Yeah!!! I didn’t throw that flower into Pushkar Lake for nothin’! Of course the jewelry place in Jaipur had free rum for me (see: yesterday’s entry). But that’s not what’s important now. That was only a fraction of how I spent the day in Jaipur.
Awoke at a reasonable hour. 6:30am. Some vacation, right? We had to be up and out of the hotel early because the best way up to the Amber Fort from the base is by elephant, and it’s a popular mode of transportation so queues can be pretty long. We arrived fairly quickly and there was already a line maybe 50-people deep. We stood around waiting our turns to hop aboard some elephants, hawkers endlessly hawking their crummy little bracelets and t-shirts. This time around they added some crummy turbans and blankets to their usual inventory. I bought neither, but the turbans provided us ample opportunity to photograph ourselves making stupid faces while wearing them. I also decided that, since we’ve been in India for four or five days now and we’ve already taken hundreds of serious photos, its high-time i start photo bombing other people who are on this trip with me. I enlisted my sister as my co-conspirator and we did a pretty good job of fucking up a lot of photos while we were waiting for the elephants to trudge back down the hill from the fort.
At the front of the line we discovered it was two people to an elephant, so of course my sister and I shared a ride up to the top of the hill. Our elephant driver (herder? wrangler? what would you call the person who steers the elephant?) took quick notice of our young, silly demeanor and chose to make his elephant run up the hill instead of the regular “leisurely Proboscidian stroll” everyone else received. We taunted all the people we passed along the way, nearly started a stampede, and got yelled at a few times for not sitting properly in our human harness. So what if we fell out, it’s not like an elephant can step on a person and crush them to death, right?
The Amber Fort was one of the more magnificent structures we’ve seen to this point in the trip. Technically it’s located in Amer (10km outside of Jaipur). It was made by king Raja Alan Singh Chanda, and is known for it’s unique architectural style, which blends Hindu and Mughal elements. The Mughals use a lot of domes, play with symmetry, and are very decorative. Oh, and in case you don’t already know, the Mughals were an imperial power in the Indian subcontinent whose empire lasted from 1526-1858. Today the empire consists of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. They were a Persian and mainly Islamic people, the Mughals. Anyway, enough history, the Fort is pretty big. It features several courtyards and an opulent palace complex, which makes sense considering it was lived in by the Maharajas and their families. The third courtyard is probably the most splendid, as that’s where the private quarters of the Maharaja were located. There were mirrors inlaid in the ceilings and walls which kept the room vibrant and reflected the sunlight throughout. Perhaps the craziest thing I learned about the fort is that it featured a really primitive but functional air conditioning unit. A piped water supply flows from an open channel through the edifice in order to keep it cool. The water ends up in the garden. But, shit, the thing was built in 1592. That’s pretty impressive. Although I’m sure the Romans or Greeks or someone figured it out first, maybe in a more crude fashion. Either way, I was impressed.
The elephants are taken care of so they don’t work all day. Which means instead of getting a free lift down the hill we had to (gasp) walk. The walk took longer than an elephant at full speed. I didn’t mind the exercise, though I longed to see how quick one of those creatures could sprint downhill.
Our next stop was an — ugh — jewelry factory where some guy tried to show us how rubies and sapphires and emeralds are cut down from giant rocks into pretty little stones to be set in gold and silver. I raced inside and asked if they had any rum. I don’t know why I thought they would. Maybe because the textile factory offered us free rum? Turns out they did! A server went to the back room and came out with a few dozen glasses of McDowell’s and some free bottles of Pepsi and 7-Up to mix with the rum. I sat on the couch watching all the women shop for jewels. I chatted with an Indian tour guide about Lotus flowers for a few minutes. My sister returned, disappointed that she didn’t buy anything but happy to see free rum.
We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant on Main Amer Road called The Pindi. We were treated to fresh garlic naan, steamed rice, lentils, palak paneer (cottage cheese cooked with spinach), dal fry (yellow lentils cooked with Indian spices), Tandoori chicken, and gulab jamun (a browned dumpling, more like a donut, served in hot sugar syrup) which quickly became my new Indian food obsession. Holy shit are those things delicious.
After lunch we went back to the hotel to freshen up, and then a bus took us to City Palace so we could exit through the gates and walk around the Jaipur bazaar. I didn’t want to leave my sister alone to be molested by the locals, but I couldn’t get anything done because every five seconds another guy was coming up to her either asking if she wanted to buy jewelry or asking if she was already somebody’s wife. It was the most annoying two hours of my trip, trying to find my way through the bazaar and taking photographs, when literally 10 times a minute we were fending someone else off of her. Eventually we ended up in a back alleyway (she followed the guy, not me) and in a gem store with some people we already knew. She shopped for a while, I drank some chai and chatted with one of the kids who worked there. I strolled around the alleyway and watched the baboons eating and moving from bulding-top to building-top. I looked up above me and noticed there were two baboons hanging out on the edge of a building. My sister was trying to photograph three little babies about a hundred yards away. Suddenly one of the baboons I was watching put its arm around the other one. I said, “Oh that’s cool. That guy just put his arm around the other one.” I went to take a picture, and while doing so the “guy” who’d been shown affection by his friend mounted the friend and began banging away. So I inadvertently got a picture of two baboons fucking. Kinda funny. I mean, considering my afternoon was spent defending my sister from molesters and watching her shop for necklaces I’d say it was the highlight of my post-lunch day.
Dinner was at a nice restaurant in our hotel (it was cheaper than going to the restaurant with the fire dancing, plus that restaurant only offered buffet dinners, and I’m fucking sick and tired of all these buffet meals). I ordered a charcoal chicken dish and a lamb on the bone dish, both of which were really good. My sister ordered pizza. I think she’s over the whole Indian cuisine thing we’ve been eating exclusively for the past week.
Tomorrow shifts from Jaipur to Agra. I’ll be visiting a few more historical sites as well as an orphanage, which will probably make me cry. I’m not a pussy, it’s a fucking orphanage in India. If that doesn’t tug at your heartstrings you’re probably a cold, heartless bastard. Taj Mahal will be at dawn the following morning. Yeah, I’m waking up at like 3am to make sure I’m there as the sun rises. I guess that’s supposed to be THE time to see it. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let somebody tell me the best time to see the Taj Mahal and then NOT show up.
Although, that’d be totally ROCK ‘N ROLL of me, wouldn’t it?
R.D. Burman – Mela Pyar Shalimar [MP3]
