Thursday, April 7th was another long, busy, and fun day. We spent the morning at Amber Fort (alternatively called Amer Fort), arriving via elephants, we then saw how block-printing textile work was done, and saw the process of making hand-made rugs. We lunched, wandered through a turban museum, saw a modern palace full of small museums, we saw an old observatory, and, finally, went to a parade and had dinner.
I awoke at 6:00 am sleepy and not-at-all refreshed, due to my late-night bookworming. Fez and I dragged our feet, but were eventually ready, successfully found our way to the lobby, and met Mom, Auntie, Sister, and FBIL for breakfast.
Breakfast was held in an amazing dining room. Every inch of the surface was intricately painted, even the ceiling. It was beautiful, and I felt so much like we were in a Jane Austen novel or visiting a palace. The food wasn’t as good as the room, though. I ate a lot of coco flakes and tried the runny hash browns before going back to my old fallback of cheese. Once we had stuffed ourselves silly, we went back to the lobby to wait for our tour guide.
 | |||
| Breakfast at the hotel. I took this from the hotel website. Those lamps were dark while we ate! |
Our tour guide was new, as this was our first day in Jaipur. He was a bit of a character. He talked a lot about philosophy. What he said was pretty good, but he could have said it in far fewer words, “You can’t change people, only yourself,” and left it at that. But he seemed to drone on and on in ways that made him a bore. Despite being with him for only one day, he repeated it at least five times.
Besides his life-advice, he of course, also acted as our guide and gave us much better money advice than the last tour guide. Our first stop of the day was Amber Fort, and we were to ride elephants to the top of the fort. He very clearly told us, “At some point, the elephant driver will ask you for a tip to ‘feed the elephants’. Tell him you will tip him at the end. If he is good and stops asking, give him 100 rupees ($2.22). If he keeps asking and annoys you, just give him 10 rupees (about a quarter). We thanked him earnestly for the advice, and got in line for the elephant ride.
The elephants, weren’t in fact, taking us up the hill to the fort. Purely by luck, we were in Rajasthan for the ‘Gangaur Festival’. Now, this on its own actually isn’t surprising to me. Indians have more holidays than I have hairs on my head (okay, that is an exaggeration, but you get the picture). Even Good Friday, not a bank holiday in the Christian-dominated USofA, is a bank holiday in India that my husband got off. I think they take off every semi-remotely religious day of any religion that is practicing in India. I’m sure that is a stretch, but not much of one. After being in India for a few months, I think you are more likely than not to hit a holiday if you stay for two weeks. I am awakened at least once a week for midnight birthday fireworks (or whatever else they represent). So, the point is, yes, we were lucky to be there during the Gangaur Festival, but I think it would be a bigger stroke of luck in a country that is more stingy about their holidays.
Anyhow, due to the Gangaur Festival, the elephants were being re-routed and we just took them for a short lap rather than up the hill to the Amber Fort. We stood in a small line, appraising the elephants as we waited. They were Asian elephants, of course, which meant they have smaller ears. But I thought the ears still looked pretty big. Their feet were just huge. I mean, I know they have to have big feet to carry around their body weight, but seeing a foot up close was really the most shocking part for me. Most of the elephants looked to be diseased. Rather than a solid grey, many had pinkish patches on their ears, trunks, and faces. It reminds me of Vitiligo, the skin disease that Michael Jackson had.
Each elephant had a painted trunk and head. Bright neon colors, such as yellow, purple, green, orange, blue, pink and red formed either simple geometric looking patterns or bold hearts and flowers. On the head of the elephant was a red, blue, and yellow cloth, and a matching cloth was draped over each side of the elephant. Each was driven (if ‘driven’ is really the proper word) by a man in a long-sleeved ivory shirt uniform, with black pants and a fading orange ‘turban’. It looked like a turban, from the front, side, or back, but from the top of the elephant, you could see the man’s hair through the center. It seemed slightly more like a sweatband when seen from that angle. The men either sat as you would on a horse, or cross-legged atop of the neck of the elephant.
At the top of the elephant’s back was an iron chair. It sort of looked like a bed, with a head and footboard that was flourished and painted baby pink. The baseboards were at the front and back of the elephant, and the longer open sides had a thick metal rod, meant, I guess, to prevent people from falling out of the chair. A person would sit in the chair such that as the elephant walked forward, their body faced perpendicular to the direction of travel. The elephant’s back was so wide that your knees were still on the chair, and your legs would stick straight out with only your calves and feet dangling over the edge of the elephant.
