Our second day with our driver was much better! We woke up early and spent the whole day seeing the tourist sites of Jaipur, the Pink City. It gets its name from the color that was used in the building materials of the structures throughout the city. Set in a desert landscape with tropical flowers popping up all around as well as a natural lake surrounded by a promenade on the northern end, which has a castle built in the center, Jaipur is actually a strikingly beautiful place. It is also made quite exotic with painted elephants roaming the streets alongside large camels pulling carts. And the most beautifully dressed women in vibrant colorful saris whipping by on the dozens of motorbikes that line the roads.
We started our day at the Amber Palace, set up in the hills above Jaipur built in 1639. The main entrance is a large open courtyard with a grand staircase leading into the palace on its southern end. The palace consisted of formal meeting rooms, guest quarters, royal living quarters, a hammam or Turkish style bath, and many gardens all spreading over three levels with a massive footprint. Everything was carved in stone. One of the royal entertaining rooms consisted of thousands of little mirrors laid in marble, which were to give off light at night when oil lanterns were lit. It was a truly beautiful site, inside and out, even day and night. At night there is a dramatic light show that runs from 7pm until 11!
The next stop was the Hawa Mahal or the Palace of the Winds, it was built in1799 to enable women of the court to watch street processions while remaining in hiding. The building is five stories and decked out with hundreds of finely screened windows and balconies. Again everything had extensive intricate carvings throughout the whole structure.
Next was the Jantar Mantar, an enclosed grassy park built in 1728 – 1734 by Jai Singh to hold his larger than life astronomical devises. The park looks like a large modern art installation with the largest sundial on earth as well as devises leading to the study of astrology, a very important element of Indian culture.
After walking through the park we walked across the street to the Jaipur City Palace, which was also built by Jai Singh in 1720, and is still occupied by the royal family of Jaipur today. The palace has not lost any of its original splendor, each doorway and gateway is heavily decorated, each chandelier intact and each hall guarded by turbaned guards decked out in full royal garb.
After spending two and a half hours wandering through the palace and its attached museum we headed for a late lunch at the City View Garden restaurant. Jimmy tried a new dish, not chicken curry, but Jaal Frezi, which is chicken with green peppers, onion and garlic in a thick red sauce, and we split a basket of Naan bread. Naan is the best food in India, safe, filling, and pretty much always the same. The funny thing about my love of Naan is that it started in Alaska! My totally cool dad brought me to the new trendy Nepalese restaurant – Yak and Yetti’s and that is where I had my first Naan. Now everywhere we go in India I have to order it!
After lunch we went back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta and a little reading and then it was time for dinner. Our driver took us to a great Indian restaurant where there was traditional Indian dancing. After a great dinner and a show we went back to the hotel because we had an early start in the morning – we were off to see the Taj Mahal!
The next morning we woke up early and drove for five hours to the town of Agra where the Taj Mahal is located. Agra has two stunning architectural features, the well known Taj Mahal commissioned in 1632 and finished in 1653 and the Agra fort constructed in 1565 -1573. We first visited the Taj Mahal and our driver arranged a guide to take us through. Our guides name was Lanna and she was quite knowledgeable and helpful. After buying our tickets she pushed us to the head of the every long line, cutting in front of a lot of people. She pushed Jimmy into the men’s line and we stood patiently in the women’s. I was a little shocked at this but wasn’t really sure what to say and when I went to open my mouth she quickly said, line to long, not enough time and pushed me up to the guard who checked my purse after I walked through a medal detector. On the other side of security Lanna started with the history of the Taj Mahal. It was interesting to note that the structure was built by a Muslim king, which I didn’t know, and that the city of Arga is a large Muslim center and the people are very well known for there inlayed carvings which they have been doing in Agra since the period the Taj Mahal was built. Also interesting was the king who commission the structure for his wife, Shah Jahan, wanted to have another palace tomb built for himself across the Yamuna River, that would be a black palace to contrast with the white Taj Mahal, however the kings son felt that his father had already spent to much time and money building the Taj Mahal and he had his father arrested and thrown in prison. The platform of where the kings black palace would be is still visible across the river. After the history lesson, Lanna was quite active in positioning Jimmy and I, to take our picture, which was very sweet of her. Then we walked up the twenty-two stairs and into the tomb. Lanna brought a mini flashlight to show us how the inlayed flowers light up when light is shown on them. The craftsmanship was amazing. As we existed Lanna told us that the structure on the north end of the Taj was a mosque that is still in use today and on the southern end was a guesthouse that mirrored the mosque in architecture to give balance. There were also beautiful manicured gardens throughout. After leaving the Taj Mahal we went to another factory to see how the marble is cut and designed. After a shorter but just as elaborate presentation, as we had at the textile factory, we said we were not interested in buying anything. We were then shuttled through five more rooms holding everything anyone could want to buy that seems “Indian” we left and got back in the car.
Our next stop was the Agra Fort which Lanna again gave a great history lesson on and after a couple of pictures and another glimpse of the Taj Mahal across the river we were off again for another long drive back to Delhi.
There was a lot of traffic and road construction but we made it back to Delhi around 8:30 pm and our driver dropped us off at our new hotel, the Royal Residency. We were a little nervous about the drop off, because our driver told Jimmy on our first night with him, were he got drunk, that his clients usually tip him $20 US a day for his services. He was an alright guy, I mean we were a little annoyed the first night, but other than that he was ok, but we didn’t feel that he deserved $60 in addition to what he was already getting. Especially when that is more that one days budget for us on this trip! When we got out of the car Jimmy went to shake his hand and he said where is my tip. Jimmy explained that he was just thanking him and then gave him his tip, which he seemed satisfied with as he drove off.
After settling into our room we went and had dinner and then came back to check the Internet. The next morning we were going to leave for Rishikesh and we had not heard from our travel agent if our train tickets from Rishikesh to Dharamsala made it off the wait list. Just as we were discussing this, a man at the hotel came up to us in the lobby and said our tickets had arrived and that we had a phone call. Our travel agent said our tickets were still waitlisted but to call and see what our status was two hours before the train was suppose to leave, he gave us the number and said our tickets were on the house, another sign we paid him to much, but oh well.
The next morning we were up early again, 4 am this time to catch our 5:30 train to Rishikesh. We opted not to shower because the Royal Residency was also the royal house of cockroaches, a common occurrence, that I am getting use to throughout our travels. The hotel arranged a taxi that took us to the train station; we were there early with plenty of time to find our train. Our train ticket was an electronic ticket, similar to what you print out when you fly, we went to the ticket counter to ask if we needed to exchange the piece of paper for hard tickets and when we were waiting in line a man came up to us and asked what we were waiting for, saying he worked at the train station, we explained and he took our ticket and looked at it. Then he explained that we needed to come with him across that street because our seats were in fact “WS” or what he said was a “waiting seat” and that we needed to have them confirmed. It was early and we were both tired and as we followed the man across the busy street I knew something was not right. Our travel agent had said that these seats on this train were good. When we got to the office another man examined our tickets and said we had to pay him $50 US to confirm the seats. That was it, I had, had it, I said we were calling the travel agent and we were not going to take this anymore, I was kind of yelling – but I was really pissed off, the man quickly gave our piece of paper back and said that our seats actually were confirmed and wrote a giant OK across our paper. We left the office and again crossed the busy street back to the train station. We found our train and boarded it. Later as we were on our way, the train staff brought us tea and coffee and breakfast, our WS was not waiting seat it was with service! However, even though Delhi was very frustrating we were on our way to peaceful yoga and so after breakfast we fell fast asleep and when we woke up we were in Rishikesh.
