© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Chandra Mahal is where the royal family reside, it sits on the centre of the compound. You can get a look at the balconies and windows, on its seven storey facade, from Pritam Niwas Chowk, the Peacock Courtyard. There are so many good photographic opportunities in the Peacock Courtyard, so many beautiful images of peacocks, and patterns, and lovely shades of red, blue, and gold. Everywhere we looked there were fantastic ornate embossed doors and heavily detailed paintings surrounding the doorways. It was so vast, we felt quite small and insignificant walking round admiring the artwork. There was such a richness to every surface, we loved it and thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

JANTAR MANTAR OBSERVATORY

The Jantar Mantar is situated next to the Hawa Mahal and the City Palace, three great sites all in one place. The jantar Mantar was Jai Singh’s astronomical observatory. There were eighteen instruments erected between 1728 and 1734 by Jai Singh. He was influenced by foreign astrologers and his mother who was one of his teachers, but many of the devices were his own inventions. A guide can help explain the workings of the observatory. The instruments are built so that shadows falling onto the marked surfaces identify the position and movement of the stars and planets, telling the time, and even predicting the monsoons intensity. Interestingly the time is completely unique to Jaipur, anywhere between ten and forty one minutes behind Indian standard time, depending on the time of year, but is used to calculate the Hindu lunar calendar. The most impressive construction is probably the sundial, Samrat Yantra. Its centrepiece is 27m high, and casts shadows over the curved stone faces that are graduated in hours. Each hour is divided into thirty parts, making the time accurate to within two minutes. The Jaiprakash Yantra is a more original device, two hemispheres laid in the ground, each with six curving marble slabs with a suspended centre ring, the shadow marks the day, time, and zodiac symbol. This is used for calculating the auspicious days for marriage. There were so many interesting places to visit in Jaipur, and all of our senses were constantly on full alert.

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We were pleased to get back to the air conditioning of our room, and enjoy a lovely refreshing shower. I remember one day in particular, when I was feeling a bit rough, I had seven showers in just a few hours. The bedroom was lovely and cool with the air conditioning, but the bathroom didn’t have air conditioning so it was very hot in there. We felt so hot, we just couldn’t get cool, thankfully as the hours passed so did the heat, a little anyway. As the weather was unusually hot, we thought that it might be a good idea to arrange for a car and driver to take us out to the other sites we wanted to see. We arranged this through the hotel, a car was booked for first thing the following morning.

AMBER FORT

Our driver was already waiting in reception when we went down. We had decided on an early start, hopefully we could see a lot of Amber Fort before it got too warm. We could see the fort long before we arrived there. It is about 11kms from Jaipur, situated high up on the hill behind Amber. Our driver parked up near to the elephant booking office. We had seen lots of elephants, with tourists sitting happily on top, slowly plodding up the winding road to the top. Initially I didn’t fancy doing this, and Richard wanted to walk. But then I thought I might not get the opportunity to ride on an elephant again, and I changed my mind. We spoke to the young men who looked after the elephants and agreed a fee, we didn’t use the booking office. Most of the elephants had their faces coloured with pretty designs of flowers, and some had the words ‘I Love You’ on their heads. To enable us to get on to the elephant we had to walk up some stairs and wait on top of a big concrete platform. Then the elephant walked over to us, and we had to step from the platform and sit on the elephant. Our elephant had a huge metal framed bed on his back, which had a big soft mattress on it. Richard helped me climb across, which wasn’t easy as I don’t like heights. This was all beginning to feel like a really bad idea. Once we were both finally settled on the bed, the young man, who was sitting right behind the elephants huge ears, shouted something and the elephant began to walk. It was much higher up there than I thought it would be, and our elephant didn’t seem too happy. He kept making loud noises and the man was shouting at him. We said we didn’t want the elephant to be upset, and we would get off. But his owner seemed to calm him down. It was not that pleasant going up to the top of the fort. I felt bad for the elephant and wished we had walked, I think the elephant wished we had too! All of the other elephants that passed us going up and down seemed very calm. Our elephant was crazy, I think he was trying to shake us off! I was very pleased when we reached the top. I practically jumped off of the poor elephant and ran to the shade, ready to explore the fort. Never again! Amber Fort was the ancient citadel of the Kuchwahas Rajputs clan of Amber. The fort itself is an interesting mix of Hindu and Mughal architecture. Its construction was started in 1592 by Raja Man Singh I and completed by Mirza Raja Jai Singh and Sawai Jai Singh I. Made from red sand stone and white marble, the rugged exterior belies an inner paradise fusing art and architecture. The interior walls of the palace have painted scenes with carvings, precious stones and mirrored designs. The Jai Mandir ~ hall of victory, has the most beautiful ceiling, with mirror pieces on stucco and elegant inlaid panels. This area was very popular whilst we were there, with a large Indian family taking lots of photos. The Diwan-E-Khas ~ hall of private audience, was also very popular and busy as it is as impressive as the hall of victory. Thousands of tiny pieces of mirror and coloured glass of odd shapes and sizes, adorn the walls and ceiling, with the slightest amount of light hitting them and making them sparkle and shine, illuminating the whole room. It was so beautiful, just standing still and admiring the walls and ceiling. The Sukh Niwas ~ hall of pleasure, has a beautiful door carved in sandalwood and inlaid with ivory. There is a channel running through which used to carry water acting as an air cooler. The Amber Fort and palace made a very interesting visit, we enjoyed walking round the gardens, and looking at the gateways, halls, palaces, pillared pavilions, and temples. Apparently the Kuchwahas’ famous lost treasure is thought to be hidden at Amber Fort. After Independence, a huge collection of gemstones, and jewellery disappeared, most likely to prevent the government confiscating it. In 1977, income tax officials searched the building using metal detectors,they found nothing, maybe it’s hidden inside the cannon!

JAIGARH FORT

Jaigarh Fort also called the Fort of Victory was constructed in 1726 by Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur. There is a massive cannon or Jaivan at the fort, the largest wheeled cannon in Asia, which needed one hundred kilos of gunpowder for just one shot, which could send a ball an amazing 35km. There are amazing views from the fort of Jaipur and the nearby Amber Fort, which is within walking distance. The battlements at Jaigarh Fort have inner walkways. It is considered to be one of the best fortified structures in all of India. The fort could withstand long drawn out sieges without problems, due to its ingenious water supply and storage reservoirs, which are a marvel of engineering. There are lots of interesting historic artefacts in the museum worth looking at as well as taking time to appreciate the gardens.

NAHARGARH FORT ~ TIGER FORT

The Nahargarh Fort was built in 1734 by Jai Singh II as a retreat from his wives. It is about 3km from Jaipur. Its unique design stands in contrast from Jaipur’s other royal accommodation. It has amazing views of the surrounding area and of the Pink City below and of the Man Sagar Lake in particular. Circling the central courtyard are the queen’s apartments, which are all completely identical and complete with a room for the maidservant. The floor above has more apartments built by Ram Singh in 1868. These rooms follow the identical theme of the rooms below, and have faint traces of paintings and some damaged stained glass windows. Some paintings at the fort were in excellent condition, almost as bright and vibrant as the day they were painted. There were some particularly striking paintings of people riding on the backs of elephants and horses, the colours were so punchy and crisp. According to legend the fort got its name after being haunted by the spirit of a Rathore prince, Nahar Singh. Apparently his spirit would cause lots of mischief hoping to delay construction of the fort. But after a Tantrik prayer the spirit agreed to leave, so long as the fort was named after him.

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