Do you know what we did this November? — p3
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Jodhpur to Jaipur
The next day, we drove down to Jaipur, the pink city. Jaipur is a bigger city and was founded by Raja Jai Singh II. Amer, which is called the old city used to the capital and later, the city expanded and came to be called as Jaipur. Did you know “Jodhaa”, one of the wives of Akbar is from Amer ? She was married off to Akbar to avoid war between Mughals and Rajput king. We were joined in Jaipur by our friends, the one who kept inviting us to Chandigarh. We tried to cover the major tourist locations.
Amer Fort
This fort is built on a hilly area with a nice boundary walls that run around the fort. Once, the entire population lived within the boundary walls. Amer fort is known for the natural coloured paintings. Natural colours were extracted from the available plants in the forest area near by and are used in the paintings. We heard that some scenes from Jodhaa Akbar movie was shooted in this fort. This fort has a bath tub with separate connections for hot and cold water. Adjacent to it, there is a stream room also. There is a sheesh mahal, windows architecture to allow women to watch without being noticed etc. By now, we were able to see the similarity among the forts.
We also visited the near by Jaigarh Fort which houses the largest Canon and Nahargarh Fort where a scene from Rang de basanti was shooted. Nahargarh fort also had a palace inside it. It is a two storied palace divided into nine similar apartments. From the top of the palace, you can get an excellent view of Jaipur city.
City Palace and Jantar mantar
Most of the areas within City palace is converted into museums. So, we just roamed around gazing through the displays.
Jantar mantar had some interesting astronomical structures. It all sounded very complex.
Hawa Mahal
Hawa mahal is near by City palace constructed to relax during Summer. The step-wise structure resemble a crown. You can climb through and get a glimpse of surroundings from up there.
Babu bazaar
There are many bazaar areas in jaipur and we visited one of it, babu bazaar. I’ll never ever forget the shopping experience here. Such a colour-ful and vibrant bazaar with nearly 100 shops. This bazaar is meant for textile shopping. Jaipur is known for it’s block-printed and embroidery work. With demonetisation, we had a cash crunch. But, it didn’t stop me from shopping here. We may have to improve our bargaining skill though. Don’t miss to shop when you visit Jaipur.
Eateries
My collegue gave me this big list of try-outs. We managed to cover a few in Jaipur. We tried out sweets from Lakshmi Mishtan Bhandar (LMB), Mawa kachori & Pyaaz kachori from Rawat Mishtan Bhandar. Tasted delicious!
Jaipur — Agra — Jaipur
While we were in Jaipur, we also did a one day trip to the world wonder, The Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri. I’ve heard so much about the beauty of Taj from others who have been there. Don’t walk in there expecting any fine carvings work. Taj mahal is surely a beauty for the majestic and symmetrical look. But I’ve to admit that somehow neither me nor my husband felt any romantic when we were there.
“Stone inlays” has been used to bring out more beauty. Coloured designs below are not paintings. They are infact coloured stones layed inside the white stones (called as “Makrana stones”).
After Taj mahal, we went to Fatehpur Sikri. It’s a fort built by Akbar. We reached close to the closing time. So, we didn’t cover completely. Some of the buildings here had inspiration from Ranakpur Jain temple. This blog was my reference for this place.
To be continued..
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