Day 44: Jaipur (couldn’t think of any pun-styled name)
We woke up relatively early on our first full day in Jaipur,
trying to do as much as we could before the hot midday sun reared its bright,
ugly head. Of course, since the main sites in Jaipur proper only open at 9:00,
it is rather hard to do this. Thankfully, the Rajasthan heat was slightly
overrated. It was hot,no doubt about it, but considering the lack of humidity,
it was far more pleasant than Bangalore, and far more pleasant than Malaysia,
Thailand & Cambodia before that. We took a rikshaw to City Palace inside
the Old City, separated from the rest of Jaipur by a large pink wall that is
impossible to miss. Outside the city Jaipur is actually quite nice, with large
streets with fountains and statues placed in the middle of the circles. Inside,
Jaipur is a mess of bazaars, with a few sites acting as needles in this
haystack of vendors and bargain hunters. Our destination was the relatively
quiet part of this area, the cobbled street between the City Palace and the
Jantar Mantar.
The City Palace only opened at 9:30. Luckily for us, the
Jantar Mantar opened at 9:00, so we had something to do. When we entered we
were met by a host of people wanting to be our guide, and from this group we
selected at random one man, the first of many guides to come. The Jantar Mantar
without a guide would probably have been useless, but with it, we were able to
fully appreciate what a weird but interesting place it really is. When you
enter, the Jantar Mantar presents itself as a large courtyard with strange
structures placed around. The guide quickly explained how Mahraja Sawai Jai
Singh was a patron of Mathematics and Astrology, and he created this area with
exacting precision to use the sun and stars. All of the objects have some
astrologocial purpose, whether they be exact sundials (but they look nothing
like the circular sundials that are common throughout the world), or spherical
pits to tell what period of the Zodiac we are currently in, or even to find out
which constellations are where each night, or even to find out the position of
the earth in its rotation around the sun. All of these structures were
interesting, and while some were repetitive (as in a few measured the same
thing), the guide kept it all moving, and the Jantar Mantar in totality was a
pleasant experience.
When we finished the half-hour tour, the City Palace was
open, and we made the quick walk over to it. We eschewed getting a live guide
and going with an Audio one instead. While the Audio Guide was very informative
without dragging (none of the stops were over two and a half minutes, with most
being less than two), we were one of a very select few to get the guide. Now,
audio guides aren’t economical when you come in a large group, but it was still
a little unnerving seeing so few people with one. I tried to spin in to say
that we were just a lot smarter than the rest, even so far as having to force
myself from not congratulating the other audio guide wearers for being a member
of the club.
The City Palace itself is more of a museum, built around the
two main courtyards that are open to the public. The courtyards themselves hold
some beautiful artwork, like a brilliantly ornate doorway leading into the
first courtyard, or a little gazebo like structure housing some photos of the
old Royal Family and some women doing a poojah. The other part of the City
Palace Museum was a series of exhibits featuring the traditional dress and
furniture of the Maharaja of Jaipur, and then the weaponry and barracks, and
finally a quick tour of the public viewing area, a large, lavish ballroom
adorned with a beautiful canopy in the middle. Overall, the tour was quite
good, and because of the use of heavy fans in the indoor portions, quite
pleasant despite the heat.
The final tourist stop before my Mom entered Shopoholistan
was the Deji Govind Temple, which was well rated in our guidebook and
tripadvisor, but was something of a disappointment because it was just a
temple. My only real observation was that it was far cleaner than the temples I
had visited in Southern India, as similarly Jaipur was cleaner than most of the
cities in Southern India
After our foray in the City Palace, we went to experience
another Jaipur staple, vegetarian food. I was deathly afraid of being stuck
with vegetarian food for my birthday dinner, so I put off eating at a true veg
place until today. We found the famous (as far as Jaipur is concerned) LMB, short
for Laxmi Misthan Bandar, a cool air conditioned oasis deep inside the bustling
maw of the Johri Bazaar (one of the main ‘bazaars’ in Jaipur’s old city). Not
wanting to have the usual South Indian Veg fare, I decided to have Rogan Josh,
a dish I usually have with mutton, but this time it came with baby corn. I can’t
believe I’m saying this, but it was still very good as a curry. I’ve always
wondered how vegetarians live day-to-day without the amazing gift that is meat,
but I can at least believe that someone could last three or four days now.
