Today was really eventful. Those who were interested left at 5 am for a sunset hike to nearby ruins. They were incredible. It was maybe a 15-minute climb on a path and some pretty serious stone stairways. As we climbed, a Hindu temple below blared out a constant super-Indian sounding chant. Wild peacocks shrieked and flew back and forth in the trees (never letting me get close enough to get a decent picture, though). Have I ever mentioned that wild peacocks sound just like the bird “Kevin” in the movie “Up”?
When we got to the top the views were incredible and the sunrise, though a little hazy, was really neat. From the top we could see the city below, a picturesque lake nearby, the Amber Fort (a huge structure begun in the ninth century), and the 10+ km defensive wall that encircles the area. It was really, really neat. We walked around the lake and looked through an old settlement on the other side. All the families but one have abandoned it, and many of the dwellings are cracking and collapsing. A boy herded about 10 cows through the narrow paths by the settlement.
On the way down, we happened across a bunch of monkeys on the side of the road. We pulled over to take pictures and were surprised at how they weren’t scared of us—in fact, it seemed like they were bored if anything as I snuck close for a monkey selfie.
We got back to the hotel about 7:30, had breakfast, and headed out for the Amber Fort. That’s a major landmark of India, so it was kind of touristy. But cool too! We started by riding elephants from the bottom of the hill up to the fort. Along the way photographers took shots and called out for us to find them at the top so we could buy prints of the pictures. Hawkers tried to get our attention so we’d buy their turbans/carvings/sparkly umbrellas/postcards and everything else. As we arrived in the large courtyard at the top, someone was playing a huge drum and some kind of exotic horn, so there was a really south-Asian feel. Touristy maybe, but it was cool. As we got to the top, I realized that the stairway to the drum area was open, so I ran up there and they let me play the drum for a while. Then I played a smaller one, hitting as hard as I could to make it really loud, till my hand hurt really bad and I had to quit. Lily and some others in the group got to play to. And no one around the drums asked us for any money, which was a huge surprise.
The fort includes a temple. No photography was allowed in there, but it was pretty amazing. No shoes, socks, leather or cameras were allowed. The ornate double doorway into the temple was covered with raised, carved metal scenes of different gods. People were reverently touching each of the gods in turn, and they would kiss their hands before and after doing so. Inside the temple there were large pictures of multi-armed gods. Worshippers brought in food that looked like some kind of a mush, and they would each smear a little bit on the mouth of the god in the picture. So there was a big gob of food on the picture and a pile of food below that had fallen off the picture. The temple chamber itself was maybe 30 feet wide and 40 feet long, with inlaid marble floors and carved marble on some of the walls. The ceiling was mostly open, with chicken wire over the opening to make sure that birds couldn’t come into the temple. The room was crammed with people who were kneeling, chanting, praying, milling around. Incense was heavy in the air. A group of women and little children were playing tambourines and singing, with two dancing girls maybe five years old with thick mascara. An idol at the front of the temple was the central attraction. People’s prayers were focused there, and the priest there was putting a little red dot on the forehead of everyone who approached. Someone (not in our group, thankfully) had snuck in a camera, and when the priest saw him he yelled at him and aggressively shooed him out of the temple. Being there was an overpowering experience for all five senses.
After visiting the temple, we continued touring the fort. There was an area that was completely covered in tiny, ornate, convex mirrors. The idea, I guess, was that in that room you could put a candle or two so the queen could see what looked like stars all night long. I took photos but we weren't’ allowed into the main room, and anyway it was the sort of place that photos can’t do justice to. We walked around and saw several other parts of the fort as well. The view at the top was incredible, and we could see the structure we had hiked to that morning.
Our bus then took us to a place where they showed us how the rugs are made by hand. Of course that was a lead-in to an extended sales spiel about rugs. They also had a textiles/clothing store upstairs where we could buy scarves, shirts, jammies, rugs and whatever. Lily picked up a few things. The best part about that place was the downstairs, which was filled with all sorts of crazy antique stuff and antique replica stuff. It was like and Indian Z Gallery. I skipped the rug sales spiel and spent more than an hour browsing through that place. There were a couple things I might have liked to have, but they weren’t cheap and for the most part wouldn’t have been easy to ship at all. So I refrained.
