India: Jantar Mantar, Hawal Mahal and Nahargarh Fort

I should point out that before we arrived at Amber fort to explore, our driver pointed out that we don't want to drive up to the fort way up on top of the hill as there's nothing interesting or important up there.  Strange and nice of him to mention that.

We head back into old Jaipur, and stop off at Jantar Mantar - an astronomy centre built in the 1700s with a bunch of geometric constructions aligned in various different ways to observer the stars.  I find it mildly interesting, and writing about it even less interesting.

I've seen triangles before.

We take a brief walk around the corner to Hawal Mahal - the iconic building that is the face of Jaipur:

A face with terrifying spider eyes

After a bite to eat at a local restaurant, I ask the driver to take us to Nahargarh Fort, because I'm a manly man and am interested in forts and hills and things to climb on.  Again he says "Nooooo, the roads are not very good and too dangerous."

I insist:  We go to this one last place and then we can call it a day a couple of hours early.  Reluctantly he takes us up the road toward the fort.  It's a spectacular winding drive with magnificent views of the water palace as we climb.

As we near the top the driver says "Oh, the roads are not so bad.  It was bad last year."

I tell him - "Well make sure you take your next guests here!".

As we get to the gate of the fort, the driver stops and asks for 100 rupees to pay for the entrance for the car.  "No, it's ok, we'll walk in thank you".  

"50 rupees".

"Hmm OK".

We reach the parking attendant who asks for 10 rupees.

Twenty metres farther up the road and we meet another attendant.  The driver asks for 30 rupees to pay the entrance fee.  We have already purchased a "multi-attraction ticket" from Amber fort and so politely decline.  The driver says it doesn't work.  We flash the tickets out the window at the attendant who nods and waves us through.   This is India.

I am glad we made it up here - walking around the top of the mountain (and being told off twice for unknowingly being in restricted areas) the fort provides the most amazing views of the Jaipur sprawl below.  Take a look:

Nahargarh Fort

Two Indian Women Exploring Nahargarh Fort

A winding road up the hill

Jaipur Vs. Sand

Nahargarh Fort overlooking the city

Vertigo

Jaipur Sprawl

Inside Nahargargh Fort

Interesting Architecture

View from Hawal Mahal

The Street outside Hawal Mahal

Glass Windows in Hawal Mahal

India: Jaipur - Jal Mahal and Amber Fort

After a slightly later than usual start to the day of 8:30am we head into the [faded] pink city of Jaipur.  The streets are lined with back-to-back stores, stalls and peddlers, and the ground is a layer of sand and dust.  The air is also a layer of sand and dust.  My pants are also a layer of sand and dust.  

That's "international" pants by the way.  Not "English" pants.  My English pants are a layer of something else...

We set off for Amber Fort and the road takes us past the water palace Jal Mahal where the royal family would live during the summer heat.  The lower section of the palace is submerged in the water (the lake was artificially created in the 16th century which is pretty impressive in itself...) and in the heat of the day the royals would hang out in the cooler lower levels of the palace, moving up to the rooftop lounge in the evening to chill out with some music and hot babes.

Snoop Dogg was likely there too...

We join a 40 min long queue for an elephant ride up to Amber Fort - an extremely picturesque pink fort on the side of a mountain.

If I was Raj I would have called it the  "Fantabulous Pink Fort".

There are a hell of a lot of elephants carting the tourists up the path to the palace, and after the fun but brief ride to the top, the driver [rider? sitter?] gets angry that we don't give him a tip.  I point at the multitudes of signs at the elephant exit point saying "strictly no tipping drivers", but he just gets angrier and threatens to not let us off.  I don't mind sitting on the elephant for a bit longer as elephants are kinda fun so he's not winning that one.

You're trying to get me to pay to get off this ride?  Look how much fun everybody is having!

The Amber palace itself is pretty fun to wander around in.  It's many courtyards, corridors and tunnels weave in and out in a seemingly random fashion and you can easily spend an hour or two exploring every nook and cranny.

And using the royal facilities...

India: Food, Flies, and the Dead.

Well there's a dramatic title if ever I saw one.  

We continue driving toward Jaipur, and eventually stop at one of those typical tourist bus rest stops for a bite to eat.  The driver insists that the food is good.

Sure enough, there are a bunch of whiteys from tour buses eating in there, and the meals are rather expensive (250 rupees plus per dish). Even a bottle of water is 60 rupees (the going rate for tourists on the street is around 15 rupees).  So we wait until the driver has finished his meal in his little segregated employee area, and then ask to be taken further down the road to somewhere else.

We pick a random food stop a short way down the road, and get two curries, a pile of chapatis, and a bucket of lassi for only 60 rupees.

And all the complimentary flies you could possibly want.  (I'm not kidding.)

Further down the road we come across one of India's shocking statistics - it's high road toll.

It wasn't the first road accident I saw, nor was it the last - but it was definitely the one that looked the most like giant novelty spaghetti.
A woman fell off the back of a motorcycle and went under the wheels of a truck.  She was split completely in two pieces and lay in the middle of the road - one half head, shoulder and arm, the other... well - the rest of her.  We actually just missed witnessing the accident, but saw the guy on the motorbike screech to a stop and look back in shock.  It's not a pretty sight but we can't look away as we slowly drive by...

I present you this picture of lunch to take your mind off it.

The "chef" and his dad chillin'

This cool mofo strolled up and was eager to show off his little dagger.

Another different accident.  A reasonably normal sight on the roads here....