“The Pink City”
Jaipur is called the Pink City because at one time the whole city was an Amber color and a prince from England was coming to visit so the Maharaja wanted to impress him. He demanded that the entire city be painted pink. When I imagined a pink city, I imagined an actual pink city that would pop out at you. While it is the capital city of the state, Jaipur is crumbling buildings with many different shades of pink that is now pealing off. It is a very busy city, more so than a city like New York City (if you can even imagine). People are up early on bikes busses rickshaws, noise is everywhere! It is the definition of chaos! We got up early and left at 7 am in order to ride the elephants up to the top of AMER FORT. Of course while waiting we are attacked by Indians selling trinkets and such. They are so persistent it is annoying as hell. You really have to ignore them to get them to leave you alone or divert their attention to someone else. Our tour guide was afraid we might not get to ride elephants because people line up wicked early to ride them because each elephant only does 4 trips a day (this is because they have had problems in the past of over working and abusing the elephants). But we did get to ride them and it definitely on my top 5 of coolest things I have ever done. I rode up with Jewel. The elephants are also all painted with fun designs and colors on their faces and feet. They have much smaller ears than African elephants and have missing pigmentation in their faces. On the way up, Indians were taking pictures of us to develop and sell to us when we came back down. There are also guys along the walls of the fort trying to sell you stuff. Jewel got in a bartering war with this guy. He followed us the whole way up. She thought he was going to give her a turban for 20 rupees so she threw the money down to him and he threw the turban up, but in fact he wanted $20 US. Jewel would not pay him that many rupees, she knew better. So he kept asking for the money and Jewel kept saying no. This went on and on and finally Jewel just threw him back the turban. O but he didn’t stop there. He continued to shout out a price. Jewel just kept saying no. I wanted to shoot him but the whole scenario was just hilarious. We got to the top of the hill and into the fort and said goodbye to our elephant. Walked through the fort. This king had 12 wives, each had their own apartments and the concubines lived above them in connecting rooms. There were lots of hallways and secret passages you could get so lost so fast. On the way out saw a snake charmer. Never thought I would see this in my lifetime. The cobras dance to the music it is so entrancing. Also saw a little girl performing an Indian traditional dance. The instruments they use are the flute, string instrument, a drum, and a piano box. Left the fort by walking down the stairs and had to dodge elephant traffic. The turban man found us on the way down! Still tried to sell Jewel the turban and was all up in her face. She asked for her 20 rupees back and he surprisingly gave it back. But then continued to yell out prices. He was not stopping. He followed us the whole way out and at one point ran after us. I couldn’t stop laughing. Out in the street it is always overwhelming with the beggars. This time there was a man with lepercy that crawled across the street to us. Can’t get used to it. You want to give them something but you cant. After the fort we went to a textile factory where they showed us how they do printing press prints. They take big stamps and place them in ink and then place them on the cloth. Then they lay it out in the sun and chemical reactions occur and certain colors change color. Next they showed up the process of making carpets. There are two kinds; a double-knotted carpet, which is the lesser quality carpet and the single knotted cashmere that is the higher end stuff. They hand stitch every carpet and it can take 6 months up to a year to make one carpet. They then singe to burn fuzzies off, wash it and lay it out to dry. Next they clip the carpets. With the double-knotted carpets you can only clip it once because the wool is thicker. With the single knotted carpets you can clip it up to 6 times and with each clipping the design comes out more clearly. Next we had a fashion show of carpets. They laid out carpets of all different sizes and quality explaining each one and how it was made. They were some of the most beautiful carpets I have ever seen. The prices were so much cheaper than in the US. If I had the money I would have definitely bought a ton, you know to have lying around to use in my house some day. In the same building as the carpet room was the textile room that was filled with silk scarves, saris, bedspreads, table clothes, etc. Some of the guys working there were trying to rip us off telling us that certain materials were pure silk or pure pashmina. Thank god we were with Jewel because her mom works in the textile business so she knew what stuff should feel like. Our next stop of the tour was to a really nice jewelry store with all their precious and semi precious stones. Nice to look at but I wasn’t going to buy anything. We went back to the hotel for lunch and after lunch we went to Jai Singh’s JANTAR MANTAR (magical instrument). The king had all these sundials and other instruments to see the stars and figure out your horoscope. One of the sundials is the biggest one in India and it’s pretty big. One of the instruments was used to tell which hemisphere the sun was in which I thought was pretty cool. Horoscopes mean a lot to people in Indian so there was a sundial for every sign. If you know how to read it, its supposed to tell you the best time to get married, get a job, made life decisions etc. From here we went to the bazaar market place with a Museum shop next to where the current Maharaja lives. After this D brought us to a real market place. This is what I had been looking forward to, to really experience India. The biggest/scariest obstacle was cross the 4 lane highway. It was like dodging bullets. Absolutely insane and seriously almost got hit a couple of times. So Jewel Lauren and I went into a bunch of shops trying to find tapestries of the gods of Hinduism. Bought a whole box of bangles. We were so exhausted from bartering. I never thought I would be so tired from shopping. It is its own sport. After an hour and half we had to go back to the hotel for a shower and quick nap before dinner. Went to dinner at this other hotel with a big courtyard. Ate outside with Amber, Amber, Kelly, Jewel, Lauren, and Patrick. It was Patrick’s 21st birthday and the tour guides got him a cake! It was so cute. Went back to the hotel, changed into comfy clothes and then got henna done on our hands and feet. That was the climax of our day and it takes an hour to dry so we just sat and talked. Another early morning awaited us.
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