Palace of the wind
The start today was rather leisurely, with a breakfast of porridge, banana and honey (my daily staple and so nice to find something familiar) at the Peacock Rooftop restaurant of our lovely hotel. Peter seemed a bit less satisfied with the delicacy that was four slices of brown toast and not-enough of the weird jam they have here, but I could have told him that before he chose it...
Well fuelled (or so I thought) we headed via tuk-tuk to Jantar Mantar, which, despite its lyrical name, is a very scientific place. It is one of five observatories built by Jai Singh and consists of many bizarre-looking giant sculptures, which are mainly sun-dials. We hired what was possibly the world's worst guide (he slowly shouted and repeated random words like "sun, moon, September, March, shadow" to us, we weren't any the wiser afterwards) to show us around, so can't really say much more about the fascinating instruments.
Next stop was City Palace, in the adjacent courtyard. This was a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal architecture which housed collections of textiles, pictures, embroideries and weapons. My favourite part was the Chanda Mahal courtyard, which had four beautiful gates to represent the seasons - Peacock, Green, Lotus and Rose. The latter was for winter - a little surprising for me!
Once we had finished at the City Palace, we wandered through some of the city's bazaars (me having to fend off people waving scarves and saris at me) to the Palace of the Wind, known as Hawa Mahal. Jaipur's most popular landmark presented itself as a delicate and ornately painted almost honeycomb-like facade, bursting five storeys upwards (it looked more) straight off the street. We could have gone in, but the frontage was the main attraction, and the description of "narrow, claustrophobic corridors" inside was entirely appealing in the middle of the day heat.
Instead, next for us was lunch at Hotel Sweet Dreams. Sweet it was not, and we popped to a supermarket on the way back to our hotel to pick up some train snacks (not getting caught out again!). Back at the hotel and looking forward to chilling out, we perched ourselves in a room, awaiting our midnight train to Jaisalmer.
Well fuelled (or so I thought) we headed via tuk-tuk to Jantar Mantar, which, despite its lyrical name, is a very scientific place. It is one of five observatories built by Jai Singh and consists of many bizarre-looking giant sculptures, which are mainly sun-dials. We hired what was possibly the world's worst guide (he slowly shouted and repeated random words like "sun, moon, September, March, shadow" to us, we weren't any the wiser afterwards) to show us around, so can't really say much more about the fascinating instruments.
Next stop was City Palace, in the adjacent courtyard. This was a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal architecture which housed collections of textiles, pictures, embroideries and weapons. My favourite part was the Chanda Mahal courtyard, which had four beautiful gates to represent the seasons - Peacock, Green, Lotus and Rose. The latter was for winter - a little surprising for me!
Once we had finished at the City Palace, we wandered through some of the city's bazaars (me having to fend off people waving scarves and saris at me) to the Palace of the Wind, known as Hawa Mahal. Jaipur's most popular landmark presented itself as a delicate and ornately painted almost honeycomb-like facade, bursting five storeys upwards (it looked more) straight off the street. We could have gone in, but the frontage was the main attraction, and the description of "narrow, claustrophobic corridors" inside was entirely appealing in the middle of the day heat.
Instead, next for us was lunch at Hotel Sweet Dreams. Sweet it was not, and we popped to a supermarket on the way back to our hotel to pick up some train snacks (not getting caught out again!). Back at the hotel and looking forward to chilling out, we perched ourselves in a room, awaiting our midnight train to Jaisalmer.
No comments:
Post a Comment