Jaipur is a gem in Rajasthan and hence is firmly planted on the tourist path of many fellow travellers. Consequently, the touts are aggressive and persistent and scams can always be found. Besides this only annoying factor, walking through the city centre at sunset, when you can observe the hues of pink spill across all the buildings, you feel like you’re in some Rajasthani fairy tale. The colours are so vivid and the people too. Although it doesn’t have a big lake or river or iconic monument to impress, it’s the totality of this city, bathed in dusk light, that makes it so memorable.
Our tour guide mentioned that the local government is spending a lot of money on renovating a lot of the old, and unfortunately, dilapidated buildings. And according to the scaffoldings that we saw, he seems to be right. What was a bit more disturbing to hear though, is that there are several projects in the making that would convert Jaipur into a Raji Disney Land! For example, one of the big walls of Amber Fort is now being renovated, for they’re going to have a laser show on it that will be visible to the drivers as they wind into Jaipur from the north. I’m not sure if that will exactly add mystique to this beautiful fort!
What I found very interesting though, is what he told us about the Maharajah families. When I was here 9 years ago, a lot of the Maharajah’s had problems maintaining their palaces due to a lack of financing, and sadly this was very noticeable. So although they were technically rich on paper, due to their vast land holdings and real estate portfolios containing multiple palaces, for them it was somewhat of a curse for they could not afford the upkeep of these palaces, and thus the buildings were either abandoned or sold off. Fast-forward to 2008 and the real-estate boom in India and one will find that several of these Maharajah’s are wealthy (for real) again. All these palaces are now worth a pretty penny and are being renovated, for there is solid demand to use them as movie-sets, for weddings, events, etc. This, of course, is thanks to the real-estate boom that has swept over India in the past decade, where the value of an apartment supposedly doubles every 8 months. At least in Jaipur, if one is to believe what you hear on the streets ☺
HOW TO GET THERE
In order to see some of the Indian landscape, we decided to do the Agra – Jaipur leg of our trip by car. It’s approximately 270 km and it took a good day to cover, including the several stops that we made.
Invariably after being on the road all day in India, you come to your hotel exhausted. Between the many impressions, the dust and the bumpy road, you’re done for the day! As you drive you will see donkeys wandering around, camels pulling huge loads of wood, lorries carrying even bigger loads of god knows what (the question is only when is this thing going to tip over!), dogs chasing each other across the road, mopeds zooming buy with a whole Indian family on them, construction workers sitting in the middle of the road building the curbs, street vendors on the side of the street selling vegetables and a variety of fried foods, women in colourful saris carrying branches on their head, and so forth. It’s a cacophony of sounds, visuals and smells! Never a dull moment!
I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised about the road though. I’m talking relative here, but compared to 9 years ago, the roads are much better. They’re currently trying to build a highway between these two cities, but given what we saw, it would be very hard to predict when this project will be done. You had to laugh when at one point you would see workers laying the ground for the road, and 200 m down the road, you would see the villagers putting some of this same material into their baskets, and carrying it away!
In order to break-up the long drive, we made 2 stops. The first stop was just outside of Agra, at the fortified ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri. Emperor Akbar, who also constructed the Agra fort, designed this city in the 1570’s in order for it to be the capital of the Mughal empire. Emperor Agbar was said to be very liberal and open to other religions. He had three wives, out of which one was Muslim, one Christian and one Hindu. In Fatehpur Sikri his devotion to his wives is manifested by him having had built a mosque, a temple and a church on the grand grounds. The result is spectacular. The only shortcoming of this stunning city is that he built it far from any source of water, and all the ingenious irrigation systems that were built by his clever engineers, couldn’t save this city. When he passed away, the city was quickly abandoned, never to be lived in again. Thus it stands there today like a ghost town!
