Day 91 - Jaipur, Royal Gaitor Tumbas, Jal Mahal, Amber Fort & The Albert Hall Museum

Day 91 - we are officially one quarter of the way through our dream year of travel !
 We initially only had 2 nights accommodation booked in Jaipur, we didn't realise it was going to be our favourite place in India yet. We organised the night before with a tuk tuk driver to pick us up at 9am for a big day of sight seeing. When he arrived at 9am there was a problem with the tuk tuk's ability to accelerate and change gears which required a stop off at the local mechanic and a delay of an hour before it was fixed. We didn't mind and our patience was rewarded with free chai!

Our first stop in Jaipur was the Royal Gaitor Tumbas just on the northern edge of the city centre. It is  a walled funerary complex for the royal Maharajas of Jaipur's ruling family. We had no guide on our adventures and there was no signs in the complex to tell us exactly what it is we were looking at. Though obviously some sort of memorial. I have read a few articles claiming they are just Cenotaphs (memorial's, monument or empty tomb for someone buried somewhere else) while also reading they are mausoleum's and cremation platforms for the ruling family. I am more inclined to think they are Cenotaphs based on the small entry fee, lack of security and the activities we saw here & not actual tombs. They were built by Jai Singh II, in honor of Pratap Singh, Madho Singh II and Jai Singh II. It didn't really feel like a tourist site, we were the only western tourists here, all the other people were Indians and doing a range of things from photoshoots to studying and having picnics. The courtyards and gardens were maintained well and it was a very peaceful place to explore. The giant marble complex's were intricately carved and easy to admire. The only disappointing thing was that on the inside of some inner walls there was graffiti. We spent nearly an hour walking around before leaving. on the way out we walked over a small concrete platform bridge that separated the 2 courtyards and saw a mother pig with some newly born piglets,  they were so cute!! We admired them for a few minutes before leaving. We have seen a lot of pigs while in India, they dont appear to be the big wild feral pigs that you would see in a jungle, but are not necessarily domesticated and can be found rummaging through trash piles and wallowing in rivers.

Our next stop was Jal Mahal, a palace that is in the centre of the lake, Man Sagar  in Jaipur city. It's name means water palace and it was erected in 1799. This palace was built by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh and is 5 stories high, 4 stories lie under water and constructed out of red sandstone. The palace has undergone many restorations in its time. the most significant one was done by Jai Singh II. It now lies abandoned, except for pigeons and seems to be cloaked in mystery as I can't find much about its history or its original purpose. It is thought to have been a summer palace for royals to enjoy on hot days & to organise duck hunting parties. From the side of the lake it offered a very spectacular view.

Our next stop & the thing Tom was most excited for was the Amber Fort. I was also excited to see my first fort though perhaps a little less than Tom. It is located about 11km's from Jaipur city & can be seen sitting high on a hill as we approached. Constructed from red sandstone and marble, it sits next to  the Maota lake & is a magnificent display of Hindu style palace elements. Amber or Amer as its also known, gets it's name from a local Hindu temple called Ambikashwara, a name used by Hindu worshipers in the region for the Hindu god Shiva. We spent the most time here and the hottest part of the day exploring the palace & the fortifications. Everything from exquisite gardens with fountains, luxurious bath houses to princess quarters & servants secret hallways. You could easily spend a full day exploring every nook & cranny & know that some secrets were still hidden from you. As with a lot of other big tourist places in India, visiting a place like the Amber Fort comes the many request's for photos and selfies with curious Indians that haven't seen many white people before. As long as the request is elite, we are happy to oblige as long as we can also take a selfie. Weirdly sometimes the request to have a photo of our own can be a deterrent, with the Indians not wanting their photo taken.  The first courtyard of the fort was also the place we would see a different type of monkeys with long tails, bigger & leaner in stature and with black faces.  I would later learn these are one of the largest & heaviest species of monkeys native to India & are called Grey Langur. Very different to the smaller, stockier brown monkeys with red faces and red bums we had seen through the rest of India and Nepal, known as Rhesus Macaque.

After we had visited the Amber Fort & found our Tuk tuk driver, he offered to take us to see an elephant amusement show & elephant rides, much to our disgust. I have read in several places the use of Elephants around Jaipur is considered inhuman and barbaric  by several world organisation groups including PETA and the central zoo authority. There is also concerns about elephant trafficking in the area. Hopefully enough tourists will say NO that the Tuk Tuk drivers & the tourism companies realise  it is not acceptable.

Lunch was at an expensive but nice restaurant (no doubt the tuk tuk driver got commission) in Jaipur where we ordered the waiters recommendations for a real Indian meal & were not disappointed. Unfortunately we can't remember the names of what it was.... but we guarantee you it was delicious! Our lunch break went for about an hour which also allowed our tuk tuk driver the opportunity to go and pray. He explained he is Muslim and it is the last day of Ramadan and very important. Ramadan is the 9th month of the Muslim calendar and is the holy month of fasting, a tradition known worldwide.

Albert Hall Museum was next after our lunch break, the oldest museum in the state of Rajasthan. A beautiful piece of architecture, with manicured green lawns & covered in flocks of pigeons people were feeding. Inside was an international collection of pottery which amazed and disappointed me. I was hoping to learn about some Indian history & culture. I did learn that the museum was named after the Prince of Wales Albert Edward who visited in 1876 when the buildings foundation stones were being laid, however the purpose of the building was not yet known. In 1881 a small museum dedicated to industrial arts was opened and proved to be successful. Albert Hall was completed in 1887 and became a museum for the curation and display of art from all civilisations. We saw pottery from & porcelain statues replica's from Europe, Japanese, Burmese & Sinhala art, Perisan & Turkish pottery, painted tiles from Iran and an Egyptian exhibit that was curated by the head of the Cairo Museum. We did see some Indian artefacts such as brass & copper ornaments, traditional instruments, swords, guns & other weaponry and art depicting daily life of the people and gods.

After we had finished in the museum it was nearing 4pm, we had both drunk nearly 4 litres of water, stunk like sweat, had new blisters and were ready to call it a day. Surprisingly our tuk tuk driver stopped out the front of a textiles shop with no explanation but an insistence that we go inside. We obliged but we're not interested in anything and promptly left. We could tell the shop owner and the tuk tuk driver were not impressed by our lack of spending & it took some firm demands from Tom to get our tuk tuk driver to take us home, in the process he still tried really hard to take us to a silver shop.

It was really such a shame that we had to end such a lovely day feeling like we had to be rude to get home. Unfortunately this is a reality of India. We still paid the Tuk Tuk driver with a 25% tip, which was our original plan anyway, though now it felt a bit undeserved and booked his services for the next day at 3pm.

We arrived back at our hostel and walked into our room to find that we had a new person in the dorm & the 2 people from the previous night were gone. Her name was Rachna & she would turn out to be one of the most AMAZING people we would meet in India & on our journey throughout the world. We instantly bonded and started talking about our different lives, experiences  & goals as women, a conversation that would last for about 5 hours, requiring delivery dinner & with all thoughts of the shower, my tiredness and the blog neglected.

- Alli