On to Jaipur

4th February 2018 – On to Jaipur

A slightly more leisurely start to the day as our driver Mr Singh was picking us up at 10:00 for our journey to Jaipur. Mr Singh is a man of few words, but we are happy that he is our driver as he calmly navigates through the busy and chaotic traffic.

We headed west back passed the airport in the usual manner of weaving across the lanes to make progress around slower vehicles accompanied by copious use of the horn. The road markings having no impact on the road position of the vehicles. This is all done in a relaxed manner and nobody seems to mind. Fortunately the top speed is 80 kph (50 mph in old money).

As we passed the airport I had expected the traffic to thin a bit. If it did, I didn’t notice! After about an hour of travel we came to a toll road. Naively I thought we must pick up some speed now – wrong. The road lasted for about 10 kms before going back to the old road for about another 10 kms before getting back onto the new improved road, this happened repeatedly. Hmm, so you pay to use a road that hasn’t actually been finished yet?

As we travelled along we noticed a tractor which, to our eyes, was grossly over-laden with hay. The load extended over the bodywork by about 2ft in all directions. We also noticed some combined harvesters (with the blades towed behind), tractors and truck with a shredded tyre, bicycles and at one point a hand operated bath chair actually heading against the traffic as if it was an everyday occurrence (which it probably is).  All this, heading west.

Typical truck.

Overladen - me?

Or me?

After about 2 hours, we crossed over into Rajasthan and had to stop to pay a fee/tax. Just after this we stopped for a cup of tea and a bio break as well as let Mr Singh have a welcome break from having to concentrate on the traffic plus smoke his cigarette. We could have stopped at the Neemrama Fort Palace for lunch, but had elected to pass on this as we’d had breakfast.

From the rest stop it was about 160 kms to Jaipur. Slowly the countryside changed to a hilly and agricultural landscape which was nice as almost up until that point it was building development with a few small sections of agriculture. This continued until we approached the outskirts of Jaipur.  From here we noticed the fortifications of the city walls following the hilly terrain in front of us.

Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and was founded in 1727 by Raja Jai Singh II, to replace the hill fort of Amber, some 11 kilometers away. The city was planned on a grid system by Jai Singh, who was a highly skilled astronomer and mathematician. The city is known as the Pink City, primarily due to the pink paint which decorated the walls for a visit by the Prince of Wales, (later known as Edward VII), made in 1853. Pink is the Hindu colour of welcome.

As we climbed up towards the city we passed the Amber Fort, this we will visit tomorrow morning. Tamsin hopes the light will be better as some shadows were starting to form. As we dropped down again we could see a lake in front of us. This is Man Sagar Lake. This is an artificial lake constructed in c. 1610 by damming the Dharbawati river. The Jal Mahal is situated in the middle of the lake. It’s a sunken palace which was restored in the 18^th century by Jai Singh II and sadly went into decline again before having a further restoration in 2000. Entering into the city we passed the Palace of Winds which we will also visit. Although Jaipur is called the Pink City, it's really an ochre or tan colour.

After further negotiation of the traffic Mr Singh delivered us to our hotel, the Dera Mandawa. Stepping inside you leave behind the hullabaloo of the streets of Jaipur, you get transported into the tranquility and hospitality of traditional Rajasthani charm. 

This is a family owned establishment and the current custodian is Thakur Durga Singh. He is a keen observer of history, culture, religion, current affairs, and is a bank of knowledge so vast that he has a point of view on anything under the sun. He is what one could call a modern traditionalist, actively seeking the use of modern technology and methods to support the principles of traditional living. The inquisitive can have endless conversations with him on a number of his projects like rain -water harvesting, biogas plant, solar heating and, even, healthy cooking.

He pointed out to us that there were currently a Violet Sunbird and a Tailorbird feeding from the flowers of the Tecoma tree, a cuckoo, and a visiting sparrowhawk which is decimating the local sparrow population and possibly Grey Billed Hornbills nearby.

Tailorbird

The beautiful Violet Sunbird

The puppeteer came from behind the screen to show us how to do it.

After checking in we were shown to our rooms. Tamsin and I immediately unpacked cameras and headed to photograph the birds. We managed to get some pretty damn good shots of the birds. Before dinner we were asked if we would like to see a puppet show. This we decided could be interesting. It is a shadow puppet show run by a 70 year old woman and her husband. However, on this occasion it was with one of her sons as her husband was unwell. This was a lot of fun despite the unplanned firework show outside. Afterwards the son showed us how the puppets were used and invited us up to try ourselves. One lady was game and actually put on a fun show.