Elephants, Mirrors and a Tiger Dad: Jaipur to Ranthambore

An Early Start at Amer Fort

We got up early in Jaipur to beat the crowds. The bus took us to the bottom of Amer Fort, where we caught a jeep, then walked the last bit up. It's a rigmarole, but the views of the fort over the lake were pretty amazing. Work on the fort began in 1592 under Raja Man Singh I. 🏰

As we approached, we ran the gauntlet of people selling things, and the haggling got annoying. It continued inside. It's an interesting approach to selling. There was a snake charmer and a puppet show, which were fascinating to watch, but the implied obligation to pay often meant you couldn't enjoy them. In Europe the show is given freely, as is the koha. Here, people have their hand out constantly.

Near the entrance we saw a group of girls in their school uniforms, and they were so pretty. I loved them. 

Elephants and a Platform

Inside we saw about 20 elephants taking people for rides around the courtyard in processions. The riders got off onto a raised platform so the elephants didn't need to kneel, which was quite funny to watch. The elephants must have started early, walking up from below. 🐘

The Painted Gateway

We went in through a painted gateway, and the paintings on it are roughly 400 years old. They're beautifully detailed. 

 close-up of the paintings

Mirrors and a Garden

Our guide was great, full of stories, and we took lots of photos. My favourite was the garden, which looked like the inspiration for the Indian garden at Hamilton Gardens. The mirrored ceilings are lovely too. Light a single candle, and it reflects everywhere, a magical effect at night in an age before electricity. ✨

Ancient Air-Conditionin

This is an example of engineering that is hundreds of years old. A continuous flow of water, fed from the fountain in the garden, captures the cross-winds in the courtyard and cools the air, an early form of air-conditioning. From the ceiling above, the queen would have a chair suspended, and she could sit and enjoy the cool breeze.

Embellishments Around the Palace

The Giant Cooking Pot

There's a massive cooking pot here, big enough to feed the entire fort. 

Haggling Round Two

After the fort, the sellers wore me down. One would say 800, I'd say 200, they'd say 700, I'd start to walk away, then 300, walk away again, and finally 200, and okay then. I could take it or leave it, but I got a couple of things that were fine. 😄

-On the Road to Ranthambore

After the fort, we got on the road to Ranthambore. This wasn't on the original itinerary. When Bhooi's friend Balendu Singh heard we'd be in the area, he invited us to stay at the resort he started, Dev Vilas. He's a naturalist and conservationist, and it's a top-of-the-line resort. Ranthambore began as a game sanctuary in 1955, became one of India's first Project Tiger reserves in 1973 and a national park in 1980, and covers over 1,300 square kilometres. We'll go on safari tomorrow, and I'll share the details of the park then. 🐯

A Lovely Welcome

We got a lovely greeting when we arrived. After settling into our rooms, which were just delightful, we sat around a fire for the evening, in our best clothes. I wore my new dress from Pushkar and Monique wore her dress that she'd had made from a ssari she bought in Mandawa. 

It wasn't cold, but why not? 🔥 📷 

The Tiger Dad

Around the fire, we heard stories about the park's history, and a story I loved. In 2011, a tigress known as T-5 died, leaving two young cubs. The expectation was that the cubs wouldn't survive, but a camera trap showed their father, a male called T-25 (Zalim), with them. He shared his kills and let them feed first. It was the first time a male tiger was documented raising cubs, and since then other male tigers have been recorded doing the same. I slept soundly in my comfortable room, and we're up at 5:30 for the 6 am trucks into the park. 🐅

Flamingos, Pink Walls and a Giant Sundial: Pushkar to Jaipur

Salt Plains and Flamingos

We left Pushkar early and drove through the salt plains of Sambhar Lake, India's largest inland salt lake and a Ramsar-protected wetland. Salt has been farmed here for about a thousand years. We stopped at the Naliasar pond, where we saw both greater and lesser flamingos, plus a mix of ducks, waders and herons. The flamingos looked mostly white, with a faint pink tinge on some. Their colour comes from pigments in the algae and plankton they eat, and greater flamingos are naturally the paler of the two. We were also early in the season, which runs from about November to March. 🦩