When it was our turn, we climbed a set of stairs to reach the elephant’s back. An elephant pulled up to the stairs and stopped. The guy manning the stairs lifted the metal safety bar from the chair, and indicated that Fez and I, who were going first, should get on. It was an awkward mount. I don’t think there is an elegant way to climb onto an elephant. Our elephant was shorter than the step, so we had to go to the edge of the step, squat down, and sort of push ourselves on to it. The safety rail was placed back over our legs, and we were off.
Fez and I, in the lead, looked back and snapped photos of Auntie and Mom, and Sister and FBIL. There are very few good photos of anyone, because every photo has at least one person clutching a camera to their chest, eager to take the next photo.
Near the beginning of the ride, a stream of photographers would catch our attention and call for a photo. Our elephant driver would stop the elephant, tell the elephant to say ‘good morning’ and the elephant would raise his trunk for the photo. At first we were surprised at the elephant’s skills, then realized the guide was probably kicking him or something to make the trunk rise. Regardless, he was doing it for the photographers, and the guy who took the photos of Fez and I eagerly snapped them. He claimed he was named Ali Baba (yes, he really did say that) and to look for him and the photos when we were done.
Our elephant driver told us a bunch of hooey that we accepted as truth while on the elephant. He told us our elephant’s name was Lakshmi, and the elephant behind us was named Roopa. The names may or may not have been true, but his next story was certainly false. Lakshmi, he informed us, was so small because she was young- only twenty-five years old. “Look behind you! See the elephant behind us? It is bigger and thirty years old.” Of course, the occupants of the elephant behind us, Mom and Auntie, were, at that very moment, being told their elephant was only fifteen years of age.
At one point, the guide grabbed a seedpod from a tree we were passing and handed it to me. “Women wear these as bracelets,” he informed us. We smiled, said thanks, and found it impossible to fit the circumference of our wrists. So, still wearing my seaband motion sickness bracelets, I simply tucked the pod into the bracelet and left it. He glanced back and apparently approved. Oddly enough, I remember the exact same thing happening when I did this trip in 2009. And I still have never seen a woman wearing those pods as bracelets, so I really wonder what is the true story behind that bit of oddness.
We enjoyed the view from the elephants. Sitting on the elephant wasn’t exactly the most comfortable position, with the awkward swaying side-to-side as each large leg was raised and dropped, but it wasn’t bad, and you quickly got used to the feeling. We looked down on a large pond, too far away to see individual pieces of trash, and thus it was very lovely. Beyond the pond was a city, full of small buildings with blue roofs. It was early, so the weather felt nice. On the other side of the pond was the mountain, with the fort atop. We saw wild boars, pathetically plopped on the side of the path, surrounded by stones and scruffy looking shrubbery. It was very pleasant, despite the constant photography among the three pairs of us. Sister and FBIL had gotten on the elephant directly behind us, but Mom and Auntie’s elephant was stuck on a high-speed chase and had passed them early on in the trip. Near the end of the trip, they started to pass us, and succeeded. In fact, for that short (certainly less than ten minutes) trip, they passed three elephants. I just wonder how that guy drives a car!
Now that we were at the end, true to the tour guide’s words, the money haggling began. I was sitting closer to the guide, and he did ask for money. But he only asked once or twice, and we got off and handed him his 100-rupee note. As we left, he looked at Fez for more. I just shook my head no, and Fez, who was broke anyway, hopped off. We were just fine, but apparently Sister and FBIL’s elephant driver was an aggressive person, just like our guide warned us against. Unfortunately, they tipped him a bit too early, and had to listen to him ask for more for at least a minute non-stop. It is so frustrating that these people just ruin your day like that.
While still sitting on the elephant, Ali Baba ran up to us and handed us an envelope with six photos in it. The photos were awful! Taken on the fly, some had the elephant’s trunk cut off, and we were making terrible faces in most, or looking in completely opposite directions. In fact, there was only one good photo of the six. We laughed, tried to hand them back, but of course the bargaining game had begun and he refused to take them. “2500 for all!” he shouted up to us. That is about $55. Laughing we said no, not intending to buy them even when they were cheap. They were that bad. We tried to hand them back, but again they were refused. We looked around, wondering what other people would do. It seemed rude to just throw them on the ground, so we continued to hold them. Later, Sister and FBIL told me they had noticed other people doing just that- tossing them to the ground. But unfortunately we were still bred too polite. We dismounted; Ali Baba followed us, and continued bargaining. I told him I’d pay 100 ($2.22) for the one good photo. Still a complete rip-off, but overall it wouldn’t hurt my pocket too much.