After we finished at LMB, I returned to the hotel to do
nothing but have a mug or two amidst the peacocks, while my Mom shopped at the
various bazaars for the handicrafts. I had very few things I was shopping for
during my time in Rajasthan, so I felt that walking around in 95 degree heat
through shops and shops watching other people shop is not really the best use
of my time. Then again, drinking during midday and playing Zelda on my N64
emulator in a courtyard in Rajasthan isn’t really either, but at least that’s
something I’ll remember for a while.
My Mom returned around 5:30, and took her turn drinking
amidst the peacocks, although her drink of choice was tea. We then took a quick
rest and around 6:30, we were picked up for a thoroughly Rajasthanian evening.
The destination was the Chowki Dani, a ‘Rajasthani Village’ tourist
attraction. It was described to us as a theme park created to look like an old
Rajasthani village, with the usual attractions like dancers, artisans,
shopping, elephants, camels and traditional Rajasthani meals. From the outside,
it looked small and a little disappointing. Thankfully, there was an inside.
When we entered, we were immediately accosted by different
stands looking to sell tickets to the park with their specific dinner option
attached (you buy a ticket that gives you entrance and dinner, but there are a
few different dinenrs). In the end, I kind of forced my mom to eschew the
traditional Rajasthani Thali dinner for the buffet, as I feared ending up in a
situation where I had an all-veg Thali where I liked only a few of the options
and was left hungry. At least with the buffet if there were two or three good
dishes I could gorge on those. After we booked the tickets, we entered the
Chowki Dani grounds.
It really is exactly as it was described, a large
faux-village with many different staged attractions. There were a couple of
stages that had dancers with backing music, then an area with palm-readers, a
stage for a magician and a stage for a puppet-show (which is far more artistic
and impressive in its Rajasthan version than what I was expecting). The whole
scene is no doubt very touristy and a little cheesy, but for a great
environment where you don’t have to worry about being accosted by hawking salesman
or not have to worry about cars driven by awful drivers possibly hitting you as
they avoid the cows on the street, sometimes touristy is a good thing. The
shows were nice and seemingly authentic to the Rajastani style of dance and music.
We didn’t go for any of the extremely-tourist-oriented fare, like Henna, or
palm reading, but then again nothing was more touristy than the camel and
elephant rides, which of course we did. For 20 and 50 rupees respectively, how
can you blame us. The rides were short, but they contained the essence of
riding one of these big mammals, bumps and jarring movements and the occasional
ducking from trees.
After we finished walking around the main area, which
included trips inside a temple hidden inside a man-made cave, and a resort area
with cute little houses, my mom decided to check out the other main attraction
of the Chowki Dadri: the shopping area. Because I had no verandah with beer and
peacocks (and Zelda) to retire to, I had to accompany her around, and what do
you know but I got into the shopping mood. The handicrafts in Rajasthan are
just that good. I had a singular focus during my shopping, though, which was to
get some nice crafted coasters. Obviously the fabrics are wasted on me, and I’m
not an age where I want crystal/marble/silver statues and figures. No, I just
wanted coasters, and they had some nice black marble carved coasters for a
reasonable price. I did some quick, semi-effective bargaining and scored my
first purchase of my time in Rajasthan!
After shopping we finally reached our dinner destination,
which was a buffet in a restaurant on a resort that was tangentially connected
to the Chowki Dani. It was a bit worrisome when the walk to the buffet ended up
being quite convoluted, and even more worrisome when we realized that there
were few other people in this area. I remembered back to when we entered the
Chowki Dani, and the stand selling the buffet tickets were empty, while there
was a crowd in front of the Thali tickets. Luckily, the restaurant was full
enough, and even better was the fact that they allowed one a-la-carte non-veg
item as well as alcohol, two things that definitely wouldn’t have been there in
the main area. There is nothing better than going to a place expecting an
all-veg buffet and ending up with meat and alcohol. These are the real hidden
gems of the Chowki Dani, hidden behind all the stalls selling real gems.
