The Albert Hall is a Museum with Stuff

Friday, June 29th, 2012. Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.

In and around Jaipur, the two most important sites are the City Palace and Amber Fort.  Each of these requires a separate ticket, but each of those tickets also allows you into several other sites.  For the Amber ticket, you can pay a little more and get two days of validity, which is what we did, so today we are exploring some forts and minor sites.

Stop number 1, is the Maharaja’s cenotaphs at Gaitor.  Unlike the other cenotaphs we have visited, in Jaipur, the men’s and women’s cenotaphs are in completely different grounds.  These are the men’s memorial and they include impressive marble carvings.

The last Maharaja of Jaipur died last year and was cremated in a nearby plot.  His memorial will be built in about 2 years time.

Stop two is the Jaigarh Fort, above the Amber Palace, which it used to defend, although it contains parts which are much older than Amber.  Beyond the usual battlements, palaces, and collections of arms and artwork, there were a few unique things to be seen here.

Principal among these is the world’s largest wheel mounted canon which could fire a cannon ball 22 miles.  It was test fired once and then never fired again.  Weighing 50 tons and sitting on a carriage of 250 tons, it took four elephants to move.

Elsewhere in the fort we got to see the canon foundry where the weaponry was made.  Gunpowder and canons came to India with the Mughals in the early 16th Century, but they protected the technology as secret.  It was only after serving and commanding forces in Afghan wars for the Mughals that a Hindu general learned how these were made.  In the late 16th century he setup the first native foundry here and they were able to produce their own arms.

The fort is high up on the hills surrounding Amber and Jaipur.  What enabled this fortress to exist was a large scale system of canals and water tanks that captured water during monsoons, and could even share it with the TIger fort, some 8KM away.  As many as 22,000 people in the Jaigarh fort would survive on the water collected, and the system is still used today by those that live in the fort.

The Nahargarh (Tiger) Fort, further along the ridge, closer to Jaipur is a much smaller fort. It also appeared to be a bit more run down, but as it turned out, may have been the highlight of our day.

As we drove up to the fort, we encountered lots of vehicles and it was clear that a movie was being made.  Unlike in the US where if they were to use a location for a movie it would be “bought out” and off limits to the public, here visitors were still allowed.  A very large number of people were jammed into the place, between all the extras, the main characters, and all the production crew.

After looking around the fort and watching them do a bit of filming, we were on our way back to the car when we noticed what was obviously a film star hanging out in his chair. We stopped and got chatting to him.  He told us that the movie is called “Shere” (Lion) and is about a 1960s Robin Hood like character who stole from gold smugglers and used the money to build schools and temples in his village in Gujarat.

The guy was really nice and not only agreed to let me take a photo of him with the boys, but had his personal assistant take my camera so he could get a picture of all of us.  Our driver immediately recognized him as Vivek Oberoi, a well known Bollywood actor.  I googled him, and it seems like he is a genuine good guy – known for his philanthropy as well as his acting skills.  The guy looks every bit the movie star!

We then did some shopping for fabrics back in town – Jaipur is especially well known for block printing, so we went to one local place, but found their prices very expensive – about 2.5 to 3 times what we had been quoted the previous day.  Rather than try to haggle, we just went to another place, where their prices were in line with the first shop we had visited.  The owner was a very nice man and we struck up a good conversation.  We ended up buying a number of things, mostly as gifts.  In addition,  Kelly got a kurta (long dress like blouse) and had them made some modifications to it, and Aaron ordered two custom tailored shirts.  He picked out the fabric, colors, accent fabrics, style, etc.  All of these were delivered to us at our hotel about 6 hours later.  Aaron’s shirts each cost less than we’d find at home for something off the rack, even during the best of sales.

When we stopped at the bookstore yesterday, Kelly and I glanced at the Time of India’s list of best restaurants In the country.   Many are top dollar joints charging upwards of US$75 per person, but some are local places that have good reputations.  One of these in Jaipur is LMB, originally a sweet shop founded in the late 1700s, but now also a hotel and restaurant.  The food was fine, but nothing special in my book.  Probably he best thing was the juice I had, which was a combination of apple and pineapple.

After lunch we walked through old city bazaar,  but didn’t see anything especially interesting for sale.  What amused me is seeing people on the streets with what at home would be a typical bathroom scale, selling the service of telling you your weight.

A little outside the city gates we walked to the Albert Hall, which was as close as our driver could park.  Since it was included in our ticket, we decided to go in. The foundation stone of the building was laid by Prince Albert of England when we visited a little over 100 years ago. At the time, no one knew what the building would be used for. Eventually it was decided to make it into an industrial arts museum to house a collection of prints, metal ware, fabrics, musical instruments, arms, etc.