We drove by Jaipur’s “wind palace,” which is really a facade that was created for women in the Muslim royal family to look out on the street without being observed.
After that we visited a place where the elephants are kept. The kids really liked touching them and interacting with them. I felt bad because they were chained up and cooped in a small barn. But it was cool to touch them. The elephant keeper’s family was more interesting to me, to be honest. It was a scrawny, scruffy looking guy and his beautiful wife and two pretty daughters, maybe two and four years old. Lily wanted to play with the two-year old but she wasn’t having any of it. The four-year old was more willing. I took a few pictures of the little family. The mom was obviously a very modest Muslim. She held her scarf over her face much of the time, and she was unwilling to come closer to us than the open doorway that separated the family’s living quarters from the elephant pens. She was pretty excited to have her baby’s picture taken, though. I got a picture I really like (the last one below), with mom looking on as I took a photo of Lily, dad and baby. Mom is smiling in a way that I’m sure she never would have if she’d known she was part of the picture frame. I found myself wondering about their lifestyle. There were swarms of flies in the barn-apartment, and they surely landed alternately on elephant poo and the family’s food. Yikes. I wondered how the woman ended up with the elephant keeper. It seemed like such a mismatch. Who knows.
That evening three of us guys walked along the lake right across the street from our hotel. It’s Eid now—the festival after Ramadan—so there were a jillion people out. The park was more crowded than any park I’ve ever been to in the US. It appeared that all or most of the people were Muslims, and it was a really interesting experience to be out walking among the crowd. We were clearly the center of attention. People stared unabashedly. When I would try out my few words of Hindi on them, they acted impressed, although of course their English would always be far better than my Hindi. One of the guys with me was particularly conspicuous, because he’s tall, good-looking and has longish curly hair. Guys were asking us questions, hooting at us, asking for selfies with us, introducing themselves, etc. No women tried to talk to us or looked at us at all other than the occasional furtive glance. One economics student was particularly garrulous. He told us about Islam, asked me if I knew any Muslims in America, asked if I knew Spanish (“poquito”), asked if I knew French (“un petit peu seulement”—ha!), and generally chatted us up. The park was so crowded and so dirty; no one seems to use trash cans here ever, and cows roam freely. People weren’t really doing anything, just sitting around or walking back and forth and chatting with friends or people-watching.
Crossing the street to and from the park was an adventure. There was a crosswalk but no signal, and no one in India heeds paint on the road. It was like real-life Frogger and I’m not kidding. The saving grace for not getting killed in traffic is that people can’t drive fast here because there’s so much traffic. So you kind of walk out and they honk and slow down and swerve and sometimes stop, sort of, and you dodge up and back and across, and after a while you get across the street. Most of the traffic was motorcycles and scooters. I’d say the average number of riders was three, and I saw as many as five on a motorcycle.
That night we had dinner at a place called Pink City. It included a show with two traditional dancers and three native musicians. One of the dancers did a number where she spun around with a stack of five metal pots on her head, and it was pretty impressive. I ordered mild food, because my innards have been traumatized lately and I wasn’t feeling so hot.
This panorama shows the city, the Amber Fort (center), the wall, and the lake.
Amber Fort and surrounding wall
A small white temple between the double walls, with a banner and the Amber Fort in the background.
This is the tower we climbed up to.
Awesome panorama
Lake
Hello! There were wild monkeys hanging out on the side of the road as we drove home!
Monkey!
Brad and Lily at Amber Fort, about to ride elephants
Lily and her friend Bailey riding an elephant
Lily riding an elephant
The view from Amber Fort of the tower we climbed in the morning
One structure in the Amber Fort
Garden in the Amber Fort
Textiles place we went to this afternoon
Facade from which Muslim royal women (whom no one else was allowed to see) used to look out upon the activities in Jaipur.
Lily and one of the elephants we visited
Those elephants sometimes suddenly use their ears to flap away flies.
For some reason the kids all decided it would be cool to kiss an elephant.
The family that operates the place where we went to pet elephants. It's amazing that I got this picture of the mom. She was a conservative Muslim, and would not come out of her kitchen doorway or take the scarf off her face if she thought anyone was looking at her. I'm sure she didn't know she was part of the picture. She wasn't posing--just really happy that we were admiring her cute baby. One of my favorite pictures this trip!