Highway King Lunch

Before Jaipur we stopped at Highway King, a big highway hotel-and-restaurant complex with shops, in the middle of nowhere. Lunch was good but ginormous, which is why we only needed snacks for dinner. ☺️

The Pink City

Jaipur is another big city, and by now we're used to them. Its nickname, the Pink City, is real. The old city was painted pink(y red) in 1876 for a visit by the Prince of Wales, and the colour is the traditional one for hospitality. It stuck, so everything has a pinkish-red tinge. We also saw black kites circling overhead, the world's most abundant bird of prey in their family. 

🏙️

Jantar Mantar

We read up on Jantar Mantar on the bus, then walked through it. It's an astronomical observatory built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the founder of Jaipur, between about 1724 and 1738. It has 19 instruments, and UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 2010. The 27-metre Samrat Yantra is the world's largest stone sundial and is accurate to about 2 seconds, while the smaller one is accurate to 20. Another instrument, the Jai Prakash Yantra, is a pair of bowls that map the sky, and a small one called the Dhruva Darshak points to the Pole Star. I bought a book, because my photos couldn't do the structures justice. 🔭

The City Palace and Art Deco

Next was the palace, and once again some parts were closed or under renovation. What we saw was impressive, including a museum shop and an art gallery. 

An Evening on the Roof

Our hotel is a new one for Jane, and it's impressive, apart from loud street noise, so my earplugs need a workout. We had snacks and drinks on the rooftop. 

 

 

 

Pushkar Day Two: A Sacred Lake, Silver and a Room Full of Loot

Coffee, Pushkar-Style

Our second day in Pushkar began with yoga, then a smorgasbord breakfast. We walked to a local café for coffee and met the bus there. We'd planned to try the bougie hotel next door, but its coffee shop doesn't open until 1:30, which is quite common in India, so it was lucky to find Café Melbourne, a place that caters for foreigners who want their coffee in the morning. ☕

The Sacred Lake

First stop was Pushkar Lake, a pilgrimage site and one of Hinduism's most sacred. Legend says it formed when Brahma, the creator, dropped a lotus flower, and "Pushkar" means lotus. A semi-circle of 52 bathing ghats (steps) surrounds it, and around 400 temples line the shore. Pilgrims believe a dip washes away sins, especially on Kartik Purnima in November, when the Pushkar Fair is held. Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were immersed at Gandhi Ghat, is one of the 52 sacred stone steps (ghats) surrounding the  Lake and everyone goes barefoot on the ghats. It wasn't that pretty in the daytime, but a guest we met at dinner said it's amazing at sunset. 🪷

Hippies, Pilgrims and Bhang

Pushkar is an interesting town. Lots of hippies and travellers come to stay, there are many yoga retreats, and there's a large Israeli community. It's also a holy town where alcohol, meat and eggs are banned. Cannabis isn't legal, but bhang, a drink made from cannabis leaves, is sold in licensed shops. We didn't try any.

Shopping on the Main Street

With pilgrims and backpackers as its customers, Pushkar isn't upmarket. A lot of the fabric is machine-produced and cheap however it is also made with cotton and other natural fibres,  I did pick up some (more) clothes, a book, and about five years' worth of frankincense oil from a trusted shopt 🛍️

A Tongue Drum

I also bought a steel tongue drum, a melodic percussion instrument with a clean, bell-like, meditative tone. The seller showed us how he tunes them, which matters, because some are fake and badly tuned. I think I got a good one. 🎵 Bargaining is everywhere, but I now know what things cost, so sometimes I haggle and sometimes I don't. 