Mom and Auntie had purchased their photos, I believe for 500, so now the pressure was on us to get some for mix-and-match sharing. I stood firm with my 100 for one, and he finally agreed. I picked out the one good photo and gave the rest back to him. But he wasn’t done harassing us! No, he followed us to the jeep, even when we were inside, trying to leave! Eventually Fez scrounged up enough money to pay 100 for the remaining five. Looks like she made the best deal of any of us! Although the photos were all terrible! We found out that Sister and FBIL got all of their photos for 200, too. The door to the back of the jeep was shut, and we drove up to the Amber Fort, giggling over the poor photo quality.
Amber Fort (Or Amer Fort) was built in 1592, making it younger than the Taj Mahal. It is quite far (about a six hour drive) from the other structures that we’d visited, so I hadn’t quite understood if they were related and from the same empire or not. These lines from Wikipedia clear up the matter a bit:
“The Amber Fort, as it stands now, was built over the remnants of this earlier structure during the reign of Raja Man Singh, Commander in Chief of Akbar’s army and a member of the Emperor's inner circle of nine courtiers, in 1592. The structure was fully expanded by his descendant, Jai Singh I.”
So, if you remember, Akbar built his tomb in Sikandra, and the Agra Fort, which we saw on the 5th. On the 6th, we first saw the Taj Mahal, which was built by Akbar’s grandson, and later saw another fort, Fatehpur Sikri, which was also built by Akbar. So what we were seeing today was, in a way, connected to him. It sounds like Akbar’s army general built the Amber Fort. It seems odd, to me, to let your military leader have such a grand place- what if he tries to take over your kingdom? But maybe I’m misunderstanding something.
We arrived and were hustled inside.
I have to say, Amber Fort is probably my favorite fort. I’m not entirely sure why- I do think, in part, it is the way our tour guide let us run around. He would stop, speak for a few minutes, then let us go off and explore to our hearts desire. Gather at a new spot, and repeat. So we had time to really enjoy quirky things (like getting my head nearly stuck in a very tiny window) that we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do with our other guide. We also found spots with stairs so steep that I’m amazed we got up them, much less the fact that they weren’t condemned. So it was a lot of fun to run around and explore the Amber Fort.
A second reason why Amber Fort was amazing has to be the bathrooms. Clean, nice, full of toilet paper, and a fixed rate of only 5 rupees. I used it twice.
Thirdly, it had beautiful views, and a good breeze when we stood up on the ramparts and enjoyed those views. It wasn’t too crowded (save the hall of mirrors), so you could just relax by a window and feel pleasant.
Of course, the most important reason Amber Fort is the best must be the hall of mirrors. I wish so much that I could see it at night, by candlelight. The “mirror palace” was roped off to protect it from prying hands, but inside were mirrors and on every surface. They were cut to the shapes of flowers or in intricate designs, but it was just beautiful. I’ve included a couple of pictures, but it really is something you need to see in person.
 |
| Mirror Palace within Amber Fort |
The fort was enjoyable. We saw beautiful courtyards, gardens, and gazebos, but the ‘fun’ new thing to learn was about the courtyard where the concubines and ‘royal family women’ stayed. There was a center courtyard, where the women could meet, but each woman also had her own private courtyard and rooms. The king (should I say general? I’m slightly confused, I’m sure our tour guide was saying King/emperor – did the general build it FOR the king?) had stairwells from the level above such that he could enter any woman’s courtyard with privacy. None of the other women would notice. His balcony stretched the entire circumference of the courtyard, so he could walk around and watch each woman.
When we left the courtyard, we went into a buying frenzy. I’m ashamed to say I overpaid for a blanket (vendor offered 5000, I said 2000 and he took it right away. I bet I should have only paid 500). Mom liked the same blanket, but got it for only 1000. However, despite my grumblings at over-paying for it, it is quite cute, and is now on our guest bedroom at home in Mumbai. It is also quite small, and only fit a twin bed!
 |
| My Overpriced Blanket |
My favorite story of purchasing items has to be Fez’s buy. The poor girl was so broke, but she had noticed some cute hand mirrors- five in a bag- and wanted to get her hands on them. Each was a mirror on one side, the border embellished with small jewels and a bright glitter color, and the opposite side continued the bright colors and embellishments. In the end, she paid 200 rupees, the end of her money, for them. As we were leaving, another hawker pushed up against our jeep (I don’t even see how more people could fit their bodies against our jeep- we were just surrounded on all sides by vendors), and offered the jeep 100 rupees for another set. Poor Fez’s face just fell. But our philosophical tour guide saved the day, and told her, “He wouldn’t really sell them at that price. He just knew our jeep was leaving and wanted to be mean to you since he already heard you buy them for 200. On the street they are 200 for six, and you have five in your bag. So it isn’t a bad deal.” We all felt a little better, though I’d wager you could get them all for less than 50 rupees in reality and our guide just said that to make Fez feel okay.
