Jaipur - The pink city

We had a couple of days in Jaipur with sightseeing only in the mornings and then we had the rest of the day to ourselves which was very nice.

Jaipur is much nicer than Delhi - less population, less busy, less dirty (a little), and it looks nice because all the buildings in the centre are painted pink and white. Actually it is not pink, more terracotta, it got labelled pink by the papers after British royalty visited and the name stuck.

In brief we visited over the two days:

The city palace - several courtyards and galleries such as the textile gallery with clothing from various Maharaja's etc; the armoury; miniature art gallery with intricate paintings and the banquet hall with portraits of all the Maharaja's through the centuries. No photos permitted inside the galleries.

Jantar Mantar- an astrological/astronomical observatory and sundial that was accurate to within 20 seconds. It also tracked the planets but more in an astrological sense rather than an astronomical sense. Astrology is very important to Hindus. Date and time of birth is very important when making decisions or what attributes you may have. Apparently I am a traveller (Well duh!), and Brad is a prince. He could have told us anything.

Palace of the Winds - photo stop only. Beautiful building where royal ladies could overlook the crowds without being seen.

Amber Fort - yet another fort with similar features to the other forts we have visited. We travelled up by jeeps but the other option was elephants. They are only used for a few hours in the morning for maximum of 4 trips. Owning an elephant is like owning a Rolls Royce here as they are used at weddings and parades etc. We are told they are very well looked after.

Sunken palace? - actually don't know what it was called, photo stop only. Looked nice.Read more