Lookback 6: A quick explore of battered Jaipur

Thursday started with the organisation of our next leg, feeling that Jaipur wasn’t really the best place to stay after the bombs. So train tickets to Jodhpur were booked, a SIM card was found for Emily’s phone and then it was off back to the Inn. At a loose end we asked our tuk-tuk driver if it was possible to go and see the forts overlooking the city, so we could at least try and see some of the sights of Jaipur before we left.  Soon we’d arranged a little jaunt and at 4 we headed off up for the hills, getting a hell of a surprise on the way by going through the Pink City.

As a result of our trip through the Pink city we found ourselves on what is perhaps the weirdest tour of our travels, getting the locations of the bomb detonations through the city pointed out to us and a front row view of all the television cameras and vans scattered throughout the town. 4 o’clock curfew though apparently in India means nothing, there were still plenty people walking around. In a way it felt slightly morbid, although I seem to have written amongst my notes for the time “…but you do what you can to learn”. Interesting sentiment.

Having passed through the city we emerged to make our way up into the hills to the first fort overlooking the town, the Tiger fort. On the way we passed the magnificent artificial lake of Jal Mahal, a beautiful white palace situated in the middle of the lake appearing to float. According to our tuk-tuk driver only the Maharaja goes there and his guests, although I’m fairly sure I’ve seen information on it being turned into a hotel elsewhere (I have, it was Monty Don in around the World in 80 gardens.)

Our first proper fort was the Tiger Fort, or Nahagarh, which overlooked the centre of Jaipur standing proud atop the hill. We were unable to get inside the fort, however the outside did afford us a spectacular view and some cool cannons. We also came to our first Hindu shrine there (complete with the requisite shoe removal thing) and our first encounter with the Indian fascination of taking photos of us. Or us in the sense that I was there so that they didn’t feel too bad about getting a photo of Emily.

Further down the road, and actually a little way out of the town, was our second fort, The Amber Palace. Despite lacking the same views of the city that the Tiger fort had had, the fort itself was far more impressive. Occupying a ridge, you wind up to it through a series of little roads muddled amongst the extremities of the fort spilling down the hill. Around the bottom were a number of ornamental gardens, some obviously designed to appear as gardens when the rains came.

We wound our way up the hill, avoiding the building and repair works going on and trying to avoid the dust and debris flying around. India doesn’t have a health and safety Executive, and I doubt it has any kind of worker safety regulations, or if there are they consist of pray before starting. As a result there are no cordons around the rickety wooden scaffold, no safety gear on any of the workers and large lumps of chipped out stone falling to the ground where people are walking past.We also fell victim here to a scam we would find in other places too. Well I call it a scam, although really in this case it’s just people trying their luck. A group of women, admittedly quite brightly dressed women, persuaded us to take their photo and innocent us thought that this was just them wanting to have a photo taken and to see the picture. Alas no, taking the photo was quickly followed by demands for money. We managed to play ignorant tourist quite well under the circumstances and left a little wiser for future encounters.Once at the top we wandered the outer sections of the main fort for a while, taking in the architecture of the main outer courtyards, but alas the main palace was closed. Again we became the attraction for some Indians, this time hordes of familys all wanting pictures of us stood next t their children. Then our class of person went up the social hierarchy as we were interviewed by a Reuters guy about the effect of the bombings on tourism, seemed a nice guy at the time although when I eventually saw the article he’d written we were paraphrased to such an extent that our intents were completely miscommunicated.Alas that was it really for our tourism in Jaipur. We made our way back through the pink city again, the roads still heaving with traffic. Tomorrow we were off to Jodhpur where we’d get to start playing tourist properly.