Jaipur (The Pink City)

We started with a wonderful old city orientation walking tour, including hopping onto an auto rickshaw, which gave the traffic a whole new dimension. Jaipur (capital of Rajasthan) is a big city, famous for the pink coloured buildings painted the colour of hospitality as a welcome to Queen Victoria when she visited in 1876.
The city was built from a master plan in 1727 with roads running in a grid and then divided into wards and smaller precincts. Each precinct then housed specific trades from metal workers to jewellers, tailors, etc. The trades are still there today and we saw people flattening silver and gold to be used with fabrics, bangle making, gem cutting and polishing, jewellery making and tailoring. We tasted some samosas, jalebi (sweet) and masala tea in the old city with our guide.
Our guide took us to the Amer Fort outside of Jaipur which was the palace for the royal family before Jaipur city was built. It was massive and beautifully preserved. He taught us so many things about the Hindu religion, the impact of the architecture to manage the various seasons and the customs of the time, including the caste system. From the fort we were able to see the rugged mountainous surroundings.
In the old city we visited the new palace and the monuments with a detailed history lesson in the Raj and Maharaja family tree. Across India, there were over 500 Royal kingdoms at the time of independence (1947). Many still exist but have no control or power.
We then went to a fascinating science park with massive sundials accurate to within 2 second built in the 1700’s. There were also perfect models showing the stars and constellations. Really incredible if you consider the accuracy and the fact that some people at the time still believed the earth was flat!
We loved our tour in Jaipur led by our very knowledgeable guide.Read more