Amongst the exhibits were some stick like artifacts that were labeled as “stuff” which I thought was a bit odd. I even looked this up online to see if maybe there was some interesting story about how we got the English word stuff from a particular type of Indian stick that was used to point to different things, but there was no such story.

Eventually it dawned on me what in fact each of these items was - a staff!

It is because of Prince Albert that Jaipur has one of it’s most distinct attributes. Buildings in Jaipur used to be many different colors. With the upcoming visit of Prince Albert, the Maharaja declared that all buildings in the old city were to be painted pink (actually more of yellowy sandstone color), the traditional local color of welcome. Since then there has been an ordinance that all buildings in the old city can only be painted this color, hence Jaipur is known as the Pink City even today.

Vegetarians 1 – Vegans 0

At home, Kelly and I have adopted a mostly non animal protein diet. I would not describe ourselves as vegans, since we do occasionally eat some dairy or meat, but these days, that is the exception, not the rule.  We know that while traveling we need to be flexible, but also that India has lots of vegetarian options.  In fact restaurants here are labeled as either veg. or veg. and non-veg.

One of the reasons we wanted to learn more about Indian cooking is that most people here are in fact vegetarian and we were excited about finding some tasty dishes we can make back home, as much of the Indian food we’ve had in America has been decidedly non-vegetarian.

In India if you want to eat meat, you have to seek it out.  Generally this will be chicken and a little less commonly, lamb, which is probably goat as they use the term lamb for the meat of sheep and goats interchangeably.  I have not seen beef anywhere and  you wouldn’t want to eat it here anyway – Indian cows are scavengers eating the trash off the streets.

Cows are sacred in Indian for a number of reasons. For one, the cow is revered as Nandi, the mount of Shiva. For another, cows provide essential dairy products used in all the cuisine.

India is a vegetarian’s dream, but if you are a strict vegan, you would have a very hard time.  The concept of veganism is completely alien to Indians.  Almost every dish will have dairy in it in at least one of the following forms: paneer (home made cottage cheese - kind of like Indian soy), yoghurt, khee (clarified butter), and occasionally cream.  In fact, dairy is considered by Indians to be an essential part of a healthy, nutritious diet.

It will be an interesting challenge when we get home to see if we can adapt some of these recipes to be made without the dairy, but I am looking forward to trying.

A Full Day of Sightseeing in Jaipur

Thursday, June 28th, 2012.  Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.

Getting an early start to try to beat the heat, we drove into the old city to have a look at the Hawa Mahal or Palace of Winds.  Although it looks very substantial, it is only one room deep.  The palace was designed to allow the women in the zenana to look out on the goings on below and the design facilitates a cool breeze, hence the name.

We got a great view of the palace by climbing up to the top of the building on the opposite side of the street, which turned out to be owned by a very nice man who was happy to let us use his rooftop to get some nice photos.

Driving out of the city some 11KM, we visited Amber, the former capital before Jaipur was built.  Amber is at least 1,000 years old and it is protected by about 22KM of curtain wall, much of which runs over the hilltop ridges.  The palace is mostly 3-400 years old and is very well maintained with intricate decorative work, gardens, and military elements. 

To reach the palace you can either enter via the royal route through some five different gates from below, which many visitors do on Elephant back, or you can drive up to the fort and enter from the rear which is how the common folk would come in.

The palace is very large and has numerous courtyards with meeting spaces for ministers, foreign visitors, and commonfolk, apartments, women’s quarters and so forth.  There is even a 1.5KM tunnel that leads to the Jaigarh fort on the surrounding hill.  Perhaps the most opulent part of the palace are the Shish Mahals, or halls of mirrors, which gleam in marble, mirrors, and metal.

One of the gardens (which one can view, but not visit) is situated below the main fort in the midst of the water tank.  The patterns in these gardens are repeated in the inlaid stone work found on some of the palace walls.

On our way back into town we stopped at one of the fabric shops and saw how block printing is done and also how they make hand tied carpets.  The craftsmanship is evident in these works.  Watching the block printers working by hand and neatly aligning each print while working at a high rate of speed was very impressive.  Even more so was the hand knotting of the carpeting which was being done by a married couple who seemed to be communicating silently.  Despite working at a high rate of speed, a typical hand knotted carpet takes about 2.5 months to make.

Back in the center of town we went to Jantar Mantar, a remarkable astronomical and astrological observatory built by the founder of Jaipur between 1728 and 1734.  Numerous sundials and sextants tracked the passage of the sun, moon, and stars with great accuracy. 

