Jaipur

A book I bought describes Jaipur as "a tourist's Eden." I think my description will differ. Although there is a lot of beauty and history in Jaipur, which is known as the "Pink City", I was more overwhelmed by the poverty, pollution, beggars and hawkers. Jaipur is one of the locations in the Golden Triangle on the travel circuit for India. We visited 5 historic sites here and saw a lot more.

The City Palace is in the heart of the city and it is a beautiful building. I enjoyed the beautiful paintings on the walls and around the doors as shown in this picture with Jon. The colors are vibrant and stunning and I am not sure that the pictures really capture the colors. Like other buildings in Jaipur, the building itself is pink. It has an open air concept as do all of the other palaces we visited. There is a part of the palace where a princess still lives.

Hawa Mahal is the famous building built for women to be able to watch the happenings on the street below without being observed. The rooms are few feet deep and the most impressive thing about this building is the way it looks on the outside. What is not very obvious from this picture is the hustle and bustle that is present in front of this building. We were probably approached by half a dozen hawkers and at least a couple of beggars.  The street in front of the building is a mess and does not have a completed sidewalk or place where one can stand without being hassled by traffic or people.

The Amber fort outside the city was impressive as all of the forts have been that we have visited. They have long walls that surround them, usually sit up on a hill and look fairly impregnable. This fort is called the Amber Fort after a ruler, not because of the color which is what I originally thought.

On the water there is a lovely palace called the Jal Mahal built as a summer resort in 1799. When we got out to look at this palace a hawker called to us from a distance "Hey, hey over here, come here." He wanted us to go to him so he could convince us to buy something, probably information about Jal Mahal.

The monkey temple known as Galtaji Temple was probably the nicest temple we have seen so far at least as far as the setting. It is in between mountains and at the top there is a view of Jaipur. Laurie and I were blessed with a puja at this temple. We walked towards a little shrine and happened to meet up with a priest there. He took more time with us then I have experienced at any other temple so far. He asked for a donation of course. Laurie and I joked that we had fallen into a time warp because Jon and Chris were looking for us for about 30 minutes and we thought we had only been in the temple for about 10. When we met up with Chris he was not happy and we were scolded by the man at the gate and his wife. I could not understand her but I think she was saying "Boy are you in trouble now." Jon was not upset and I was not worried. 

Another temple we stopped to view was the Birla temple which was a beautiful marble temple. A busload of pilgrims or tourists stopped there at the same time

Although we were impressed by all of these sites, I have to say that one of the main things I am taking away from Jaipur is something you will not see in the guide books. There was a lot of filth and poverty in this city. There is a lot of it everywhere in India, but we thought it was a bit worse in Jaipur. Trying to walk down the street where the shops were meant trying to navigate through hazards, trash and dung everywhere.  We were probably hounded by more beggars there than in any other city and there was a little girl there that still haunts me. Begging is an issue I need to deal with separately in another blog.  

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