Jan 15th, for another fairly long drive, arriving in Jodhpur around 2:30 in the afternoon. We found a great hotel and Tony at the front desk offered to take us on a walking tour of the old town and see sights he says most tourists will never see so we said forget it! No, we of course said yes and after a little bathroom break we joined Tony for a good 1 1/2 hour, 8,000+ step, 10 story walk/hike through the old town of Jodhpur, also known as the “Blue City”. We escaped the congestion and made our way through narrow winding and sometimes steeply inclined roads and were able to get a glimpse into the other side of the day-to-day existence of the city’s inhabitants. We felt lucky to see this and we did not encounter any other foreigners throughout our walk. The blue city is slowly losing its blueness. As homes are sold, some new owners have decided to change the colours of their homes, some are adding tile facades, others leaving the paint to peel away. Of course we had to ask why the homes were painted blue in the first place and the answer is threefold. First, blue does not attract heat and since Jodhpur is also known as “Sun City” because of the amount of sunlight received every year, blue helped keep homes cool in the summer. Second, and this is interesting, blue repels mosquitoes. No mosquito will ever land on a blue surface so the homes were not just painted blue on the outside but inside as well. Third, blue was the colour of the Hindu god Krishna, the deity of love and compassion.

While walking through the neighbourhood Tony made a call and guided us to a home under renovation and after climbing several floors we reached a rooftop terrace with a great view of Old Town and Mehrangarh Fort in the distance. Making our way back we slid through an inconspicuous side door for a great view of part of the castle and then finally through the market in Old Town and a stop at an ancient step well.

Pooped, we retired to our hotel terrace restaurant and Joyce caught this great three-tiered pic: the illuminated castle, Old Town and our terrace restaurant.

Another sunny day in “Sun City” and a day spent exploring Mehrangarh Fort and Museum and Jaswant Thada. Originally built in 1459, with many other portions built up to 1803, the fort also houses a palace, now a museum, and is an exquisite example of Rajput architecture. Perched atop a 130-metre escarpment, the materials used to build the fort were chiseled from the rock on which the fort stands.

We were getting sore feet but decided to head over to Jaswant Thada, a marble memorial to Maharaja Jaswant Singh II. The whole structure and funeral pyres are chiseled from solid marble.

After a short visit to Jaswant Thada, our tuk-tuk driver suggested a leisurely stroll in a park which we cannot find the name of but contains several beautiful Hindu memorials/shrines dating to the 14th century. The walk to the temples was filled with beggars, lepers and filth. The temples seemed out of place, there was garbage everywhere and it was a huge disappointment to see such beauty among all the shit and crap and filth. The Indians (most) seem to have no concern for their environment. It is truly a pity to see this, but sadly it is not just India that has this problem, and we wonder what the solution might be, if any.

Next stop, Ranakpur.