The Maharaja spoke 17 different languages, including 5 foreign ones and had the works of foreign astronomers translated into Hindi. He built the world’s largest sundial that continues to work and can give the time accurate to 2 seconds.

The founder of Jaipur was Maharaja Jai Singh II and his city dates from 1727.  Forging peace with the last great Murghal emperor, Aurangzeb as well as other Indian rulers, he was able to turn his attention to his passion for science and astrology.  Jaipur is a planned city with roads running straight and at right angles to each other.  Main streets are 33 meters wide (an auspicious number in Hindu mythology) and the city is divide into a 3x3 grid which represents an ancient Hindu map of the universe.

The Maharaja has the title of “Sawain” or one and a quarter, which was granted to him by Emperor Aurangzeb when Jai Singh was just 11 years old, as the Emperor was so impressed with his wisdom and intellect.

Nearby in the old city, our next stop was the City Palace, which replaced Amber as the court of the Jaipuri Maharajas and is as opulent as one might imagine.

Guarding one of the entrances are two large elephant statues carved from single blocks of marble.

Delicate marble carving and painted decorations abound. Elements of Mughal and Hindu design are integrated, e.g. the same courtyard often has single Hindu style columns and double Mughal style columns intermingled.  The scalloped arches that today we so associate with India, are in fact another Mughal influence and really point towards a Persian influence.

Unfortunately at this time of year in the peak of the day, the heat can sneak up on you.  As the place was bigger than we imagined we really  had not brought enough water with us and Kelly began to overheat and feel faint.  Luckily she never lost consciousness and a strong electric fan and some cold water helped a bit until we could get her back to the air conditioned car and feed her a banana we had luckily saved from breakfast. 

Meanwhile the boys explored the last part of the palace, which included two huge silver urns, the largest sold silver objects ever made.  These were commissioned for the Maharaja’s trip to England in the early 1900s and contained sacred water from the Ganges, the only water he would drink.

Kelly improved rapidly so we had lunch at a nice restaurant then went to see the movie Rowdy Rathore.

After a late afternoon nap, our drive Sury took us to dinner at a local Thali restaurant, which looked like a hole in the wall, but served very tasty, very inexpensive food. For two thalis, which we shared, the cost was less than RP190 or about $3.50. We stopped at a local sweet shop and selected a variety of Rajasthani sweets to try back at our hotel.  These cost more than dinner, at RP210.  The sweets were okay, but nothing remarkable in our book.

Don’t Angry Me!

Thursday, June 28th, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.

This afternoon we went to see a Bollywood blockbuster called “Rowdy Rathore” which is showing on screens everywhere we have travelled.  This is now the 4th largest grossing movie in Indian history.  The lead actor sort of looked like an Indian Tom Selleck of Magnum PI fame.

Rowdy Rathore is a Bollywood action comedy and the boys and I really enjoyed it.  Kelly got a bit bored.  The movie is almost all in Hindi with no subtitles, but you can follow the plot pretty easily.  At a couple of points in the movie, the star says to the bad guy “Don’t angry me!” and this is the tagline of the movie.

Beyond the movie, the theater and cinema going process were experiences in themselves.  To start with there are separate queues for men and women and we were advised that the women’s queue is much faster, so we had Kelly buy the tickets.  It looks like at one point there were 4 price levels for tickets -  but at least for our showing there were two – diamond and emerald.  Diamond cost RP120/$2.10 per ticket and emerald was RP70/$1.22.  For the extra money we got to sit up in the balcony and had our own waiting lounge and refreshment bar.  Unfortunately we (and all the Indians waiting to see the movie) had to deal with several children trying to beg from those in line.  It really is very sad to see people in such abject poverty.

Once you have your tickets, you enter into the general lobby (see above camera phone image) which is a very large vestibule.  For diamond patrons you go upstairs to a separate lounge with velvet cushioned benches while you wait for the cinema to open.  Interestingly prices at the snack bar were on a par with places outside the cinema.  As a simple example, a bottle of water is usually about RP15-20 on the streets and cost only RP25 at the theatre. In a restaurant, this is usually between RP30 and 60, so you are not getting gouged by any means.

Inside the cinema we had our own reserved seats that reclined.  The place is huge – easily the largest cinema I have ever been in.  I think the capacity is upwards of 500 people.  There is only one screen, which plays the same movie several times each day.

The place is very well worn – the carpet was tacky on my shoes, which was a little gross!  But you certainly get your money’s worth at the movies in India.  The film started at 3:30 and after only one preview (Hollywood, can you take note?) the film began.  The image quality and sound were excellent – at first I thought this might even be a digital screening, but I later realized it was actually film.  However, the picture quality was better than anything I have seen in the States or Europe before digital projection.

