Today we headed out of Delhi to Jaipur. I’m happy to be leaving Delhi, I’ve been here for 5 days and I feel it’s time to see somewhere else!
We left at 6.30am to ensure we missed the traffic.
It’s amazing to be driving on almost empty streets! 😁
We are in a nice comfy coach.
Delhi is enormous, you leave the central area which is massive then all the surrounding areas are vast. Leaving the city centre you start to see the huge cloud of smog hanging over everything, and the pollution isn’t even that bad at the moment.
Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world. The pollution comes from the millions of cars, coal burning power plants, massive landfills of waste, which are burnt and the huge amount of non stop construction of roads, flyovers, apartments etc and then in the winter (now) there is the added problem of vast areas of agricultural land burning crop stubble.
The drive is fascinating, trying to guess what you might see next by the side of the road! Cows, lots of cows! Goats, dogs, people, children, temples, piles of rubbish, monkeys and airplanes! 😳 The cows are both by the side of the highway and also ambling across busy carriageways. Vik explained that the reason the cows don’t stay in the fields is because they don’t get bothered by flies near the roads! Clever.
We had a stop for breakfast and another toilet break, then we made our way to our next visit. A place called ‘Anoothi’ This is a project that helps to support women from violent or difficult backgrounds. They women learn how to do block printing and sewing then they work with the project producing goods, giving the woman I
some independence and financial security. The project also provides schooling for the family’s. G Adventures are one of the supporters, not just with visits like ours but through their sister company, Planeterra Foundation, a leading non-profit organisation using tourism to bring positive impacts to local communities.
It was great to be in the outdoors and away from the city. The first resident we met was a cow who had given birth to her calf that morning! It’s inspiring to meet and listen to the women’s stories. The work they produce is amazing. In the sewing room they were busy making a large number of Buddhist Robes for somewhere in America.
We all got to try our hand at block printing, it’s harder than it looks!
We also had a chance to buy some stuff, all of which was beautiful, but lack of space for me is a problem, but I did buy a small item. 🥰
From Anoothi we made our way to Jaipur and The Amber Fort.
OMG! Wow! It is huge and absolutely stunning. Our guide, Abear, was brilliant, a little like a Sargent Major, bossy, stern but extremely funny & Informative.
The current Palace was constructed in the 16th Century, it’s built of red sandstone and white marble and decorated with precious stones, paint, mirrors and carvings. Inside some of the walls look and feel like marble but are in fact made of a weird mix of materials, Crushed sea shells, lemon juice, sea salt, marble dust, sugar and yogurt, this is mixed and applied the mixture is then oiled to make it feel smooth! Brilliant. 😍❤️
Some of the design features are ingenious, the ways of keeping cool and keeping flies out using water, scented oils and materials. The use of convex and concave mirrors in the large hall is stunning.
The area reserved for the Queens or Maharanis was beautiful, with a gorgeous garden that would have been stunning. However it needed to be, as once the women entered the palace they were not allowed to leave or mix with anyone else or show their faces apart from to each other. They were looked after and serviced by a large group of Transgender people, not eunuchs. The Maharaja had 12 wives and over 350 mistresses!
I really loved learning the history of the Fort, and how ingenious they were.
Such a fantastic introduction to Jaipur. We then drove into the city, known as The Pink City due to the colour of the buildings. The buildings were painted pink in 1876 by Maharaja Sakai Ram Singh 11 to welcome Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The colour pink is the colour of hospitality.
Again another mad city, very busy roads, lots of honking, lots of people but not quite as bad as Delhi.
Our hotel is fine, perfectly adequate. We got checked in had time to freshen up then it was off out for dinner. We had dinner in quite a fancy place called, House of Binder & Café Auberge. The food was lovely I had a Vegetarian Thali, a perfectly sized platter of yummyness! Then home for an early night! 😴
I opted not to do the early morning cycle ride, mainly because it started at 5.45!
I had a bit of a lie in, lush, then a light breakfast in the restaurant, wrote my blog and chatted to Barb, one of the group.
After breakfast it was time to head into Jaipur to start our day. First stop pictures of the Wind Palace in Jaipur the second most photographed monument in India apparently. The Palace has 953 small windows decorated with intricate lattice work, known as Jharokhas, these allow air to flow through keeping the palace cool. This natural ventilation system is the reason for the name.
It is really beautiful, my pictures don’t really do it justice.
From here we walked to the Jantar Mantar. This is a collection of 19 large astronomical instruments built in 1734 by the founder of Jaipur, Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh 11. It has the largest sundial in the world. It was incredibly impressive and fascinating learning how important astronomical readings are within the Hindu faith.
From here we went across to the Jaipur city palace. The current Maharaja and the family still live in part of the palace. The rest is open to the public and has museums. It was a beautiful, intricately decorated palace. With stunning gateways.
After a yummy buffet lunch we visited another block printing place and were offered the chance to buy more gorgeous things! It’s is so, so tempting to buy something, gorgeous throws, quilts, clothes, bags…etc. but I just can’t, I don’t have the room in my case or even a bloody home to put them in! 😂😂
Unfortunately I did succumb to temptation in our next stop the gem place! Jaipur is renowned for its gemstones and their cutting. I ended up buying a small and not expensive moonstone pendant, to go with my New Zealand Pounamu & World necklace.
We all decided to head to our dinner restaurant a little early rather than battle traffic to go back to the hotel first.
Vik had chosen a fabulous rooftop (my favourite!) restaurant 😍 and we were also going to be doing some Bollywood dancing on the rooftop in front of everyone.
OMG! It was brilliant! 😍❤️🧡💚 We had costumes and it was so much fun, I’m not sure I want to see the video 🤦♀️😬😂 but it was fabulous. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, it was a pretty OK sunset despite the cloud, however the clouds hailed the onset of a bloody massive thunderstorm! So much lightning then the wind whipped up and everyone was running inside, the staff desperately trying to save the crockery, plants, plates etc that were flying about and amongst it all were Barb (a fellow storm lover) & myself loving the drama and the incredible storm! Simply fantastic. The perfect end to an awesome day.
Tomorrow we are heading to a village and a tented camp, no wifi but it does have a pool 🩵💙 Vik tells us that it’s a wonderful place to stay.
I’m hoping to post this blog before I leave tomorrow morning.
I’m on day 5 of my tour and I am loving it! I’m enjoying being with all of the other people who are great company and great fun. It is such a pleasure to have the days planned for me, just turn up and join in!
Vik is fabulous and all the other guides have been fantastic.
Happy Days. 😍❤️❤️
Happy Thursday guys.
Books Read.
Still reading one. Not much reading time at the moment.
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