Kya Aap Angrezi Bolte Hain?: Jaipur

After another long train journey (15 hours), we knew we have to be well rested before we can set out to explore this much hyped up city of legends. While on the train we toyed with the idea of staying in the palace of the Majaraja for one night but this of course well beyond our means. We decided to settle for the next best thing - palace-like hotel! It's beautifully decorated and at RM150 per night it's a real bargain. I know we sound like a typical tourist who love the hotels more than the world outside it but the hotel we stayed in Jaipur with its beautiful details and beautiful Indian furnitures must ranked as one of the best hotels I stayed in (second only to the palatial riad in Marrakech I also loved).

This Orange-pinkish City well-endowed with many monuments, although we missed many because of our misjudgments in planning the trip.

The facades facing the main routes are rejuvenated by the tourist dollars, visual relief from the overflowing sewage on the street.

This was minutes before a salesman-imposter-schmuck pretended to be a "Muslim passerby" and sent us on an autorickshaw to a handicrafts sales gallery. Never again I buy the "We're Muslims and I want to help you" - only liars say something like this.

Just like Mumbai, the monsoon wasn't about to give up yet. The streets were turned into streams of polluted water. To our surprise the basic infrastructure is even worse here, so we had serious reluctance to walk in this sewage streams. It's no wonder that almost all tourists decided to be bussed around in gleaming white tourist busses. Walking takes courage.

Strangely the government had embarked on an ambitious metro system while basic infrastructure for local residents are neglected. Surely Jaipur needs drainage and better sewage system first before such high tech investments.

We do look very different than the Indians, don't we?

One of the many gates of Jaipur.

Gates after gates after gates - and all beautiful.

Now that I've got that out of my system: the city! The old city sits in a grid system set hundreds of years ago in accordance to ancient Sanskrit texts. It has a beautiful streetscape especially along the major axial roads that meet at the centre of the city, culminating in a temple and a mosque. Most of the buildings facing the main roads are painted an orange-pink hue, further adding to its old world charms.

The real draw to Jaipur is primarily its monuments - the Jantar Mantar observatory, Hawa Mahal (palace harem), the City Palace, and the forts surrounding the city. When it comes to these, Jaipur's a winner. The preservation is not overdone and has managed to retain some of its authenticity - basically hadn't been turned into a Disneyland. The combined ticket for all monuments is good and we also managed to get student rates (technically we are still students, graduation is in September lol!) so we're very pleased. Attempting to visit all of these monuments in a day proved impossible, each of it requires several hours to explore - and we started the day pretty late.

The Hari Krishna temple was so welcoming and kind. Only smiles and welcoming gestures.

It sounded like Qawwali but I must say I'm too ignorant about the vast repertoire of Subcontinental music to discern the subtleties.

The smell of roses, the trickling sound of water and spiritual music. Paradise.

The Jantar Mantar is an observatory to measure and calculate the heavenly bodies built by the Maharaja of Jaipur who was a keen astronomer himself. I love how the scientific is blurred with cosmology and magic, and the extreme precision taken to create these delicate but massive objects. We were slightly at loss as we didn't take any guided tour but looking at those who did, they were clearly more impressed. However for the next monument I made sure we get ourselves some audioguide.

The Hawa Mahal is my personal favourite. The audioguide we took was certainly helpful and gives a illustration how life was like in the palace harem. Compared to the Ottoman Sultan's harem that i visited in Istanbul few years back, I felt that the Hawa Mahal tried much less to evoke Orientalist fantasies of harem women or demean their roles in society. Not suggesting it's feminist in any way but it provided a many sided perspective about the princesses and the queens.

Going mental over astronomical devices at Jantar Mantar. (Oh yes Libra - Fair and Just!)

The many intriguing devices. I love the fact that behind this spherical marble sheet, you'd find a hidden deep red space. Great idea for future architectural project!

Colours so familiarly Indian. I think they should have more of this fabric in the cities.

By the time we finished exploring Hawa Mahal, it's already 3.30pm so we quickly head to the Amber Fort just on the outskirts and then realised how massive the whole complex is. We abandon pur hopes to visit the rest of the monumens and decide to explore this fort in a more meaningful way. The fort is mostly utilitarian military installation but within this many architectural marvels were inserted creating a kind of hill-top utopian royal city. It was built in the style of the Mughals, using idioms that are distinctively Mughal - the Maharaja was certainly was trying to keep with the Mughals. Some aspect of Hindu architecture is kept, in effect creating a beautiful synthesis of Hindu-Muslim forms. The use of Urdu, rather than Hindi (or are they the same?), in some of the inscriptions is also telling of the state mind of the society and monarch at the time.

Great place for great photos.

Our favourite refuge in all of India.

After the fort, we asked our autorickshaw driver, Shakir to drop us at a footpath that leads to another hill top fort, mainly to catch the moment when the sun sets on the Pink City for some magnificent photos. (No sun, was cloudy). To our shock the footpath begins in a slum with open sewer flowing by roadside, surrounded by rubbish piles, and closely packed homes. There many pigs roaming around, hundreds maybe, some the size of a juvenile hippo! As the freely rumagging through the sewer lines, eating and swimming, we began to get freaked out by this sight. As rational and open minded as I professed to be, this time all the cultural baggage of irrational porkophobia materialised. All I remember was that after few seconds of being dropped off by the taxi I started running uphill slipping past the bewildered pigs and the exposed sewer lines and screamed like a true blue Malaysian. As we got halfway up the hill the rain started, we ran back downhill to the bewildered pigs and sewer lines. All the residents were amused by us I'm sure but I couldn't care less - that place is hardcore! Caught an autorickshaw and ended our crazy day out in Jaipur.