The day at Jaipur

I arrived in Jaipur around 4:00pm, and the traffic was heavy. Of course, the fact that Jaipur is one of the most densely populated cities in India means traffic is always heavy.

Jaipur is considered one of the best planned cities in India as streets run east to west and north to south. Based on this old 1875 pictures on wikipedia, it looks great, but now there are over 2 million people here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaipur - there is some great information here.

In one of the black and white courtyard pictures, you will see the Hawa Mahal. Here is a pic I took from the street. You will notice that the streets are no wider than they were back in 1875 when the picture was taken.

 

I visited the Jantar Mantar observatory - here is a link for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jantar_Mantar_%28Jaipur%29

There are a number of interesting instruments created in the the early 1700's, and one of the largest time instruments in the world is here. In the pic below, there are some people in the upper left of the photo.

 

 

Here is a pic of the city palace.

 

I also went through the local fort which was up in the foothills.

 

It's a fairly steep climb up to the fort, and a number of lazy tourists took some alternate transportation.

 

They were shooting a movie in the courtyard while I was there. The actor and actress are to the left of the doorway in this scene. They had them stand on the pedestal and do a few dance moves. The film crew was generally moving around different places in the fort for the next couple of hours.

 

There is a great view from up on top of the fort. It really gives you a sense of the awe and beauty that the people of the time were witness too.

One thing to notice is the use of inlay work.

 

There was also some nice glass mosaics.

 

My next stop tomorrow is in Agra which is famous for the high skills of inlay workmanship. My guide for the day was Narendra Singh, and you can e-mail him at narendraguide@yahoo.com.in if you want a tour of Jaipur.

It was another great day, tomorrow I head for Agra and the Taj Mahal.