The rickshaw wallah who had taken us to the movies last night turned up in the morning to take us on a tour of the sights of the city. Once we were inside the walls of the Pink City, our first stop was the Hawa Mahal: the Palace of the winds. We spent half an hour or so in there wandering around the labyrinth of corridors, up and down flights of stairs, and peering out tiny windows which opened onto the sheer walls of the palace and gave two different views out over Jaipur and the barren landscapes beyond. The architecture was quite interesting but the old place was a bit hang dog-looking, with red paint splashed randomly about to keep up the appearance of it being the “Red Palace.”
Next stop, we visited the City Palace where there was an interesting selection of Maharaja type gear, and the two largest pieces of silver ever made: vessels which the Maharaja took drinking water from the Ganges on his trip to England.
Across the road from the City Palace, the Royal Observatory contained some intricate and surprisingly sophisticated devices for observing and measuring the stars and the sun. The huge sundial, for instance, was so perfectly calibrated that it showed the movement of the sun in increments of 4 mm per hour on its marble scale.
We lunched at the Evergreen Hotel on cauliflower cheese and mashed potato then walked back to the Jaipur Inn. We spent the evening on the patio talking with a Spanish girl and burning incense to keep away the mosquitoes.
CurseOfTheTraveller 