Udaipur, Pushkar, & Jaipur

• Posted by: Geo Kearley
• Comments: 2

I think the last time we wrote anything was from Jodhpur… from there we took the most uncomfortable train ride I’ve ever been on through ever changing scenery (from desert, to vallies, hills, and miles and miles of marble quarries) to Udaipur – the city of the water palaces.

The only problem with Udaipur is that India is suffering a significant drought, so the water palaces are actualy field palaces, surrounded by muddy ponds that little children bike across the mud flats to go swimming in, side by side with the water buffalo. If you have supper on a roof-top restaurant at night, you can imagine the palaces are floating in the “lake”, as you look out at it’s floodlit white marble walls.
We did sign up for a thoroughly enjoyable Indian cooking class in Udaipur, and are now better versed in the spices, terminology and techniques of making curries (which are the same as massalas – just a different language for the same word – who knew?)

Obviously there’s a fort to visit in every town, and we’ve been to all of them – They’re mostly Mughal structures (the Mughals were a royal family – sort of like the Tudors in England), and every palace is ornamented in intricate, skillfully carved stone window screens covering almost every outward surface, to allow breezes to blow through the Palaces and forts, and shield the ladies from public view when they were watching the world outside their confines. The stone screens really are fascinating – they all appear as if they are snow flake patterns etched in stone – very delicate white marble snow flakes.

In Jaipur we visited the City Palace – still a working government building (the King was “in” according to the flag flying on top of the palace). The city palace is actually inside the Pink Fort – so named because the Indian Emperor ordered the Fort Painted the favorite colour of the visiting British Royalty in the 1800’s, and the idea of painting everything pink has perpetuasted to this day. The pink fort is full of tiny shops in holes in the wall, and street vendors sitting amongst the rubble and garbage, selling the minutia of everyday needs – a shave, lacquer bangles, rope, tiffin lunch pails, beetle nut leaves, cholpattis, bottled water, lucky horoscopes…it goes on forever in the dirt of the city at ground level. Rising above all of the traffic, chaos and pollution are the facades of the former glory of India – the dillapidated beauty of the architecture of the Indian Empire under the Brits – especially the delicate structure of the Wind Palace. The buildings above ground level still show their good bones and artistic merit – at ground level, they’re literally filled with shit.

We did enjoy ourselves in Jaipur – we hired a brilliant little tuktuk driver named Kaif who took us to the only water palace in India that’s actually surrounded by water, then to a fantasic crasfts co-op where we saw how they block printed on cotton, and to the “elephant parking lot” where we got to see the working elephants of the city. We got to pat them, talk to them, and listen to them rumble as we put our hands on thier trunks. Elephants have a way of making you feel like you need to defer to the wisdom of their presence when you’re near them. They are so enormous and powerful, yet so gentle in your presence. It feels like a gift.

We also got to see how the famous Jaipur jem cutters polish their stones, and we went to the famous “observatory” built by Sawai Jai Singh II. The observatory has enormous structures to tell time to within 2 seconds accuracy (a 54m high sun dial); instruments to calculate the angles of the stars from the equator, and structures that trace the path of each zodiac constellation. Most amazingly, there was a structure used to calculate the altitude of the sun and the positions of the stars and planets at any time of day or night, and another instrument to track the accuracy of all the others. These were all built 300 years ago – incredible. It was like being in an astronomy theme park, led around by a guide who looked like Herb Tarlick – if he was in the mob – and had the most powerful B.O. and bad breath in the world. I’ve ridden camels that smelled better. Unbelieveable.

One of the highlights of going to Jaipur was a trip to a hiullarious Bollywood movie at the Raj Mandir theater – the most famous theater in India, as it was a dowery gift from a wealthy father for his daughter’s wedding. The decor of the place is completly over the top – somwhere between the glory of Hollywood musicals from the 50’s and Dr. Seusse. The movie itself was full of stock characters and predicatble plot lines, so it didn’t matter that we didn’t speak Hindi – the story line was self evident. What was hillarious was the audience reaction to their favorite stars and the action on screen – they cheer appreciation, or jeer disapproval of every character or event on screen. It was fun to witness the culture of Bollywood films in India.

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Date posted :	Jul 17, 2009
Last modified :	Jan 5, 2010
Categories :	India, Rajasthan
Tags :	Jaipur, Pushkar, Udaipur