DAY 98: JAIPUR DAY 1

After a nice breakfast, we planned to visit some of Jaipur’s sights. It is known as the pink city due to the colour of many of it’s buildings and is also conjested and chaotic. The city was ruled for a long period by India’s Maharaja and due to this royal legacy, the city boasts some incredible structures built by this dynasty including the Raj Palace where we were staying and two locations we planned on visiting today; The Hawa Mahal and the Amber Fort, high in hills surrounding the city.

Dave peeps out of the Hawa Mahal

Our first stop was the Hawa Mahal, a remarkable 5 story pink sandstone structure on the main street, designed in 1789 to enable the royal ladies to watch the passers by and city below without actually being seen themselves. It was forbidden for another man to set eyes on a Maharaja ruler’s wives. Unfortunately for our visit, the whole building was under renovation, but we still all got an idea of the protected existence these women led.

After the Hawa Mahal we hopped in a tuk tuk for the long journey to the Amber Fort, 11kms from the city. After taking an elephant ride to the entrance of the fort, we got a cheap local guide to show us around. Construction of the fort began in 1592 and became the home of the famous ruler Maharaja Man Singh.

Us at the Winter Bedroom in the Amber Fort

We were shown around his winter and summer bedrooms, made from marble imported from Italy during the 16th Century. It’s hard to imagine the logistics of this but we were told it involved a lot of camels. The rooms’ walls and ceilings were also intricately decorated with convex glass and mirrors. We were also shown the bedrooms of each of the rulers 12 wives. These were designed so that each had its own separate tunnel to the ruler’s bedroom, this was to ensure that none of the wives knew which one was visiting the ruler at any given time. We reckon this cut back on a potentially massive amount of bitchiness between the wives and saved a lot of hassle for the ruler who appeared to never do much except enjoy himself! Good on him!

Caroline ascend the secret tunnel of love to the Master's chambers! Note the pose!

On the walk down from the Amber Fort there were a lunatic pack of monkeys running around terrorizing people.

The local monkeys stand their ground!

We returned to the Raj that evening to find the whole place decked out in preparation for an Indian wedding that night. A Swiss-Indian couple had pulled out all the stops for this celebration that included an elephant parade to the hotel accompanied by an Indian Marching band and an incredible fireworks display. We watched the whole ceremony and couldn’t stop laughing when one of the fireworks set fire to a whole dining table. The guy responsible got a slap across the face from his manager for this cock-up!

The Raj palace gets ready for another 5 star wedding. They do over 150 weddings a year!

After watching the wedding ceremony from our hotel window, the plan was to have a wander around Jaipur’s night bazaars. But unfortunately Caroline came down with a bout of Delhi belly and restricted to bed, feeling terrible.