Monday 22 January
Jaipur
We got to jaipur about 10 am & went first to a hindu temple/bathing complex outside of town in the hills. It was in 4 levels that each was higher up a stone mountain, dug into the side. The water is from a spring that supposedly has some magical link to the ganges, so it’s a special place to come & wash yourself, then attend one of the small temples. There was a men’s pool & a women’s, and people got in with their clothes kind of on, but mostly not. And men and women wandered around each other’s pools freely, so it was pretty loose. These were country folk though who were accustomed to bodies I guess. I can’t imagine the city people behaving this way, although they are also hindus, not muslims. It was nice to see how open they were about their bodies. We were wandering about, hesitantly at first because we didn’t know how they felt about it, but gradually we warmed up too. It was maybe the most comfortable & interesting place I’ve ever seen.
I should mention that cows, goats, and monkeys were running around freely, which gave things a barnyard feel. The people who were bathing threw their scraps on the ground for the animals, so everybody got something to eat. Nobody here spoke English, although they tried to talk to us. We looked back at them quite dumb, so they got a good laugh at our expense. It was all actually quite jolly.
There was a group of women who, after bathing, made a little raft out of a flat round tray. They filled it with little globs of wax made into candles, along with a few coins, and set it out into the pool of water. They sang a song & whenever it came close to the side, swooshed some water to scoot it back out until the song was finished. It was like an offering to the gods.
The folks at this place were very happy to have their photos taken, so it was a fun time.
Then we went into jaipur. This seems to be a more prosperous & cleaner & less crowded place than delhi, although it must be more of a tourist spot as well because there are lots more hawkers who are also a lot more insistent. They follow you down the road sticking their items in front of you, shouting out prices that gradually become lower & lower. Carved animals of “sandalwood,” postcards, books, “authentic” antique paintings of Krishna polo on elephants, men caressing busty women nude from the waist up (!) on old rice paper, brass elephant-shaped shoehorns, etc. there are also fewer homeless people here it seems, although you still see them on the sidewalks curled up, or sitting amongst their few possessions.
The traffic here is even wilder than in delhi though, because in addition to cars, big buses, little buses, bikes, tricycle-cabs, rickshaws, pushcarts, and pedestrians, there are camels, horses, and bulls pulling carts, as well as people riding camels and horses, and we even saw someone on an elephant sitting in the right-turn lane waiting for his signal. Not to mention horses & camels going at about highway speed in places where the vehicular traffic had thinned out a bit. Everybody honking horns constantly (except the animals that is). Forgot to mention guys on fancy spangly white horses dressed like they should be in a parade and several marching bands that were getting in shape for wedding processions. You can’t imagine the din. When we all get home we will have nervous breakdowns from sensory deprivation.
Tuesday 23 January
Still Jaipur
Jaipur is in the state called Rajasthan, which means “land of the rajahs.” It’s the area where the rajahs lived. It’s actually pretty deserty, which is why there are so many camels around. Tomorrow we will drive to Agra, and go through some of the dunes. Jaipur is called “the pink city” because the highness guy had the whole city painted “pink,” really a deep orange/red, to honor the prince of wales who visited in 1876 I think. The city still is mostly this color, and the old part totally is. It was designed in the 1700s on a grid system, not a boring 10 blocks/mile like our grids, but somehow using 9s over & over because this is a special number for the number of important heavenly bodies for Hindus.
This morning we got up early to go to the Amber Fort, which is in the mountains outside the city. It dates from the 1500s, and shows a strong muslim influence in the architecture – arches, fountains, and grilled windows where the women could look out & not be seen. The fun part was that you ride an elephant up the hill to the fort. The elephants are all painted up with flowers etc in all colors on their foreheads & ears. On the way up the hill at about 6 points were guys with cameras that tried to get you to pose & smile – they said, “no good, no buy.” Some of the group did buy their pictures before it was all over. The interesting thing is that the prints were film, not digital, so they had to process them really quick to have any sales at all. Well, even more that they were able to find their potential customers in the hundreds & hundreds of people touring the fort. The challenge being to find the customer before the competition did.
The rajah (or whatever) who built the fort/palace had an apartment for each of his 12 wives, with a common verandah where they could all sit together and gossip. The place was also full of “secret” passages. It had 3 main courtyards, one with gardens and fountains.
We also went by something called the Palace of the Winds, a huge, both tall & broad structure that’s only one room deep (don’t know why it doesn’t fall down). It was built so all the royal ladies could have a place to sit & view an annual procession, again without being seen by the riffraff on the streets below.
This afternoon there were some dancing girls who were hired to pose for us in their bangles & huge earrings & diaphanous veils etc. our instructor fred posed them several different ways for us to work with, with lots of hand signals since he doesn’t speak hindi & they didn’t speak English. Never took so many pix in so short a time.
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