India Nov 2014 - Day 9 - Around Jaipur

Jaipur, also known as "Pink City",  which pink color is the color of the stone exclusively used for the construction of all the structures. In 1876, the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria visited India on a tour. Since pink denotes the color of hospitality, Maharaja Ram Singh of Jaipur painted the whole city pink in color to welcome the guests. The tradition has been sincerely followed by the residents who are now, by law, compelled to maintain the pink color. 

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We started the day into the Pink City, with our first stop, Hawa Mahal. It is essentially a high screen wall built so the women of the royal household could observe street festivities while unseen from the outside.

Next  was Amer (also pronounce as Amber) Fort. Driving up to the Fort's entrance and then queuing to take the elephant ride into the Fort on the hill top.

Elephant ride, into the fort. Beside the ride and fort entrance fee, the elephant guides also expect tourists to give them tip (around Rs100) at the end of the ride eventhough there is notice posted on the wall that "tipping" is not encouraged. Along the ride, there will be quite a few local people with cameras shouting to you to look at them. They will then take photos of you on the elephant and will try to sell you the photos later. We pretended not to hear their shouting.

The views along the ride....

At the courtyard, main entrance... 

Theha wanted that violin like musical instrument. The guy (on the left) in the pic below offer us Rs1,000. We didn't buy it there thinking we could get it better elsewhere in the local shops, away from tourist's spot. We didn't get to buy it after that because we could not find it sold anywhere. Maybe we will ask our neighbour who is going the visit Jaipur soon, to buy it for us.

TIPS : if you find something you like, quite a rare a thing which may not be sold in common market place, just buy it (like even a bunch of freezer magnets at bargain price, at Taj Mahal, Agra). Do not try to look around elsewhere because you may not have that much time to hunt around anyway and it most probably wont cost you a bomb.

Around the upper part of the Fort...

We met our "Ranthambore Safari" friends again here in Amer Fort...

The views down toward the lake were breath taking.... Afnan should have brought along his other camera...

(Turkish Bath... something similar we had seen during our Turkey vacation..)

(Taking a photo from a mirror)

View from another corner of the Fort..

Making our way out... according to the guide, this big pot was the cooking pot where the foods for the army were cooked during those time..

Along the way to our lunch place, we stopped by the roadside to get a better view of  Jal Mahal, the Water Palace.

According to the guide, the palace was once a dry place. Water have submerged almost two floors of the palace. What we see now is actually the third floor. Currently there is no activity going on except for maintenance works.

Jal Mahal, the Water Palace

City Palace

This was after taking our late lunch in the city....

Upon suggestion by our guide, we decided not to spend time inside the City Palace and also skipped the nearby Jantar Mantar, a centre for astronomical instruments/facilities. Let's go to a lesser known Nahargarh Fort (also known as Tiger Fort), no entrance ticket, where most part of the City of Jaipur can be viewed from the top of the hills.

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One part of the City of Jaipur..

At the (nearly) top...

Another view of the Water Palace...

(A part of a temple front area, which temple we did not spend time to go in)