Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Jaipur – Rest Day
Sleeping-in felt great…even though I was wakened to the sound of the 5am call to prayer from the nearby mosque. It's a male voice chanting over loud speakers mounted at the top of a pole. I would call it chanting but maybe its singing – I don’t know for sure, but I CAN tell you that it lasts 5-10 minutes 4 times per day. All I know is that I didn’t have as great an appreciation for it as do the locals… not at 5 am when I just wanted to sleep. J
After breakfast we (Jan, Candie, Rod and I) went on a tour of a few of the local landmarks. Rod is an English gentleman living in the Vancouver area. He is retired and his wife is Indian so he’s been to the country many times – he will visit his in-laws when we get closer to Goa, south of Mumbai. Our first stop on our tour was… a coffee shop – Jan HAD to have coffee! We pulled into a gas station and I had to chuckle as the driver assured Jan that they DID have espresso there. The sign on the door was funny:
After that quick stop we were on our way to the Amber Fort. Over 13 Kilometers of fortified walls follow the contours of the mountains surrounding the fort – this is called Jaigarh Fort. So the Amber Fort is like a fort within a fort. At the entrance, the elephants await riders and I did climb aboard but only after asking several questions about the elephants. They are all females, middle aged (around 40 years - kinda like me...haha!) and work only 2 hours each morning. We were the last ride up the stone ramp for Maria and her driver Nitu, a very polite and happy young man who has worked with the elephants for 10 years. It is possible that their care is suspect (our driver was not sure) but I can tell you that our ride was the last of the morning. The elephants were gone after that. Never thought I'd ride an elephant!
The paint on her ears, face and trunk were from a wedding ceremony. She was going to get it washed off when she was off work… or so they said.The courtyard of the castle is massive – along the ridge and down the front of the distant hillside you can make out the perimeter rampart/wall that surrounds the area.
One level up from the open courtyard is another courtyard with a beautiful pillared area to the left and to the right the temple area dedicated to their god Ganesha. It took 500 years to BUILD this entire fort… imaging that! Our COUNTRY isn’t even close to that old!
Here’s the kitchen – yep! I don’t know how they stirred that pot but it was used to prepare the food for the ruler.
I walked back down the ramp and took a picture looking back up the ramp. Here it is:
On our way to lunch, we passed the Water Palace, also known as the Jal Mahal – it’s so beautiful! It was built as an island in a man-made lake. Our driver told us that next year they may begin restoration to turn it into a hotel.
We then visited the Wind Palace in the walled city – so many things to see. This Palace housed a harem and the women were kept inside this palace all the time. There are small openings in the outside walls for them to look out without being seen so they could watch the goings on of the streets below, but no one could see their faces.
Then I was back to the hotel to clean up my bike, tighten all bolts, lube the chain, etc. AND finish updating my blog since this is the perfect opportunity to do it. I have no idea if I will be able to access internet along the way so this may be it for a few days. Next rest day is on the 6th - hopefully there will be internet there and I can share more stories.
