I have to say that Jaipur is amazing. I love this town. I can't tell if it's because I've been in India for about 8 days now and I've acclimated to the craziness or if the town is just a tad cleaner, a little less dusty, and the people more friendly than Delhi. Maybe I feel more "local"- I'm getting the hang of navigating the streets, knowing prices of street food, bargaining, and ignoring most of the persistent vendors. Lots of people come up to you on the streets here or at the main attractions and they offer you ridiculous prices for trinkets. If you make the mistake of showing interest in something, you're basically screwed. "Interested" equals "yes" to them. Saying "no" is a potential "yes". Just looking at them is a potential "yes". So, they stalk you and ask where you're from, then ask you to look at all their stuff.
My problem yesterday, as I wandered around the Amber Palace in Jaipur, was to look at hand painted paper. The seller handed one to me and then one more and one more while asking for an absurd amount of rupees. The problem was, I was interested but didn't want to pay the over inflation, so I tried to hand the art back. The seller just kept handing me more art and eventually my tour group headed out and I was stuck holding a shit ton of art that I didn't want to pay for and the seller wouldn't take anything back or get the hint that I wasn't interested. I think that many people in our group just bought stuff to get the sellers to back off. It's like being stuck in a room with the best car salesmen in the world who speak like auctioneers- intimidating, fast, and persuasive. Robby kept telling me to put the art on the ground and walk away because I couldn't give it back, but then I felt bad and eventually just stuffed the art into the guy's hands and ran away. Ugh.
The sellers are also amazing with facial memory. I talked to one vendor at the beginning of the Palace tour and said "I'll think about it", so when we exited the Palace, he was there waiting for me, "do you remember me? You said to come look." Anyhow, on to the lovely city of Jaipur. It was built in 1727 to protect the inhabitants in its 7km circumference, 20meter high, walled city with 9 gates. Jaipur is also called the "Pink City" because in the 1860's, Prince Edward came for a visit and to honor him, the government painted all the buildings and the wall pink. To Indians, pink is the color of friendship and welcome. Pink to Indians is also an orange-ish salmon color because everyone here might be colorblind.
Our tour took us to view Hawa Mahal, the Wind Palace. In the olden days, women were always behind screens, never to be seen except by their husbands or other women. The Queens and ladies in waiting in the Palace were extremely bored being locked up all day inside the Palace walls, so the King built the Wind Palace to appease them. The palace has a five story facade with screened windows that face out onto the main market street. The women would sit behind the screens and look down on the streets, allowing them to be part of the city, but not be seen. The King also made it so that many of the parades would have to go down the main street, so that the women could watch and be entertained.
Most of the royals lived in the Amber Palace. A beautiful small city housed on a hill and surrounded by a 17km wall with a military fort next to it. Inside the palace there are lots of mini palaces and an apartment complex for the 12 wives of the King. I'll backtrack a second here, India is made up of different regions/states and in each region there is a capital and a fort and a different King. So, Jaipur is in Rajasthan and Delhi is in Delhi providence. The Palace over looks a floating garden that is supposed to look like a flying carpet when the water is high.
There is also the Water Palace that sits in the middle of a lake (it was on a river and then the King dammed the water to create the lake) and needs a boat to get to. The Water Palace was supposedly the picnic spot of the Royals. Seems a bit extreme, but if you have power, why not flaunt it and use it to your advantage? (not really my belief, more so the power hungry, murderous royal types) The City also has a Palace that is quite big and sits inside the walled old city. Today, about 60% of the Jaipur population lives in the new city and the remaining 40% live inside the walls.
So that's the history part of Jaipur that we visited. Towards the end of our time in Jaipur, everyone wanted to visit a local textile factory and see how block printing was done. A lot if the clothing is hand printed with unique dyes and stamps. As far as shopping goes, it was quite nice to go in a big group as you know that someone will buy something. You don't feel as horrible when the shop owner gives you a 10 minute demo on block printing, free chai, and then pulls out 20 different kinds of gorgeous rugs, blankets, shirts, and pants for you to see and feel the texture of. He laid them all on the floor and then allowed us to browse on our own and pull out more cloths. By the time a customer leaves a shop, there is about $5,000 dollars in merchandise strewn across the floor and a grumpy store clerk that knows he has to put everything back in order. If a shop owner is lucky, he might have sold one or two items. This owner got very lucky and might have been happier if I had bought all the things I was eyeing, but alas, it's only the first week of my adventure and I don't need to be carting around a bunch of goods- even if they were soft, silky, and pretty- for the next two weeks.
We spent our last evening in Jaipur wandering the market place and taking in the smells, sights, and sounds. 7 other brave souls from our group ventured out to see real India, even willing to try the street food and bargain for gifts. Robby and I now feel like pros at street eating, but it is starting to seriously effect us in cholesterol as everything is fried. I love the taste, but I might gain a ton of weight and oil is kind of gross after a while. luckily there are a tons of vegetable markets around, and if the vendors that don't have all their products laid out on a dirty mat across a mud and cow covered shit field, they are decent places to purchase fresh fruit and veggies.
The one thing about the markets though is that cows are everywhere. Since a cow is very expensive to own and if it doesn't supply milk, there is no used to keep it. In India, cows are considered sacred. The owners can not kill them or eat them, so the best option is to let them free in the market place. You would think that people would be annoyed and the cows would starve, but the first bread of every day must be given to the cows. The cows also like to hang out near the busy roads because all the traffic helps reduce the amount of flies they need to swat away and the bus and car exhaust gets them high. So basically you're walking by fat, stoned cows as you sip some chai and shop for produce. I wonder how this would go over in America?
That's it for Jaipur. I'm now stuck on a 6hour bus back to Delhi. Fun fun. In the mean time, I will pretend I am social and go talk with my tour mates. Until next time...
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