Welcome to Rajasthan: where every man wears a turban, every building is a Haveli, and every city has a fort, a palace or both!
We arrived in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, worn out after a 36-hour train from Puri and splurged on a room in Rajputana family guesthouse (the excuse was that it was Daniel's birthday), which was a nice and welcoming place with a very friendly owner but not really worth the price of 1400 Rs (though it did include a nice home-cooked breakfast).
We explored the old city known as the Pink City for the color of many of the buildings in its impressive list of monuments, checking out the Hawa Mahal, the Jantar Mantar observatory, Swargasuli Tower, and no less than three forts: Nahargarh, Jaigarh featuring the worlds biggest canon, and the spectacular Amber Fort + Palace (two in one!) just outside the city. For his birthday Daniel's only humble request was to see a movie, so we watched yet another Bollywood movie Badlapur at the famous pink Rajmandir cinema in town, though we were rather disappointed to find out it was a serious drama telling a story of revenge (no dancing or singing at all) and was hard to follow at times considering our lacking knowledge of Hindi. We had a nice dinner at the Peacock restaurant on the roof of the deservedly popular Pearl Palace hotel (where we originally tried to book a room but were too late) and a nice coffee at the modern Nibs cafe, when we were not sampling Rajasthan's great street food.
Our next stop in our grand month-long Rajasthani tour was the Shekhawati region north of Jaipur, famous for the beautiful and colorful painted Havelis which are historical private mansions found all over Rajasthan. We took a government bus to the town of Nawalgarh (women get 30% discount!) and stayed for two days in the homey and serene DS Bungalow (room @ 600 Rs) owned by the friendly Bunty and his wife Pinky who cooks delicious fresh food (though a little over-priced). We walked around town hunting down the many Havelis, some more impressive than others, and encountered a nice street parade honoring lord Krishna, hitching a ride back to the hotel on a donkey-drawn carriage. The next day we cycled to the nearby village of Dundlod ( bicycles @ 100 Rs from the guesthouse) where we met some friendly locals and visited yet another fort, nowadays functioning as a hotel. We left early the next morning heading to the town of Bikaner.
I like elephants since they are strong vegans!
ReplyDeleteCheers, Matt (from Bhaktapur/Nepal)