Jaipur - India

3/12/05
Our cab driver picked us up at the hotel at 9 am and we left for Jaipur in a charming white car made in India, called Ambassador.
We made a stop on the road for breakfast and tried Gobi Parantha, a fried Indian bread (pita bread shape) stuffed with cabbage, and as a drink we had Darjeeling tea.
The traffic is very messy and we started to understand why they honk so much, many many vehicles of all kinds, cars, trucks, tuk-tuks, motorcycles, rickshaws and also bicycles do not have mirrors, and signaling before turning right or left simply does not exist here, so to alert the other drivers that they are about to do something, whatever it is, turn, stop, overcome a car, truck or bike they honk, desperately, it is just like hell.
We didn't even notice we had left New Delhi behind, because there is no gap, we drove for dozens of kilometers away from New Delhi and it was always crowded, ...



... houses and houses and many many people on the road. We all know that the population of India is over a billion, but you just can't picture it unless you come here. Finally, we arrived into the countryside.



We crossed many lentil fields and the workers harvesting, by hand, were mostly women in beautiful colorful saris.



Carriages pulled by camels, ...



... overloaded with lentils, nomads ...





... and thousands of little Tata trucks, all carrying the lentils and many, way way overloaded, are driving in this little dusty road that connects New Delhi to Jaipur.
Arriving in Jaipur we saw the Water palace ...



... and closer to the city we came across elephants on the street. Wow! Try to imagine, now the traffic was composed of cars, rickshaws, bikes, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, trucks, camels, cows, monkeys, hundreds of pedestrians and elephants. They really have to honk. Moreover there are stack of sticking trash aside the roads and lots of sand and dust flying in the air.
The hotel here was really great (thanks Tourism Bureau). We checked in and had a little rest from the trip but soon we were on the way to see the Gaitor Fort, ...





... where lays the worlds biggest canon. It uses 100 kg of powder for one shot and can reach a target in a range of 16 miles. However, it was never used in combat and its only shot was for a demonstration/test. Then, on the road we saw a naked guy walking. He is a Jain, which is a branch of Hinduism and they are always naked.
After the Fort we went to see a Maharaja palace in the Tiger Fort, where we learned about his 9 wives, and how they had 9 individual apts composing the palace.



There we had another voluntary guide, we are almost getting used to it and we are starting to realize that it is not an exclusive thing of the Egyptians. After visiting these two places we went back to the hotel. The only weird thing of the hotel was that, for dinner, if you want to eat in the restaurant of the hotel it is more expensive then ordering exact the same thing in the room, and I mean, from the same restaurant and same menu. Well, we ate in the room.

3/13/05
We started the day at 9 am and went to visit the Amber Fort.





Here a young Indian politely asked if we wanted a guide and presented his guide ID and a price, 200 rupees, he was an Indian History student and we decided to hire him to guide us around in the Fort. Some tourists choose to do it by an elephant tour but we didn't.





We visited pretty much every room of the Fort and it was really interesting to hear the stories and explanations about the Maharajas lifestyle.





A Maharaja can be compared to an European King in a simplistic view. It was a strong and powerful man, it had an army, a Fort (castle) with walls around his protected area and he was taxing people. Thus, increasing his fortune and enhancing his army. From time to time, he would be attacked by an enemy (or he would attack some other Maharaja) and the history of power and war was repeated once more.
The only downside of our guide is that he succeeded in taking us to a shopping place. All the guides do that because if we buy something they get a commission and since we are really not into shopping it can be very annoying. But it was still interesting, because the market was holding the famous handcrafts of Jaipur, which are carpets, jeweleries, block printing cloth and silk painting. We saw how they shape the precious stones from the mines around Jaipur and also imported ones from Brazil and Africa. Luckily Angie is not found of jeweleries, because there are thousands of necklaces made with different stones like diamonds, rubies, topaz, turquoise, onyx, etc for an affordable price.
From there, we went to see the Wind Palace ...



... in the old part of Jaipur, known as The Pink City, which was painted in Pink for an occasion of a British Prince visit and never changed since then. The Wind palace should actually be called the Window Palace ...It used to be the house of a Maharani (the wife of a Maharaja) and since it was forbidden for her to go outside, the Maharaja built her that palace so that she has plenty of windows from where she can look outside.
Then, we went to see the City Palace and after that the National Museum.





After a couple of forts and palaces that we had already visited, these two were not really exciting for us but the last visit of the day was something really really different. Keep reading.
Our driver said he would take us to a temple where there are almost no tourists because it was a bit far and hard to drive to get there, and indeed, we were the only tourists on the site. The temple is constructed on the base of a mount and as you climb up the hill it gets more and more narrow and at the top is located the main room of the temple. Right after we got in, a couple of little kids ran by begging and repeating: money, money, money; with their innocent smile on the face. Withdrawing money from the pockets in such a situation would have been suicide, so we kept walking to the stairs to reach the top, with around 10 kids following us and repeating: money, money, money. Half way up, there are two swimming pools with hundreds of young boys swimming and bathing, but the water was so dirty, so dirty, that for us it was hard even to breath close to it. There were cows and monkeys around too with a terrible smell of excrements and flies everywhere.





But nonetheless the people seemed to have fun and were friendly. One guy, that was right out of his dive in the pool, started to talk to us and explained that the pool was filled with Holy Water and by bathing in it, it brings prosperity and long life. After a while, we went down the stairs and left. Now to a Carpet Factory, yes, our driver is also trying to make his commissions, but we didn't buy anything. The carpet makers though have a real gift. To handmake a carpet can take from 1 to 6 months of work depending on the size and design. They tight knot by knot, string by string, millions of times in a mess of colors that only they can understand. At the end you see a beautiful perfectly symmetric design.
Back in the hotel we went outside to try to find an Internet Cafe, but it wasn't easy to walk on the streets, lots of touts, hassling and beggars, the misery here is so terrible that it even impresses a Brazilian so aware of the Favelas.
Some people are leaving on the streets on improvised huts and tents, among cows, camels and monkeys that are often chewing plastic and paper from the garbage that is everywhere on the ground. The street is made with sand so there is a big amount of dust in the air. Not rare either, is to see, due to the lack of toilets, people using walls and corners to attend the Call of Nature. The Internet Cafe was closed, and it was the only one around, so we went back to the hotel.
On the next morning we left for the Safari.