After about 75 minutes there is an intermission, followed by another short preview and then the film continues to it’s conclusion.  We were out of the theater about 6:15, so probably a solid 2.5 hours of movie.

If you’ve ever seen a Bollywood movie, this follows the formula – handsome cool lead actor has a crush on the pretty leading lady.  Lots of action/fighting takes place, interspersed by a few non-sequitur dance scenes.

By the way, speaking of Indian movies, I watched one called “Delhi Belly” on the flight from the UK to India.  It is not a typical Bollywood movie – it is a sort of thriller gangster comedy, something along the lines of “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” or a Quentin Tarrantino movie.  If you like that sort of thing, you should check it out – I know it is on Netflix.

Jaipur–One Corner of the Golden Triangle.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012. Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
Distance driven: 2,472 KM / 1547 miles.

After about 2.75 hours of driving from Ranthambhore, we stopped at the offices of Four Wheel Drive  who are providing our car and driver and who, in the end booked all our hotels.  They even took care of the internal flight we needed from Hyderabad to Delhi and setup the game drives.  We had initially planned on booking our hotels, but they were able to do it for the same price and have their local knowledge has been very helpful.  The hotels have ranged from okay to marvelous and all fit within the budget we gave them.  We had only hotel were we decided to change (in Ranthambhore) and they were quickly and efficiently able to find us a better place. All of their bookings for us until this point have been done without any deposit or credit card number from us.  Since we’ve been traveling for nearly three weeks, this is a sizeable amount of money, so this demonstrates a remarkable level of trust.

Jaipur is part of the Golden Triangle – with Delhi and Agra.  Now that we are in the most popular tourist region of India we are seeing far more foreigners.

We dropped our stuff at the hotel and had some lunch.  Then Sury took us to a good bookstore called Crosswords that had lots of English language books.  The boys were able to find two novels they had been looking for at a price that was as good, if not better than we could find in the US, although I think the printings are British editions.  One of the thick paperbacks sells for RP699, or about US$12.26 at list.  It also had the manufacturers UK price printed on the cover at UK25, or about US$39, so 1/3 the price here for an original book, not a cheap knock off like we’ve seen in our travels in China.

We then drove to Sisodia Maharang Bargh, a ladies palace and garden from 1710 which is now mostly used for events such as fancy weddings.  The building and gardens are fine, but not that interesting.  There were a lot of fountains that looked like they would be very cool, but they were all turned off. 

Just as we were about to leave, the guard asked if we wanted to see the “museum”. This turned out to be the inside of the palace itself and although fairly rundown, it was great to be able to see the original furnishings and fixtures.

Nearby was the Hanuman or monkey temple.  There are actually two kinds of monkeys found here, and they don’t get on with each other. 

There are the Langur or Hanuman monkeys with their black faces, and the Rhesus monkeys with their more human like features.  We saw the priest shooing monkeys away and I presume they were trying to get rid of the Rhesus monkeys and have the Hanuman monkey’s stay. But maybe not.

The temple is actually a complex with several buildings and various discrete temples, all around three hundred years old.  Ben and I were taken into one by a priest and introduced to Hanuman, given a bindi and some perfume dots.  Kelly and the boys saw a Krishna temple and got bindi-ed and given thread bracelets.

Once we drove back to the newer  part of Jaipur we stopped at a modern Vishnu temple.  After seeing so many historic temples it was quite interesting to visit a modern one.  This one is made of marble and the overall design is similar to some of the historic temples, but simpler.  The statues are more contemporary and the interior has several stained glass windows rather than a superabundance of statuary.  There was also another temple nearby, but since it was a holiday and the place was very crowded, we decided to give it a pass.

We ended the day with a driving tour of the government district area of the new city before retiring to our hotel.

In Search of the Elusive Tiger

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012. Ranthambhore, Rajasthan, India.

I have a confession.  Tigers are my favorite animal.  From a very young age I would marvel at them in the zoo and was awed by the power, their grace, and their majesty.  Seeing one in the wild was a goal that I’d pretty much forgotten about since the chances were so remote.

A few months ago, as we were planning the trip, I asked the boys and Kelly what were some of their favorite travel memories.  Animal encounters were at the top of the list.  We’ve been very fortunate to swim with seals in the Galapagos, see elephants, giraffe, lions, rhinos and more in Africa, play with cheetahs in Namibia, handle pandas in China, see wild platypus in Australia, stroke jaguar and other wild cats in Belize, dive with sharks and other aquatic creatures in various oceans and more.

