Having taken planes and trains, we are now firmly in the automobiles-portion of our travels. We left Agra around 9 AM on … what day was it?? Saturday??… being 22 days into an 80-day journey, the days blend into each other without any sense of which day of the week it is. Anyway, we left Agra for the 6+ hour drive to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, India.
Fatehpur Sikri: Along the way, we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, on the edge of Uttar Pradesh, the region/state next to Rajasthan. We visited a palace built by the 3rd emperor (Akbar) of the Mughal Dynasty of India — the city (and presumably the palace) has been abandoned for roughy 400 years. It was beautiful, and reflects both Hindu and Muslim architecture and religious symbols — but it was extremely hot (104 degrees) when we visited, as we were pretty much in the desert during summer season. Below are some pics:
Our tour guide is also quite the photographer as he did a little photo shoot of Jackie and Zoe.
Jaipur: Our Hotel in Jaipur (a Holiday Inn) is nice enough, but it has some rather interesting/unconventional surroundings compared to prior Holiday Inn’s I’ve stayed in… For example, below is our perfectly comfortable room, but the slum outside is non-traditional view from a Holiday Inn, and we didn’t exactly rush over to dine at the Copper Khurchan Vegetarian restaurant with all the garbage collecting next to the sign):
Hawa Mahal (palace): Jaipur is called the “pink” city, but is more like terra cotta or salmon colored. The wall around the old part of the city, and buildings like the palace below show this feature:
Amber Fort Palace: Next stop in Jaipur was the Amber Fort Palace, dating (I think) to the mid-1700’s) — with 4 separate courtyards that were built in succession. It is, apparently, one of the most visited forts/palaces in Rajasthan. it has some truly interesting elements — again, combining Hindu and Muslim architectural and religious symbols — and possessing some unique wall painting and a hall of mirror mosaics that were really quite stunning (photos below):
Palaces, Temples and Museums: There seem to be no end to the palaces, temples and museums in Jaipur. I won’t separately detail each, but below are the following:
Lake Palace:
Albert Hall Museum:
Rambagh Palace (hotel): Our guide suggested that we have tea at the only 5-star hotel in Jaipur, the Rambagh Palace. We were like the Clampetts in Beverly Hills: First, they interpreted our request for “tea” as a request for “high tea” meal (apparently “tea” to Uber-rich means something more than “tea” to us common folk), something that would’ve drained the kids college funds; Then, when they saw Zoe have a sip of tea from my cup, they offered (in the sad voice of someone talking to a child who didn’t know better) that Zoe could have her very own cup/saucer if she wanted it. We probably didn’t look as out-of-place as we felt — it WAS a beautiful hotel and grounds — and it was striking how worlds-away different the hotel is from literally everything else — especially the soul-sucking poverty — we have seen just about everywhere. (Below are photos):
They even gave us cashews to feed the peacocks!