EvesAway!: Jaipur 26th January

Jaipur 26^th January

Today is a ‘dry day’ so it is illegal to buy or sell alcohol on this day. Fortunately for John, this applies to Indian nationals and not to us.

We made an early start on our tour of Jaipur and on the way we stopped outside the Palace of the Winds to take some photos. Cue for the ever present street hawkers to descend upon us including a snake charmer who demanded 500 rupees from everyone who took his photo. Having heard that the snakes have their mouths sewn up which means that they eventually die of starvation, we didn’t want to take any photos. Our next stop was to visit Janta Manta, the Astronomical Observatory. This was stunning, a series of astronomical structures build by Maharaja Jai Singh II in 1724. Here amongst the structures were those designed to identify the position of constellations and moon at any time, others representing the astronomical symbols and a sun dial so large that it is accurate to 2 seconds. It is an early example of a rich man’s collection of watches and chronometers. We then walked to the City Palace which is adjacent. This again is an immense palace complex built from pink and red sandstone, another self-contained city for the ruler.

On the way back our coach dropped us off at the city market where we had 40 minutes to do some shopping, all the while being harassed by very persistent hawkers. Some of our party visited a Craft Outlet but we decided to return to the hotel where we waited another 45 minutes for lunch before spending the afternoon sitting by the pool.