Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Jaipur


Hey!  Haven't been posting lately.  I've been looking for work, which isn't very interesting.  At the moment I am travelling India for about a month, which keeps me away from the internet.  My first destination was Jaipur.  Excuses and long stories, I didn't get too many photos there, but I did have a good time.


I caught most of the major tourist attractions.


These photos are from the Amber, Jaigar, and Nahargarh Forts.


It's not exactly the best time of year to be travelling in India.  The monsoon has brought the temperatures down a little, but most places are still a lot hotter and more humid than even Pune.



I was a sweaty mess by the end, but I did manage to climb the few kilometres from Amber to Nahargarh.  And domestic tourists still wanted to take pictures with me.


I didn't take my camera, but probably the highlight of my Jaipur visit was Krishna's birthday.  I stayed at a little B&B, All Season Homestays, and my host was kind enough to take me to the Krishna temple on the day.  Huge crowds, corralled like cattle for ages to spend a few seconds in front of the idol, struggling even to kneel and make a prayer before being ushered along.


I think all of the forts have some kind of water retention system that usually feeds into a pool like the one below.


Another favorite in Jaipur was the Albert Hall Museum.  I had only planned an hour or two there, but spent the entire afternoon engrossed in the collections of pottery, statues, textiles, musical instruments, jewelry, art work, etc.  And not just for the inadvertently hilarious title cards.


In addition to the forts, I visited a couple gardens, a monkey temple, Janter Manter, the City Palace, bought my first train tickets at the actual train station, did some jewelry shopping, met J from Nigeria and tasted some authentic Nigerian food.

2 comments:

The Intellectual said...

Quiet interesting. So, how many days did you end up staying there for? A week, maybe?

Siera said...

I was only in Jaipur for 3 days. I really enjoyed a few things, Janter Manter and Albert Hall especially, but I didn't like how touristy it was. Now that I've finished my trip, I am pretty resolved not to go to such touristy places again. There are beautiful temples and ancient sites all over India. I'll be posting about it later, but I much prefer places like Lucknow and Bhopal, both of which have lovely museums and fewer people trying to cheat you. Though fewer people speak English and that's a challenge, you can usually find someone friendly enough to help and I'm getting pretty good at miming. I've picked up a bit more Hindi now too.