For lunch we stopped in another small town (for which I don’t have the name), which to me seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere! As we were driving down the road, suddenly we stopped, got off our comfortable van and were put on to a tractor. The tractor took us to a small village perhaps 2 km from the main road and there we did a crash course on Indian rural living. Our immersion was full and complete ☺ As we entered the town with no roads, abandoned mosques, mud-huts and live-stock everywhere, we headed to the only havela (big house with courtyard, like the haciendas in Central and South America) that could have possibly been there. The havela was a guest house, with 21 simple but clean and what looked like quite comfortable rooms. As we entered the inner courtyard, we were greeted by two musicians playing typical Rajasthani instruments and two young boys twirling around in local costume. The boys were so sweet with big smiles and were doing their best to impress us. And impress us they did! Their hearts were alight as they were dancing, happy to see that we were appreciating and involving ourselves in their dance. After this wonderful performance, we were served lunch in another courtyard which was simple but good. It felt good to sit down and relax for an hour or so. Since we were already in this small village, we asked one of the guys working there to take us for a walk around town. It was fascinating. People live in utter simplicity, barely having a roof over their head and food to eat. But they’re laughing and smiling as they play by the well filling up their containers with water to take home. This is what amazes you in India … what I call poverty with a smile! Sometimes you find yourself thinking, I wonder who is happier, them or me!
Following the lunch stop, we drove the rest of the trip in one shot and arrived to our Oberoi Vilas at around 1630, exhausted but happy and ready to soak ourselves in the sunken marble bath-tubs.
Of course, you can also fly to Jaipur!
WHAT DO DO
> Amber Fort: like a lot of the sightseeing in Jaipur, if you want the light to add to the stunning architecture and illuminating everything in soft hues of red and pink, then come and see this fort in the morning or late afternoon. As you’re driving to Amber Fort, you will first notice a large wall that climbs over the hills in the vicinity, something similar to the Wall of China. And then the grandeur of the fort, commenced in 1592, opens up to one’s eyes. It’s like a fairytale Raj palace built into the rock, perched high on top of a hill. One thing that my friends noticed is that although from the outside, the scale of the fort is impressive, when you’re actually inside, you only get to see a very small part of it. They were expecting more of it to be open. And don’t forget to take an elephant ride up to the fort for a regal entrance into the large courtyard.
> City Palace: Combining Mughal and Rajasthani architecture, this palace has been constructed over several centuries. Some of the additions were even done as recently as the early 20th century. Besides the many courtyards, gardens and lavishly decorated rooms, the story that most fascinates me is the one about the two 1.6 m tall silver urns. Supposedly, Maharajah Madho Singh II took them on his trips to England, for he didn’t trust the water in England at the time. Of course this is a bit of an embellished story, for tour guides will be quick to point out that he was a devote Hindu, and thus wanted to have holy water from the Ganges with him.
> Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds): this is Jaipur’s most famous landmark and for a good reason. The honeycombed, sublimely pink structure, dating back to 1799, was built to enable all the ladies in the royal household to watch the going-ons on the street below, without themselves being seen. Place yourself behind one of these marble windows and act-out the voyeur in yourself ☺
> Observatory Jantar Mantar: Some people like it, some find it boring. I was actually intrigued by it for I’m fascinated with astronomy. The observatory was constructed in 1728 and was used among other things to precisely measure time based on solar movements. In any case, it’s right by the City Palace, so if you’re not stimulated by all the instruments on display, it’s easy to walk out and continue shopping.
> Walk through the bazaars: part of the Jaipur experience is to wander and zig-zag through the many bazaars in search of that perfect item for yourself. The shopping is exquisite here, and the wonderful colours of the saris, candy-cone turbans and jewellery on display will make it very hard for you to not be enticed and buy something. Just remember … bargain!!!
HOTEL
Oberoi Rajvillas Hotel: yet again, the Oberoi touch will astound you! This hotel is more lavishly appointed than the Oberoi Amar Vilas in Agra. The estate is much larger and the rooms seem to be more luxurious, if that’s possible. My reasoning for this is that in Agra, the central focus is the Taj Mahal, that can be viewed from any space and room of the hotel. Since there is no external focal point in this hotel, the rooms and grounds have to be the focus. The downside to this hotel is that it’s 8 km from the centre, which means anywhere from 30 - 45 min by car. Eating out is not as simple as if you were located somewhere in the centre. But perhaps that is a small price to pay for staying in this luxurious hotel!
RESTAURANT
> Oberoi Rajvilas: even if you’re not staying in this hotel, if you want a great dinner (Indian and/or International cuisine) involving besides great food, entertainment and a splendid Raj setting, then come to the only restaurant in this hotel. Ask to be seated outside. Even though it was cold at night, they had heating lamps everywhere. You will feel like a Maharajah having dinner in one of the palace’s inner courtyards.
Bojan Tercon
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