Holi elephants, batman
Following my busy week in Delhi, I treated myself to a week in India, visiting Jaipur and Pune, a lovely city and home of a lovely friend from university.
Anyone who hasn’t taken domestic flights in India might be apprehensive, but trust that there are several decent airlines. Better than taking the train, anyway…I assume! Like any other airline, the plane is staffed with attractive young women, with perfect hair. Too perfect. They were wearing wigs. This is not an industry standard, but okay. I also came across this:
Don’t get me wrong, these are obviously typical criteria. When’s the last time you boarded a plane and thought, Eeesh at any of the crew? Many airlines don’t have a female-only policy, but then again many do – I just found this …transparency…refreshing. It was a pleasant enough (short) flight.
I was told Jaipur was beautiful. This is probably a creative use of the word. Certainly there are beautiful areas, beautiful bougainvillea, and unbelievable works of combined Hindu and Islamic architecture. The city is lively and colorful – yes, parts are pink, but mostly the buildings are painted a rusty sandstone-reminiscent hue. There’s a reason for it, but why don’t you just wikipedia that and save me the time? Now, my mediocre representations of the grandest monuments I’ve ever seen:
Cleverly taken to the top of the building opposite!
And what a lady I am.
First, the Hawa Mahal – Palace of the Winds. Called so because all the windows and hallways allow a very pleasant breeze to flow through so the king’s ladies housed inside would be comfortable. I did not make it to the concubine house on the hill this trip. Not because there wasn’t time, but because I had pampering priorities.
The first stop on my jam-packed day tour of Jaipur’s hottest was the Jantar Mantar – an observatory built by the King of Jaipur, Maharaja Jai Singh II, in the early 18th century. The Maharaja himself was obsessed with the stars and built beautifully precise instruments for tracking the sun and other heavenly bodies.
If you are ever in Jaipur, this place is definitely not to be missed. There are four others scattered around western central India, but the Jaipur observatory is the biggest. There were originally dozens of applications for each of the instruments, but now it’s more of a novelty to be able to see the exact placement of the sun in various ways. The real genius is in the architecture of the instruments themselves, as they are built to be large enough for a person to climb inside to take readings, many of the instruments are split into two complementary parts, just to allow the Maharaja (or any other astronomer) to observe more closely.
This is the 'small' sundial. See? It's tiny. It tells the 'local Jaipur time, which is UTC +5:30 (-37 mins)
There is even an instrument for each sign of the zodiac, which points in a certain direction at the correct angle to see the constellation in the sky. Raj, my guide, told me about ‘rising signs’, which is more or less the sign ascending the horizon when you were born.
World's largest sundial - tells the time to 20s precision!
Both sundials together
This is housed in the City Palace complex, which is the historical royal family home. The Queen and boy king apparently still live in there, but they don’t have any royal duties, or even any money to speak of. Still pretty cool, right?
Raj also took me to the Amber Fort, and my phone died so I had to rely on his camera phone for documentation. Still awaiting those shots. Oh well, I have my memories.
The next day I was meant to go see a couple other things, but I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend hours being ‘worked on’ for a trivial sum. It’s like, why I was there. No, I was there to see elephants in makeup, but that was to happen in the afternoon. So I found a place near my hotel to get a super duper facial, a pedicure (so, so necessary after my day of trekking in the dust), and a massage.
There I was, about hour three into my five-hour spa day, and I hadn’t had a drink since breakfast. The man servicing me (the facial was thorough) kindly offered a glass of water and without thinking I took a sip, having gotten used to the assumption that all drinking water comes from a bottle or a filter or a kettle. As I swallowed that first sip, I thought, “huh, that tastes different,” and then I realized. No. Oh no.
NO!
I have not seriously had a whole sip of tap water! Outside a hotel! Where they have no toilet paper! Yes. I did. I’m still here.
I was lucky enough to be in town for the annual Elephant Festival, held the day before Holi in Jaipur. Everyone interested (tourists) pile into the polo grounds (for free!) to see a parade of giants dressed to impress, and the winner gets something for being the best. I don’t know which won this year, but they were all pretty spectacular.
There were beautifully adorned elephants, but I really liked this one.
It wasn't all about elephants, just mostly.
I was in Pune for the actual day of Holi, and we went to a party of color throwing and music that reminded me of something you might come across in Australia, except it didn’t last more than 24 hours and there were no drugs. It was fun, and I got smeared with all sorts of dye which came off more easily than I expected, but I did spend the next week with a terrible cold.
I kept trying to get the guys with the purple powder to get me, but I got a lot of red and black.
cold slug of water 