Elephants, Snakes and the Amber Fort

Friday, January 18th – Jaipur

I hear rain during the night and it is raining lightly when we get up. At 8:30 A.M. our guide and driver arrive for our drive to the Amber Fort. Today’s guide is especially knowledgeable and easy to understand. On our way to the fort we stop to admire the salmon pink façade of Hawa Mahal, the Palace of the Winds. All of the public buildings, gateways, and palaces in Jaipur are painted this color, a color of welcome. This ornate and honeycombed palace is not much more than a narrow façade where the women of the royal household would go to watch processions on the street below.

Hawa Mahal, the Palace of the Winds

The sun is breaking through the clouds when we arrive at the base of the Amber fort. There is already a line of tourists waiting for the elephant ride up to the fort. While our guide gets our tickets, John and I take turns waiting in the human line so that the other can take photos of the elephants milling within a stone courtyard, also waiting their turn for a fare.

Elephant passenger loading platform 

Our guide tells us that an elephant is only allowed 5 trips to the fort each day, or to work until 12:00 P.M; whichever comes first.  Many of the elephants have colorfully painted heads and trunks and John reminds me that elephants love to be washed and painted, but only if they are painted well and that they can tell the difference I must have missed this important bit of trivia earlier on our trip. As we wait in line, we talk with some business majors from Harvard, share stories, and the line moves quickly. From a raised stone platform, John and I climb aboard our elephant. We are disappointed that it is not one of the painted ones but we scoot sidesaddle, onto the pristine white sheeted seat, atop our elephant.  As touristy as this may be it is great fun and we laugh and sway with the rhythm of our pachyderm as it lumbers along the ancient stone road curving up towards the castle.

Elephant returning from the Amber Fort

Elephants waiting for a fare

It starts to sprinkle slightly and I point to an ominous black cloud above and beyond. Several minutes later, the heavens open up in a deluge of rain. Our elephant guide is slow to hand us an umbrella, tucked underneath the padded blankets of our seat, and even slower to pull out the canvas tarp that other guides immediately threw over their passengers to protect them from the rain. We struggle to pull our feet up and under the protection of the tarp when suddenly the rain turns to hail. We are still laughing and having a wonderful time, but John’s only pair of shoes are soaked as well as his heavy cotton sweatshirt.  The rain abates when we arrive at the vast castle courtyard and climb off of our elephant. Just before we get to the offloading platform our driver asks for a tip and I see signs that say “no tipping.”  Nevertheless, I hand him 100 rupees, the equivalent of two dollars and he suggests that I give him more. I smile and decline telling him that our city guide told us that this was the expected amount.  He smiles agreeably but I can’t blame him for trying. We dismount onto a stone platform, level with the elephants back and I see that the pristine white sheet is now smeared with mud.

Raining on the elephant parade

Marty and John riding an elephant to the Amber Fort

The Impressive Amber Fort was built in 1728 and is a combination of Rajput and Mughal architecture. We are in the vast and formal walled courtyard. The fortress is surrounded on three sides by mountains and the ancient guard walls and towers still stand proudly. The panoramic views of Jaipur city, a jumble of indistinct pink and blue block buildings, are stunning in the valley below. A manmade lake with a center island is at the base of the fortress wall. The island is a formal Mughal garden, used as a pleasure island for Royalty in time of peace. During periods of siege, dams could be opened and the water would flood into the valley, damping the gunpowder and hindering the progress of the invading forces.

City view of Jaipur in the valley beyond

Immense Amber Fort Courtyard and surrounding mountains

Island Mughal Garden

We enter an immense open courtyard with a raised gallery of scalloped arcades, designed for large political gatherings.

Covered arcade, Amber Fort

Covered gallery, Amber Fort

The most beautiful of the courtyards is the stunning, Sheesh Mahal, the hall of mirrors. This courtyard and hall was designed for pleasure alone. The pale marble facade sparkles with thousands of convex mirrors and intricate mosaics. An expansive Mughal garden is the focal point of this pleasurable courtyard and marble aqueducts and trimmed hedges geometrically define the garden. Our guide tells us that a drip system was engineered to cool the hall during the extreme heat of the summer and that the fountains were anointed with fragrant essential oils that circulated in the garden.

Mirror Detail

John at the Sheesh Mahal, Hall of Mirrors

Passage way - Sheesh Majal

Mughal gardens - Sheesh Majal

We visit the private courtyards for the Maharaja, his 12 wives and the castle servants and guards. A maze of cloistered corridors, are designed to lead from each of the wives quarters to the Kings chambers. The narrow corridors are designed so that when the King sent a servant girl to fetch one wife, so that his other wives would not know.

