Jaipur City Tour

6th February 2018 – Jaipur

Entry gate to the Maharajah's palace

Today was the Jaipur city tour.  We drove into town and parked up by the Maharajah’s Palace, but as it didn’t open until 9.30am, Karan decided that we should start at Jantar Mantar instead.  Jantar Mantar literally means “instruments for measuring the harmony of the heavens”, which is far nicer than the Portuguese translation of “eating dinner to maintain”!

The largest sundial in the world

In fact, Jantar Mantar is an observatory consisting of 19 architectural astronomical instruments commissioned by the Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh II, and completed in 1734 – the very same king who founded Jaipur.  There were various sundials there including the largest in the world which is accurate to 2 seconds, which is an incredible achievement.  Other instruments plotted the declination of the sun, the azimuth of the sun, positions of heavenly bodies, the position of the north star, whether the sun was north or south of the equator and one plotted the sun’s calendar and how it related to astrology.  To be honest, quite a bit of it went over my head, but Chris loved it and understood everything.  However, I could appreciate how advanced this was when it was built and what a technical achievement it was. 

The textile museum

After that, we sauntered back down the road, with Karan very sweetly holding my mother’s arm to cross the road.  What a caring, kind man he is.  The Maharajah’s palace is painted yellow, which is the royal colour and we entered by yet another impressive gateway with frescoes painted on it.  It took us into a large courtyard where a pavilion had been converted into a textile museum.  We had a brief tour of the museum and duly admired beautiful ceremonial costumes which were made of sumptuous materials and were exquisitely embroidered; the late Maharajah’s polo trophies and outfits (he and his team won the world cup in the late 1950’s); the late Maharajah’s billiard outfits plus some lovely old carpets made from the fine wool usually used to make pashimas.

The largest silver object in the world

Once we exited the museum, we went through another highly decorated gateway with uniformed guards  into another courtyard where there was a huge central meeting area which was being decorated for a wedding.  It houses 2 huge solid silver vessels, which are officially the largest silver objects in the world.  Each vessel is made from 14,000 silver coins which were melted into sheets of silver and were beaten into shape over wooden moulds.   The process took 2 years and they were finished in 1896.  It’s estimated that each jar weighs 345kg, is just over 5 feet high and has a circumference of almost 15 feet.  They were impressive!

The peacock gateway into the dancing courtyard

Then it was onto the chamber where the Maharajah received guests.  No photographs were allowed inside unfortunately.  Take it from me though, that it was highly decorated with painted frescoes, and had columns delineating a central rectangular carpeted area with 2 thrones on it which were being polished during our visit.  You could walk round the outside of the columns where there were plush silver upholstered chairs and lots of portraits of the various Maharjah’s – most of them quite portly looking gentlemen with impressive moustaches or full beards.  The family tree going back to the 1700’s was also there and it was interesting to note that 2 of the late Victorian/early Edwardian Maharajahs had no children so adopted a son from a noble family instead to succeed them.  The current Maharajah is a young man of around 20 who succeeded his grandfather in 2011 as his mother, who was an only child, obviously wasn’t eligible in succession terms.

The entertainment courtyard

Our next port of call was another courtyard which was used for dancing and entertaining. We entered via a beautiful gate decorated in peacock motifs.  Inside we saw 3 other gates which were decorated according to the seasons and were all beautiful in different ways.  We were amused to watch a couple of young and attractive girls posing in front of the various gates swishing their long, shiny locks around and pouting provocatively at their cameras.  Once they’d done their modelling, they checked the photos, and if they weren’t satisfied with the results, they started all over again. We finished our visit by popping into the weaponry room which was full of huge swords and some really horrendous looking daggers.  

Polishing gemstones

After a welcome cup of tea at the palace tea rooms, we bade Karan farewell, and he instructed our driver to take us to various shopping opportunities.  We started off at Pink Gems, where we saw tiny, thin men squatting on benches or the ground, shaping and polishing gemstones.  It looked very uncomfortable and bad for the eyes – how they could see what they were doing, I have no idea.  We weren’t tempted by anything they had on offer though so moved on to a textile shop.  Outside, they had someone hand knotting a carpet, someone cleaning a carpet and then we had a demonstration on how they decorate material with wooden blocks, which was very interesting.  Then we were ushered inside and the hard sell began!!  We were shown comforters, pashimas, duvet covers, yet more jewellery which was harder to resist here but managed to avoid the sari, carpet and lacquer departments.  We were actually interested in a new duvet cover, but the ones they had already made up weren’t European king size, but they would have adjusted one for us and got it delivered to us tonight!  However, nice as it was, it was very expensive (over £200 although it was silk admittedly) and we knew our cats would soon destroy it.  We looked at cotton alternatives, but the one we liked was not far off £100 and I’d seen something similar on the web for just £20 in the UK.  So, reluctantly, we walked out empty handed.

Carpet weaver

Our driver offered to sort out a walking tour in the old town exploring the alley ways, but in all honesty, we were knackered by the shopping experience and fancied a lazy afternoon.  After here, it is pretty full on, so want to enjoy the down time whilst we can.

We’re going out for dinner tonight for a change but are visiting a place that also does European style food as Mum is finding the spices a little harsh on her digestive system.  I think the place we’ve got in mind also does Chinese and Indian food, so Chris and I will be catered for too!