Our jeep dropped us back off at our van, and we hopped in, ready for our next adventure. Our next adventured turned out to be a quick stop at the ‘summer palace’. More of a quick photo opp than anything else, we gazed at a palace built in the middle of a lake. What most amazed me was the fact that it looked like the water was covering part of the palace. It didn’t appear to be on cement stilts or any other sort of riser. The water just lapped right up against the walls. Apparently the royal family would boat out to this palace and enjoy the cool lake breeze. I asked if it was a pain to move all of their furniture each year, but our guide reminded me that there was no furniture- everyone sat and slept on the ground.
 |
| Summer Palace |
After the palace we did some more ‘view the artisans in action’/shopping combo trips. I don’t remember the order anymore- one was a jewelry shop and the other a textile shop. I have exactly zero memories about the making of jewelry, but they sure did have beautiful emerald and sapphire sets. They pointed out which stones were mined in India verses elsewhere. From that demonstration, I learned that the pink rubies my Mother-in-law gave me as a wedding gift were native to India, so I thought that was appropriate. I also remember enjoying a nice cup of chai tea while there. But fairly shortly we left, unable to afford any of the items, and went on to the next stop.
We very much enjoyed watching the textiles in action. First, we watched cloth have a design pressed on it. A huge bolt of fabric was rolled out on a table, and two men with large rubber stamps would dip the stamp in ink and press it against the cotton. It was amazing how quick they were- they had to line it up precisely each time- the stamp couldn’t have been more than six or eight inches per side- but they were so quick in repeating the pattern. It must be monotonous work, but I felt mesmerized watching it. You could just sort of space out and enjoy it. Once the first stamp was done, which was a pattern outline, they got out other stamps to fill in the colors. Again, you have to be so precise to stamp in the exact same location, to fill the outline. But they were so quick about it!
After they had finished that piece of fabric, they pulled us (if I remember correctly, everyone but FBIL and I participated) up to make a sample. The first person did the outline stamp- it was of a peacock and had the company name above it. The next person filled in part of the tail with one color, and so on. When it was done, the colors looked completely wrong. “Watch, watch!” they told us excitedly. Using their bare hands, they dunked the fabric in a chemical, pulled it out, rinsed it in another bucket, and the colors had changed to the proper peacock colors. They sat it out to dry and told us to pick it up on our way out. It was fun to see, but I wonder how the chemicals hurt their hands.
I do have to point out the attire of one of the gentlemen who were demonstrating for us. My Mumbai driver very much hates the cross-dressing men that we occasionally drive past while he is taking me around town. The cross-dressing men are always wearing saris with very small blouses, and often wigs or have grown their hair longer. I don’t like them because they are begging- I don’t like anyone who knocks on my car door, but other than they, I’m not upset by their appearance. But it horrifies my driver, and I think he thinks it is very, very unholy. Now, the guy who was doing the demonstration- I THINK he was wearing a sari blouse. In fact, it looks exactly like my ready-made black blouse hanging up in my closet. Except that his was blue. But I wasn’t quite sure, because he wasn’t wearing a sari with it. But it was definitely a tiny little half shirt with a low, feminine neckline. His hair was hennaed red, but that is normal for older men here. He also had a moustache. So who knows? But I definitely couldn’t help but stare at that shirt. His eyes twinkled, though, and it looked like he enjoyed his job and enjoyed demonstrating for us. So that was good. I like seeing happy people.
 |
| Adding Block Printing to Fabrics |
 |
| Making a Rug |
We next watched the process to hand-make a rug. This was just as impressive. A single man squatted, on a plank that was raised off the ground by a precariously balanced stack of bricks; and he rapidly tied knots of yarn on the loom. I don’t know if loom is the right word- it was basically many, many vertically strung pieces of white yarn, which were hung from a stout, horizontally placed tree limb. The limb itself was attached to the ceiling, and held up by more white yarn. Surrounding the man were balls of various colors of yarn, hung vertically from more wood. The man worked rapidly. He had a pattern to follow, but he must have every piece of that vertical white string memorized, because he never looked at the pattern and his fingers just knew which string was the third string, or fourth, because he had to tie the knot on the third with yellow, but a red knot on the fourth. And he never seemed to actually count. It was amazing to watch. You could just tell how skilled he was. The side facing him was fuzzy from the knot being cut and leaving the string dangling. But when we turned to look at the back side, a beautiful patterned rug was appearing.
