19th September - Jaipur to Fort Bali

This morning we headed out of Jaipur to stay in a village setting at Fort Barli for one night on the way to Jodhpur.
Fort Barli is a Heritage Hotel with 7 bedrooms and has been slowly restored by the family whilst still retaining the historical nature of the property. The fort has antiques throughout has has been really sympathetically restored, they also have beautiful birds including peacocks and parrots who noisily chat away.

It is owned by the daughter of the earlier ruling family who now lives there with her husband and baby daughter. Unfortunately she was away lecturing in Mumbai so we didn't get to meet her but we were taken on an Ox cart ride through the village. And her husband explained some of the history behind the Fort and the family.

During the Ox ride we could see daily village life going on, goats and cattle were being returned for the evening from grazing, there was a smell of cooking from many of the houses. We were shown the village lakes which were really clean and have specific uses to avoid contamination.

We met the local priest at the temple who  was busy re-decorating the temples statue of Lord Ganesh whose birthday celebrations had commenced the previous day.

Lord Ganesh is the elephant headed son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, he is the symbol of  wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated during the Hindu month of Bhadra and is celebrated with great enthusiasm by the Hindu people. People take plaster statues (idols) of Lord Ganesh into their homes and construct much larger ones in public places where they spend around 10 days worshipping and decorating him. On the last day of the festival the idols are taken out in a colourful and musical procession and immersed in water. It is believed the immersion of Ganesh symbolises seeing him off towards his abode and taking with him the misfortunes faced by mankind.

After visiting the temple we were taken to meet the local potter who was an old gentleman who has a large stone circular sheet which he moves using a large stick. He demonstrated how he made small bowls for pickles up to larger jugs for water....it was extremely manual and a huge skill involved which he is passing on to his sons and grandsons.

The village children were all desperate for us to take pictures of them and had great fun with Graham and the selfie stick. They are all smiles until they pose and then many put on a very serious face which highly amused us.

It was lovely to get a real glimpse of local village life which  is so simple but colourful and happy.

Unfortunately I was experiencing my first slightly upset tummy so Graham had to eat alone local style and claims he definitely took one for the team with the amount of food they served for one person! 

18th September - Jaipur - Part 2

This morning saw us head out with Veena again into Jaipur. Jaipur is know as the Pink City and all the buildings within the old town must be painted the same orangey pink colour.

Our first visit of the morning was to City Palace which occupies the centre of Jaipur and covers one seventh of its area. It is surrounded by a high wall and its style differs from a conventional Rajput fort palaces where the palace is separate from its fortification where traditionally they are integrated in one massive interconnected structure. It is a complex of courtyards, gardens and buildings which has been adapted and enlarged over the centuries. 

As you enter through the Virendra Pol you come to the Mubarak Mahal or Welcome Palace  which now forms part of the museum  which contains a collection of royal costumes and shawls. One of the exhibits  is Sawai Madhouse Singh I's huge robe. He was a cuddly 2 metres tall, 1.2 metres wide and weighed 250Kg!!!
Also in the museum are two huge silver urns which were constructed for maharaja Madho Singh II for his visit to London on 1902 to attend the coronation of Edward VII. He was a devout Hindu and did not consider European water suitable for drinking and required water from the Ganges for religious ceremonies. The urns contained 8,000 litres of water and are in the Guinness Book of records for the largest objects made out of silver. 

The Japiur Royal Family still live in the Palace, Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh was enthroned on 27th April 2011 after being adopted by his grandfather as his crown prince on 2002 at the age of 4. He is currently being educated at Millvield School in Somerset and is. Keen polo player as many of his ancestors were.

Following our trip to the Palace we asked to visit Jantar Mantar which is an amazing collection of nineteen  astronomical instruments built by the Rajput King Sawai Jai Singh and was completed in 1738. It features the worlds largest stone sundial. The features are made of masonry and bras and were built using astronomy and instrument design principles of ancient Hindu Sanskrit texts  and with data from Islamic astronomy during the Moghual empire. The accuracy of these instruments is amazing considering they were built without today's technology and are still accurate. The decision on arranged marriages is made using an astronomer based on not just the date of birth but more importantly time too. Each individual has 36 distinct characteristics and a match of 20 or above is  good although some believe a com,eye match does not work!  Approximately 10% of arranged marriages end in divorce whereas the figure for non-arranged is around 40%!! Wedecided against getting our horoscopes done :-)

Our final stop was at Hawa Mahal or The Palace of the Winds, it was built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh and is in the form of the crown of Krishna, the Hindu god. It's five storey exterior is like the honeycomb of a beehive with its 953 small windows called jharokhas which are decorated with intricate lattice work. The original intention. Of the lattice was to allow the royal ladies to observe everyday life and ceremonies in the street below without being seen. Royal ladies had to obey strict "purdah" or face over at all times. The lattice also allows cool air to flow through the building creating natural air conditioning.
It was quite a climb up but the Royal ladies didn't have to worry as they would be pushed up in wheel chairs by their servants !! The climbs was worth it though t experience the breeze (although many of the shutters are locked closed due to people stealing them and also people spitting onto people and shopkeepers below...lovely!!  