Detail of pierced stone window

Pierced stone window

When we leave the palace we see a snake charmer, charming the tourists more than his cobra. The snake’s fangs have been removed and I surmise it is not a very happy snake. I hope our tips will afford the snake a fat mouse. John kneels down beside the young man to pet the snake and I take the expected photos but when it is my turn, the snake has had enough and hisses at me. Instinctively, I pull back although I have little fear of snakes. The handsome snake charmer puts his snake back into its covered basket and waits for the next tourist to bite.

John and the Snake Charmer

Snake Charmer and Cobra

Marty and the Snake Charmer

Our lunch stop is at the Peacock restaurant. It is a small heritage restaurant with marble floors and pillars, scalloped archways and frescos painted on the walls. The bases of the chairs are carved wooden peacocks and John and I laugh as we straddle the heads of our peacocks and slide into the table. My spicy lamb stew is excellent and John orders macaroni which takes some time to appear and is passable but not what he was craving. For the most part, I am enjoying the Indian cuisine but John is craving a burrito or a pizza big time.  We drink three lime sodas, our new favorite drink and we have not yet had any stomach issues with the freshly squeezed juice.

Amusing Peacock Chairs

We visit the Jantar Mantar, a bazar, outdoor, astrological observatory built in the 18th century by the Maharaja Jai Singh. This world heritage site would be best visited on a sunny afternoon but the sky threatens more rain. John is still wet and cold from the earlier downpour during our elephant ride to the Amber fort. He squeezes into a dry jacket of mine and warms slightly. Fortunately, we have intermittent moments of sunshine so that we are able to see the demarcations of shadows and to some degree, understand the concept of this remarkable astrological site.  Unfortunately, the battery in my camera flashes "exhausted" and shuts down.  These are the only two photos I have of this remarkable site.

Monumental Sundial at Jantar Mantar

Astrological demarkations of the heavens

The Maharaja contracted scientist from around the country to help build this observatory. There are two monumental sundials with curved polished marble extensions, carefully delineated with marks dividing the hours into minutes and into second intervals.  The smaller of the two must be 20 feet high with two minute accuracy, and the larger one, 10 times the height of the first has a 2 second accuracy. 12 smaller astrological sundials chart the individual signs of the zodiac and since January is the sign of Capricorn, this dial only, is showing a shadowed demarcation.  There are numerous other monumental astrological devices that our guide explains to us and I think of Dianne Wooden, our Astrophysicist friend, and wished she were here to share and explain this site to us.  My camera battery dies here and for the rest of the day, we use Johns cell phone to take photos.
The City Palace, the former royal residence is across the street from the observatory. I am reaching palace saturation, but each fort and palace offers something unique and remarkable. The highlight of this palace is an interior courtyard with 4 striking interior doorways, representing winter, summer, spring and fall. Three stunning peacocks crown the massive summer doorway. The bas relief peacocks are painted hues of brilliant blues, greens and gold into the scalloped, ornately frescoed archway. Our visit to the costume gallery is quick but the armory museum has a wonderful collection of weapons, all of them intricately engraved, carved and inlaid; pieces of lethal jewelry.

Our city tour is at an end and our guide and driver expect to take us back to the safety of the Mandawa Haveli hotel but John and I ask to be let out in the old town. It is nearly dark and both guide and driver are concerned for our safety but we are insistent and assure them that we will be fine.  We walk along the main market street, first in one direction and then cross over and walk back on the other side. It is wonderful to be on our own exploring the market by night. The tiny shops are brightly lit and crammed with interesting goods. One stretch of shops sells only galvanized kitchen goods, another stretch sells automotive parts and another area of shops sells brass Hindu Deities. John pokes into several brass figurine shops and after much haggling and decision making, he buys an assortment of bronze deities; Ganesha, Shiva, Lakshmi, Vishnu and Hanuman.  I am John’s banker and our cash is running low and I look for an ATM, but the first one I come to is out of money and a second one is out of order. I am a little worried since our rupees are going quickly and I will need to find a working ATM before we drive to Agra in the morning. We guess that we are only half a mile from our hotel and the shops continue to be interesting so instead of taking a tut-tut, we decide to walk back through the ancient city gate to our hotel. We turn left after the gate and walk several long and rather dark blocks until we see our hotel. We have a second, non memorable, but not overly expensive, dinner in the hotel restaurant and retire to our palatial room for the night.