Jaipur! (In Rajashtan...) April 6th

My first time in Rajasthan, long-awaited!

I have heard about this area for so very long, as it is a primary tourist destination in India. Jaipur is part of the so-called "Golden triangle"; the other two making up the triangle are Agra and New Delhi, so now I have been to 2 out of 3! (New Delhi, that is...Agra will have to wait...no time this trip!)

Sadly, though, my expectations exceeded my actual experience here, and I was absolutely fine with only having one full day to spend in this city. It is crazily crowded, noisy, polluted, dusty and dirty...and even though I found a guest house on the outskirts with views of the surrounding mountains, it too is plagued by noise: on the 7th, a Friday night, a "techno" disco down the road played the most horrid, thumping "music" (WHAT a misnomer for the noise!) loud enough to deafen everyone within miles...or at the very least, disturb their evenings in the most malevolent way. I cannot even BEGIN to imagine how the young people at that disco bar can stand it, unless they are seriously drunk, hyped up on drugs, or are already close to being completely deaf. Surely, if they frequent these sort of establishments, they will get there in sort order. How VERY tragic, this "modern" life of Indians... adopting all the very worst of the West!! Breaks my heart in the worst way...

Anyhow, my one full day in Jaipur was as follows: I hired a personal tuk tuk, and toured the most famous sites of the city. Though much of it was interesting and quite beautiful, the traffic getting around to them was terrible, and the more popular spots were criminally overpriced for foreigners (as is typical in this unabashedly discriminatory country!) and overcrowded. In short, I would advise the following: enjoy the photos, but give this city a serious miss!!!

A classic representation of Jaipur, the "Pink City", so dubbed because when Queen Victoria was coming to visit India, the Raj of the day got it in his head to welcome her to the city by having ALL the present buildings painted pink! How crazy is that?? Was it her favorite color or something? No clue. This photo was taken at the criminally overpriced City Palace. (I paid a whopping 700 rupees to get in, while Indians only paid 300... AND, to make matters worse, the 700 didn't even buy me the right to photograph the very interesting interiors...this was truly a "royal" ripoff...pun intended!!!

The present day royal family... the queen with her 4 children.

The royal guard, above... a friendly lot, they were more than

happy to be photographed by the tourists!

Most interesting story about this giant vessel: apparently, the Raj filled it with holy water from the Ganges, which was then transported to Britain and presented to the queen. I overheard the guide tell his tourist group that it held several hundred liters and weighed about the same as an elephant!!

Exploring some lesser temples...not so touristic, and still quite attractive...this one was the Surya--or sun--temple, on the top of a hill that required a VERY arduous climb to get to it, as no cars were allowed on the road leading up to it.

View from the Surya temple

The sun god himself (or was it a "she" god?!)

Surya temple from the front entrance

Though quite crowded, this was my favorite: the Wind Palace. Very pretty and only 200 rupee entrance fee for EVERYONE--no anti-foreigner discrimination here, thank God!

The plaza at ground level, as seen from above...

Also "pretty in pink", as it were!

There were some nice stone carvings and sculptures there..

View of the street through one of its many windows...

Classic view of the Wind Palace from the front

the Water Palace, as it is known, is completely surrounded by the lake water and inaccessible except by boat. Unfortunately, I could not visit it, as it is not open to the public.

Few things are more thrilling in life than being driven down a road in a rickshaw and passing this close to the butt of an elephant!!!!

Here in Jaipur, elephants traipsing along in the roads were ALMOST as prolific as the rickshaws and motorcycles! (Though much slower, to be sure...NOT the most efficient form of transportation!!!)

The next series: the very famous Amber Fort, where the royal family lived in the 1500's before relocating to the city center of Jaipur. The fort is located in Amer, a locale just outside of Jaipur, close to where my guest house is.

I was accosted by a VERY aggessive guide, whom I hired just to have some peace. Big mistake! He was terrible. His English was bad, and he didn't have any of the interesting stories I heard other guides telling their tourists. Furthermore, he kept asking me the most intrusive, rude, personal questions! It was a complete waste of 200 rupees... Additionally, there were hordes of vendors everywhere trying to sell all kinds of stuff, also very aggressive. Though the fort was interesting, the experience overall was most unpleasant!!

I felt terribly sorry for these enslaved elephants, who were destined to cart tourists up and down a steep hill to the fort and back down to the valley below. They looked seriously depressed, and I had to wonder what the painting on their heads did to their skin and general health. I seriously doubt that either the Indians who drove them, OR the tourists, gave one second of thought to the well-being of these magnificent creatures. Shame on those terrible humans!

Onward, to a remote temple, totally non-touristic and lovely... there were some women chanting devotional songs inside and it was all thoroughly enjoyable!

The last series: The Monkey Temple... for Indians, free; for foreigners, 100 rupees, or 250 if you want the right to take photos! Crazy! And what's more, it was the filthiest temple site I have EVER visited ANYWHERE in India to date! Unreal! So clearly, some corrupt bureaucrat is getting filthy RICH off the foreigners, and not spending a rupee on any cleaning crew. Despite this, though, it was indeed photogenic and worth the visit... but I did NOT pay the 250 and took photos anyway, rebelling against both the discrimination AND the obvious corruption going on!!

The entrance to the temple grounds...already, tons of trash by the side of the road, all of which gets rummaged through by the cows, who will eat anything they find that is "edible" there... I never get used to this...so very horrifying!!!

The mounds of trash INSIDE the temple grounds... really disgusting!!!

The monkeys at least have fun with the bits of cloth that is everywhere...on the ground, hanging from fences, as you see here... so crazy...how to make sense of this???

Here, the monkeys make great play with the plastic sheet hanging here...

....and then swim and play in the equally filthy, trashed water of this once sacred bathing ghat...

I thought it quite funny that the creators of this temple didn't even know how to spell "temple"! It doesn't show up in the photo, but it is spelled "tempal"!!