Monday February 4 Tour of the Pink City

We had made arrangements for a ½ day tour of the old city, so I spent the morning in the room. Sent out the laundry; sat with my feet up; just relaxed.

The van picked me up in the early afternoon. The Pink City is entered through gates. These are high and wide so that an elephant can go through them. The doors have spikes, to stop elephants when they are being attacked. One of the gates is only for the royal family.

Our first stop was the city palace. It is still home to the Maharaja. When he is in residence, they fly a small flag over the national flag. The Maharaja no longer has any power, but still has lots of money. He has his own private jet, for instance.

Near our parking place was the “pigeon restaurant”. No, they don’t serve pigeons, they sell food to feed them there.

We walked by a public letter writer. The man is paid to type letters for those who cannot read or write.

The palace is painted and carved with elaborate designs:

One of the Maharajas didn’t trust the water in England when he went to visit, so he took his own in these huge urns:

We found this really funny, since we are all really obsessive about not letting any Indian water pass our lips.

From there we walked to the Observatory. Built by Jai Singh II between 1728 and 1734, it looks like a giant sculpture garden. The small sundial calculates Jaipur’s local time to an accuracy of 20 seconds.

There are 12 of these boat like things, one for each of the zodiac signs. They are used by astrologers.
Astrology is important here. It is necessary to know the exact time of a person's birth and the ascending and descending signs.

I spotted some snake charmers and asked our guide what an appropriate tip would be. 10 Rs. OK. I took my first picture and a snake guy demanded 150. He was trying to convince me that since there were a lot of snakes, it was worth more. No way, I said and turned away. The guide ran up and asked if I had taken any. He then took me back, gave them 10 Rs and had me take my pictures. The guide also offered to take my picture with the snakes. NO THANKS!! I reimbursed him when we left.

We moved outside of the city walls to the Lake Palace. This is being turned into a restaurant. Customers will be taken by boat to the palace.

Here’s our group. From the left, Odda, me, Lucille, Maria, Ursula and Kara:

Next came the ever popular FACTORY TOUR. The first part was interesting. They demonstrated all of the steps of the block printing on cloth:

Starting with the outline, they added colors one by one to achieve this:

At the end, it is rinsed in salt water and dried in the sun to set the colors, which are now look like this:

Then we went through the steps of rug making. This guy showed me how to tie the knots. They aren’t actually tied, but rather wound in a figure 8 and cut off.

Next, they are cut with scissors. This process is repeated several times until the carpet colors almost glow.

The fine threads and hairs are burned off the back with a blowtorch. Because it is wool, the fibers only singe.

So far, so good. Then we were trapped in the shop areas. Carpets, textiles, handicrafts. Each person had a follower, so each time we hesitated near something, they started to sell it to us.

Maria was shown every fabric in the place. She ended up buying a silk which they made into a stole. Unfortunately, the rest of us waited more than 30 minutes for her. They had told her that we were all buying handicrafts and she had lots of time.

We got back to our hotel about 7. The guys arrived at 7:45. There had been the usual balls up with the buses. Chuck says that he loves being with Art (Lucille’s husband.) When Chuck is about to blow, Art is already there reaming people.

Chuck rushed into the room and said that we were going out to dinner at another hotel and had to be there at 8. We cleaned up hurriedly and went to get a cab. The doorman was relieved when we agreed to a Tuk-tuk. Cabs are few and far between here.

We had a buffet dinner at the Sheraton with the other members of the User’s Executive Committee. The Sheraton had Western, Chinese and Indian food on there buffet. We all drank Cobra beer.

We had a great Tuk-tuk driver on the way home who gave me his card, so that I could call him again. His rate is 50 Rs an hour for schlepping people around town.