Tigers are incredibly endangered.  They have become extinct in many of their former ranges and the total Indian population is now only around 2,000 to 3,000.  Tigers are territorial animals and need a very large range.  For example, Ranthambhore park is more than 400 square KM and probably has as many as 40 tigers, yet this isn’t enough space for them.

The park’s history is interesting.  As previously mentioned, there has been a settlement here for at least 1,000 years.  The fort is the second largest in India. Twice it was attached by the Muslims.  First, unsuccessfully  by Alaudin Khalji (the same dude who caused so much trouble by looking at the princess’s reflection) in the early 14th century. 

Then Akbar defeated the Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawain in the mid 16th Century.  Eventually Akbar would give his daughter in marriage to the Jaipur Maharaja and as part of her dowry, they were given all the land of Rajasthan. Ranthambhore became their private hunting domain.  After independence conservation began in earnest in the 1960s and by 1973 a reserve was started.  The park officially opened around 1984 and in the 70s and 80s twenty two villages were relocated from Ranthambhore to establish the current reserve.

Inside the park there remain several temples, memorials, etc. and locals are seen daily walking to visit these.

We booked two game drives – one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  These are conducted on Indian jeeps kitted out to support eight people – a driver and guide in front and six passengers on elevated seats in the back.  Slightly less expensive game drives are available on large open trucks. We ended up doing our two drives with the same couple of American guys from another nearby hotel.

There are five different zones for games drives in the park, since it is so large, and it keeps the various vehicles to a manageable level in each zone.  The character of each zone is different and there is the possibility of seeing seeing a tiger in any of them. It is all hit and miss.  For instance, people staying at our lodge yesterday got to see one in the morning and two in the afternoon.  People we met earlier on our trip saw none.  A very serious amateur photographer (that’s what you call someone with a $10,000 lens who takes great photos for fun!) told me he came last year and did nine game drives and saw no tigers.  I’m guessing that the photos  this other person took with their iPad (at more than 50 meters away) probably didn’t come out as good.

Each jeep on each game drive has its assigned zone and the vehicle is supposed to stay in that zone only.  You cannot leave the jeep and the jeeps have to stay on the tracks. 

Traveling off season has some benefits.  The park closes at the start of July for three months as this is the beginning of the monsoon season.  So at the end of June, it is very hot, and dry and there isn’t as much vegetation cover, making it harder for the tigers to hunt and stressing them.  All of this makes the chances of seeing a tiger much greater at this time of year.

For our morning drive, the jeep arrived about 20 minutes after the other jeeps from our hotel had left, then had to pick up the other party, so we ended up entering the park 30 mins after it opened.  Our zone was 5, and we saw lots of animals, but no tigers.  The closest we got was to see a fresh paw print in 2.5 hours of searching.  Our guide spoke to the drivers of other jeeps in Hindi towards the end of our drive and told us that no one had seen any tigers.

Oh well, back to the hotel for breakfast, a nap, then some lunch before being picked up in the late afternoon to try again. Our afternoon guide asked us if we had done a previous drive and if we had seen a tiger.  We said we had been on a morning drive in zone 5, but no, we had not seen any tigers. He was very surprised.  Our afternoon driver had been on 5 in the morning and said his and at least three other vehicles had seen a tiger around 8:30.  So (assuming he was being honest!), our morning driver had lied to us, and the fact that we started 30 minutes after opening probably did make a difference.

We were on drive 2 in the afternoon, and it shares its beginning with drive 3.  Just as the two drives branch off, there were a few vehicles on the drive 3 route stopped, so we joined them and immediately saw a female tiger relaxing by the water.  It was magnificent.  One of those really awe inspiring moments.

Unfortunately having to deal with the foliage and the limited positioning of the vehicle, it is tough to get really great photos.  We stayed  a while and tried a few other spots hoping she might wander over to us, but she did not.  We saw lots of birds and other animals on the rest of our drive.  There was even a report of a 2nd tiger and a cub.  She had apparently roared, which is a warning to stay away from her offspring, but she never reappeared.

As we exited the park we got to see the same tigress as before in a different location, this time near a kill she had made earlier in the day of a sambal, the largest kind of deer in the park.  The “serious photographer” got some great shots of her earlier in the day which he showed me at dinner. He said she had wolfed down some 50Kg of meat in just a short while.  By the time we saw her near the carcass in the late afternoon, there was only a portion of the deer remaining and she was mostly content to sit and lick her paws. 

Sitting about 30 feet away from a wild tiger definitely ranks as a highlight of our trip and I suspect will be another of our favorite travel memories.