We then returned to Samode Haveli to relax and pack ready to move on to Fort Bali the next day. The pictures below show the lounge courtyard and dining area of the hotel and also the lovely way they made tea, giving you a timer allowing you to select the strength of brew you required.

17th September - Jaipur - Part 1

We arrived at Samode Haveli in Jaipur to be greeted by the Audrey representative who explained our itinerary for the following two days which included two half days tours of the city and he also suggested a venue for dinner the following evening which he could book for us which also had Indian dancing and a traditional puppet show which we agreed to.
The Samode Haveli is a Heritager property that has been converted into a hotel and is tucked away around the back streets of Old Jaipur but has a lovely secluded feel with a lovely pool area with big day beds to relax in. Our room was huge with a large lounge area and a lovely bathroom with a claw foot, rolled top bath and large walk in shower. We spent the rest of the day and early evening relaxing by the pool with a drink before eating in the restaurant,although the heat and humidity is still taking its toll on our appetite.

The next morning we were greeted by Veena, who was the first qualified, lady guide in Jaipur and has been guiding for 15 years and there are still only 8 lady guides. She was dressed in a beautiful sahri and on our way to the Amber Fort she gave us some background and history to Jaipur.. There was an option to take an elephant ride up to the fort but Audley had recommended that we do not take up the option as the elephants are not particularly well cared for and Veena also informed us that their had been an incident a few years against where two elephants fought and tourists were injured so many travel companies no longer recommend this mode of transport. We opted for a jeep ride which was great fun and took us through the narrow streets leading up to the fort. The fort was beautiful and with Veena's excellent descriptions of life in a fort it was really easy to imagine how the court worked and how life behind the walls were.

Amber Fort was built by Raja Man Singh I in the 16th century, he was on of the first war Chiefs of the Emperor Akbar and was the Kacchwaha (Rajput) of Amber which was later known as Jaipur.  The fort includes both Hindu and Rajput elements, it has large ramparts, a series of gates, cobbled paths and overlook the Maota Lake at the front.

 On the lake a beautiful garden was built to allow the ladies are of the courts to enjoy the breeze of the lake in seclusion

Whilst in the fort we experienced our first snake charmer and also saw the huge cooking pots that were used to cook the food for the whole fort.

One of the most beautiful parts of the fort is the Sheesh Mahal (Mirror Palace), the walls and ceiling of this hall has beautiful carvings inlaid with glass. The history is that the queen was not allowed to sleep in the open air but loved the stars so the King ordered his architects to design a building for the Queen. The result was a hall where is you burn two candles then the reflection converts the two flames ont a thousand star-like reflections.

After visiting the fort we asked Veena is she could recommend textiles and jewellery shops, Audley have a policy that their guides are not allowed to take their clients to any shops unless the client specifically requests and the guides have to inform the local Audley agent of each clients request.
Veena took us to a cooperative which specialises in block printing and carpet weaving. We had fascinating demonstrations of both, it was amazing to see how quickly and accurately they build up the blocks and how the colours change once placed in water. With the carpet weave no he explained how each craftsman is skilled at one of the techniques from weaving, trimming, burning and edging.
Next was the bit Graham was dreading...the actual shopping but surprisingly he enjoyed the carpet section and tolerated the tablecloths and bedlinen but lost the plot at the pashminas :-)
I thought I had pushed my luck with the textiles and carpet but Graham confirmed to Veena that jewellery was next on the list and an hour later we left having purchased a beautiful new eternity ring which would be re-sized and with us either at dinner that evening or at the hotel. One very happy lady :-)

We returned to the hotel for a swim and then dressed to head out to Spice Court for dinner, still struggling with our appetites we were quite impressed that we experimented with four of the local dishes. We then sat outside to watch the dancing display not realising audience participation would be expected and as we were the only members of the audience for that showing..,participate we had to!!