After a 7 and a half hour train journey which should have taken 5 and a half hours i arrived in Jaipur - the so called pink city. I met another female traveller and we headed out to see some sites. Jaipur is a big city and as we headed out to Amber Fort, we were amazed at all the animals we saw including peacocks, elephants, camels, monkeys, goats, pigs, cows to name a few.
Amber fort is some 11 km out of town and the view from it over Jaipur are quite spectaculour. The fort itself is quite run down as were some of the other sites we went to visit but its well worth the day trip out. We drove past the Water Palace which is a palace in the middle of a lake which doesnt seem to be accessable at the moment. The "monkey" temple was lovely despite the steep trek up as there are hundreds of monkeys along the way who seem to be clearly used to tourists feeding them peanuts as they seemed quite friendly (although i kept my distance). Had a bit of rain during the day which is unheard of at this time of year but not complaints from me as it cooled the temperature down!
Today i checked out the touristy sites within the city walls of Jaipur. Its only really the old part of the city which remains pink. The rest is multicoloured much like the women seen on the streets in their wonderfully bright saris. Checked out the City Palace and the Hawa Mahal (wind palace) both of which were architechurally lovely and well worth a visit but i think the hightlight for me was Jantar Mantar - an observatory begun by Jai Singh in 1728. Not that i am the astronomical type but i have to say it was quite interesting checking out all the different devices he had to figure out the time and postion of stars etc. He even built the worlds largest sun dial. It was all very cool - honest.
In sum, Jaipur has the thumbs up from me. Busy chaotic but beautiful.
Tonight (21st march) i am off to Udaipur - be in touch soon
