Another day in Jaipur, another elephant
Today was our final day in Jaipur. Tomorrow we get up stupidly early and then head over to the airport to fly to Udaipur, so we spent today sightseeing again.
To add to what I mentioned before - the city was originally painted yellow, but it was in Prince Albert for whom the city was painted pink in 1853. The gates to the City Palace are still painted yellow to signify the fact they lead to the royal areas.
We took a car out to the Amber fort which is 10 or so kilometres out of town. It's way up on the hillside and to get up you can either walk, take a dodgy old jeep or ride an elephant up. We opted for the elephant, having had a bit of practice yesterday at the odd theme park.
When my mum was last here in 98 or so, the elephants weren't treated very well, and they looked exhausted, but now the government has intervened and the elephants are restricted to doing 3 trips up the hill per day with only 2 passengers and they must return empty down the hill. After they've done the 3 trips they go wallow in the lake and then later in the day they go back to Jaipur.
Anyway, we went there, had a look around - it's pretty cool, then we went further up the hill to the Jaigargh fort which is privately owned by the last Maharajah along with the City Palace. It's a very ingenious fort. Since it's right up the top of the hill, if it were beseiged, the main problem would be its water supply. Realising this, the maharajah that built this ages ago made two walls on either side of the top of the hill that would contain all the water that fell in the rainy season. This water flowed down into the fort through a specially built channel, and ended up in a large area which served as a temporary lake during the height of the rainy season. The water was then filtered through 2 other tanks and stored in a massive underground tank in the middle of the fort. Because of this ingenious design, the fort never fell during many campaigns.
After that we came back to the hotel for a bit of a rest, then went out to look around the bazaars in town. Always great fun to look around as long as you don't mind endless hordes of people trying to sell you crap, and the odd street urchin grabbing your arm.
Without further ado, here are the photos:
Down one of the many market side streets
Baby monkey having fun up at the Amber fort
Ditto
...
...
Close up
Up in the tree
This is the first water storage tank in the fort
This is the info board for the largest cannon on wheels in the world. Worth a read...
What you probably wouldn't want to see...down the end of the Jaivana
An idea of size...
A rather regal goat...
Inside the Amber fort
Ditto - note the mirrored ceiling tiles
This room is best viewed at night with a single candle or match. The thousands of mirrored tiles on the ceiling make it look like the stars at night.
Looking out into the courtyard at the Amber fort
A quite impressive Ganesh gate at the Amber fort
Vendors at the fort
This was our elephant
Me sitting on the elephant...elephant out of shot
Looking up at the Amber fort
Some nutter charming a cobra while no-one in particular was watching. I utilised the 10x optical zoom for this shot. I wasn't going anywhere near that snake...
The Jaigargh fort
Up to the Amber fort again
To add to what I mentioned before - the city was originally painted yellow, but it was in Prince Albert for whom the city was painted pink in 1853. The gates to the City Palace are still painted yellow to signify the fact they lead to the royal areas.
We took a car out to the Amber fort which is 10 or so kilometres out of town. It's way up on the hillside and to get up you can either walk, take a dodgy old jeep or ride an elephant up. We opted for the elephant, having had a bit of practice yesterday at the odd theme park.
When my mum was last here in 98 or so, the elephants weren't treated very well, and they looked exhausted, but now the government has intervened and the elephants are restricted to doing 3 trips up the hill per day with only 2 passengers and they must return empty down the hill. After they've done the 3 trips they go wallow in the lake and then later in the day they go back to Jaipur.
Anyway, we went there, had a look around - it's pretty cool, then we went further up the hill to the Jaigargh fort which is privately owned by the last Maharajah along with the City Palace. It's a very ingenious fort. Since it's right up the top of the hill, if it were beseiged, the main problem would be its water supply. Realising this, the maharajah that built this ages ago made two walls on either side of the top of the hill that would contain all the water that fell in the rainy season. This water flowed down into the fort through a specially built channel, and ended up in a large area which served as a temporary lake during the height of the rainy season. The water was then filtered through 2 other tanks and stored in a massive underground tank in the middle of the fort. Because of this ingenious design, the fort never fell during many campaigns.
After that we came back to the hotel for a bit of a rest, then went out to look around the bazaars in town. Always great fun to look around as long as you don't mind endless hordes of people trying to sell you crap, and the odd street urchin grabbing your arm.
Without further ado, here are the photos:
Down one of the many market side streets
Baby monkey having fun up at the Amber fort
Ditto
...
...
Close up
Up in the tree
This is the first water storage tank in the fort
This is the info board for the largest cannon on wheels in the world. Worth a read...
What you probably wouldn't want to see...down the end of the Jaivana
An idea of size...
A rather regal goat...
Inside the Amber fort
Ditto - note the mirrored ceiling tiles
This room is best viewed at night with a single candle or match. The thousands of mirrored tiles on the ceiling make it look like the stars at night.
Looking out into the courtyard at the Amber fort
A quite impressive Ganesh gate at the Amber fort
Vendors at the fort
This was our elephant
Me sitting on the elephant...elephant out of shot
Looking up at the Amber fort
Some nutter charming a cobra while no-one in particular was watching. I utilised the 10x optical zoom for this shot. I wasn't going anywhere near that snake...
The Jaigargh fort
Up to the Amber fort again
posted by Ken at 2:02 pm
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