Lunch and Round Two at the Bougie Café

We had a pizza and snacks for lunch, then rested at the hotel. In the afternoon, I suggested a top-up at the bougie café next door, an oasis, where I finally got the chocolate deep-dish pie that Monique had yesterday

Meeting the Silversmith

Down the road from the hotel is a silversmith, whose father is a goldsmith. We saw his work where he makes it and bought directly from him. There's lots of jewellery in the markets, but you can't tell the quality or see the workmanship, so finding these one of a kind pieces was special⚒️ 

Show and Tell

On our last night, we laid out all our loot in our hotel rooms. We started in mine, because I'd bought the most stuff (not spent the most money, just the most stuff). I have four children to buy presents for, and I'll only be in India once. Then we moved on to Vicky and Richard's room, which had the second-biggest pile. It was a great tour, and everyone had bought some lovely things. Drinks, dinner, and a good night's sleep. 😴

Marble, a Giant Shiva and Block Printing in Pushkar

Goodbye, Udaipur

We had coffee, took tuk-tuks back to the bus and said goodbye to Udaipur, a town I'd love to come back to. Rooftop gardens, early-morning coffee and the sights and sounds of India make it a lovely place to spend a few days. Even the streets were relatively clean, and the contrasts are so very India.

Marble Country

Heading to Pushkar, we drove through marble country, with quarries, marble yards stacked with cut slabs, and huge blocks on the backs of trucks. Rajasthan produces most of India's marble, and we were told that's where New Zealanders come for kitchen benchtops. 🪨

A Giant Shiva

In the town of Nathdwara we passed a huge statue of Shiva. It's called Vishwas Swaroopam, "Statue of Belief", and it opened on 29 October 2022. At 369 feet (112 metres), it's the tallest statue of Shiva in the world and reportedly the fourth tallest statue of any kind. You can see it from 20 km away. On another hill nearby stood a golden statue of a monkey god.

Sparkly Rocks

We lunched at a roadside café, where the rocks nearby sparkled, probably from silica Along the way we also saw miles of dry stone walls that seemed to go nowhere. I couldn't tell if it was abandoned farmland or just the wrong time of year, but there was a lot of unused infrastructure.

Settling Into Pushkar

Our hotel, the Hotel Master Paradise, is an oasis in the desert, with a (working!) pool. We'll be here for three days, which is nice after two weeks of travelling. Pushkar is a holy town beside a sacred lake, with one of the few temples to Brahma, and it's a dry town and strictly vegetarian🌴

The Stitching Project

On Friday we visited the Stitching Project, a social enterprise on Kishanpura Road in Pushkar, run by Kayef Stitching Project. It supports women from the surrounding villages making block-printed fabric and clothes. About 45 women work there now, and it has had up to 100 at its peak. We were greeted with the traditional ceremony, and it was the nicest garland we've had, made with fresh roses and marigolds that had been kept somewhere cool.

Block Printing

We toured the workshop, saw the women at their machines and watched professional printers, who were fast and very good. Block printing is traditional in Rajasthan, where the craft is passed down in the Chhipa community, and the name is said to come from chhapna, "to print". We chose our blocks from big albums, which was hard, and printed our own lengths of fabric. I printed mine with a very busy yellow block and I'm having it made into a shirt for my Daniel.  🎨

Saris and Lunch

The women helped us all try on saris and showed us how they're tied, then we sat down for lunch together. We also looked around the shop. A few of us bought pieces, and measured up for our garments to be made out of the fabric we had just block printed

Massage and Posh Coffee

Back at the hotel we swam, and a few of us had a traditional Ayurvedic massage. It's very oily and gentle, not deep tissue, and I didn't find it relaxing at first, except for the head and shoulders. But I slept brilliantly, which I guess was the told point.

Afterward the massage Monique and I went  for coffee at the very bougie hotel next door and had blended iced coffees and cake. My tiramisu was a show. It arrived in pieces, and the waiter built it at the table, pouring the coffee over three sponge fingers, layering the mascarpone cream and sprinkling it with chocolate. It was worth the money just for the performance. 🍰

Kombucha Hour

My room became the meeting place for pre-dinner drinks, and we finished off some of my Udaipur kombucha. Dinner was a buffet, with a fruit-filled custard dessert so good I went back for seconds.