The rugs were incredibly expensive. Again, you have to pay for the labor of having it hand-made. But they were beautiful. We didn’t spend too much time in that part of the store, however. We instead made our way to the fabric portion. Most of us were burned out on shopping, and just stood around, too sick of being harassed to buy items to even look. Once you looked, ‘helpful’ sales people swarmed you. So we just stood and overlooked a stairwell that had absolutely nothing on it to sell. We were safe, though still offered tea while standing there. While we waited, FBIL contemplated which purse to buy for his mom. The problem is, once you start looking, everything is very pretty, so it is hard to make a decision. Eventually he picked a nice gold bag with elephants, and we were on our merry way.
Our tour guide told us he ‘understood what kind of people we are’ and knew where we would want to stop for lunch. Oh dear. One, we all know that wherever we go, he gets a commission. Two, he knows, based on our lack of purchases, that we are cheap. So to what kind of place would he take us? We drove through the city, onto narrower and narrower streets, before entering into a back lot where we parked. Having lived here for four months, I know you can’t judge anything based on how it looks, and I didn’t really notice the dirt and trash around us. But looking back, I am wondering what the rest of the group thought.
We were lead to an open-air area with tables. We were, if I remember correctly, the only people there, although other tourist showed up later. The walls were in need of paint but still were decorated with flowers and pictures. It seemed pretty clean and safe to me. We sat in wicker chairs and a table covered with a simple white tablecloth. Little statues of turbaned men sat on the table, hints as to the museum we would see later. We sat under the ceiling and looked at the menu. I got up and looked at the buffet, as the center of the space had those big metal food containers. They were empty.
We ordered food, some of us ordered pop. The Pepsi arrived in ancient bottles that looked like they were originally made in 1975. I hope it was just the bottles that were reused and not the original pop! The food wasn’t too bad, and we munched on various flavors of naan and a couple of Indian dishes.
While we waited a man came over and danced for us. I think, at the end, we were really paying him to go away, but smiled and clapped for him just the same. He was wearing a long-sleeved red dress. I’m sure there is a formal Indian name for it, but, excepting the color, it sure as heck looked like a dress that belonged on Little House on the Prairie. Rather than pantalettes, he had white leggings. The bright red dress had perky green accents, some even in the shape of hearts. He wore a matching turban, and the biggest, bushiest moustache imaginable. His moustache! I don’t know the proper term for it, it was vaguely similar to a handlebar moustache, but those are limited to the upper lip and his was very thick, and grew from the typical mustache region down his checks to his chin before turning up again, curled like a handlebar. It was almost like it was sculpted out of hair that should rightfully be called a beard, not a mustache. He played an instrument and danced for us. His dance reminded me, actually, of a dance I saw once at Native American rally. He took very tiny, modest steps, one foot touching the ground always. Gentle, back and forth. I don’t actually remember the music, but he was the second person of the day with a big grin and happy looking eyes, so it seems like people from this neck of the woods must really enjoyed life.
 |
| Dancing Guy at Lunch |
After the food and dancing, we went on to enjoy the turban museum. Yep, you heard me right! There was a turban museum! We even got in for free, so that was a first. It was a bit disappointing, actually. To our disconcerting eye, the majority of the turbans looked the same, but we did learn that there are different color turbans for each month. Some of the royal fancy turbans looked more like hats, but it was fun to gaze at all of them. There was also a diorama, just like in a history museum, of Indians doing various things. One section had a wedding, others were cooking, etc. So that was fun to stare at. But I guess our tour guide had us pegged, after all. We all smiled and giggled at the thought of the turban museum, and very much enjoyed the thought, if not the actual place.
After the turban museum we headed back to our van. We still had many more stops for the day- to see a façade that the women could stare out, to watch the goings-on at the street; the City Palace, which is where the current royal family lives, but is mostly now a museum; an old observatory; and a parade!
Again- all photos were taken by people mentioned in the blog, except for the dining room photo. That was taken from the hotel website.
No comments:
Post a Comment