Namaste! I’m back with another post to talk about the second-to-last destination we visited during our recent trip to India: Jaipur.
After our hellish IndiGo flight from Dehradun to Goa, Ryan and I decided to stick exclusively to non-stop flights for the rest of our trip, and since there was a direct flight from Chennai to Jaipur, we made Jaipur our next destination after Pondicherry.
Plus, I still wanted to visit as much of the Golden Triangle as I possibly could, even though the air pollution immediately threw a wrench in our post-Rishikesh travel plans.
I had several friends tell me I absolutely couldn’t miss Jaipur during my trip, so it was one of the places I was most excited to visit.
Ryan and I landed pretty late at night, so we immediately retired to our hotel room for sleep.
The two of us opted to stay at another Marriott Fairfield in the Bani Park area, which — from what our research told us — was a relatively quiet area full of upscale hotels that wasn’t too far from a lot of the tourist attractions/ historical monuments in the Old City area.
I’d booked us a guided tour for our first full day in Jaipur. At the recommendation of one of my Flagstaff friends, Adwait, I booked a full-day tour with Janu Private Tours. As part of our tour, we had a car and driver (Mr. Sandeep) as well as a tour guide (Surya Sen) who drove us from sight-to-sight in Jaipur for a full day.
I highly recommend Janu if you ever find yourself looking for a day tour in Jaipur. Mr. Sandeep’s driving was excellent (India driving can be a touch chaotic) and Surya was so incredibly knowledgeable about all the sights we were seeing. He also stopped us multiple times to pose us for photos, which I thought was a really nice touch.
The first stop on our day tour was, of course, Hawa Mahal.
The famed pink facade of Hawa Mahal is actually the back of it! It was built for royal women to watch the activity in the streets below without being seen by the public.
We admired it from the outside before Surya took us inside to explore its various courtyards and stories.
After Hawa Mahal, Surya whisked Ryan and I away through the pink-hued Tripolia Bazar stalls, through the Tripolia Gate, and into Jantar Mantar.
Jantar Mantar is an observatory of sorts that was built in the 1700, ordered by the Rajput king… who was really into astrology.
Jantar Mantar, which translates to roughly mean “calculating instrument,” features 19 different instruments, all of which have various uses.
These instruments can tell time, determine planetary declinations, calculate eclipse dates and forecast sunrises and sunsets — among other things.
We also got to see the world’s largest sundial.
Afterward, it was off to City Palace.
City Palace is a labyrinth of courtyards, balconies, buildings and gardens.
Rajasthan’s royal family actually still lives at City Palace, so a large portion of it is closed off to visitors, and there are several portions of it where photography is prohibited as well.
However, the parts we could see (and document!) were pretty phenomenal.
Ryan and I took a tour of the Mubarak Mahal building, which was converted into a museum for textiles.
I also absolutely loved the Pritam Niwas Chowk, which is the courtyard that leads to the Chandra Mahal.
The Pritam Niwas Chowk features the famed four gates. Each gate is decorated with a theme and is attributed to a season.
The courtyard is undergoing restoration work, so a lot of it wasn’t visible during our visit, but it was really cool to see what we could see, and to watch some of the restoration work happening.
Surya explained that at some point in recent history, someone discovered intricate tile work behind a slab of plaster, and now the courtyard is undergoing extensive construction to fully remove that plaster and bring it back to its somewhat-original state.
I imagine it will be stunning when it’s done.
We continued our tour of City Palace and moved onto Diwan-e-Khas, which is the “hall of private audiences.”
There’s a lot more to City Palace, but unfortunately, several parts of it were closed off to the public on the day that we went.
Following City Palace, Surya and Mr. Sandeep dropped Ryan and I off for lunch at a restaurant called Curry Spoon, where Ryan and I stuffed our faces with naan, malai kofta and mixed lemon sodas.
After lunch we were back to finish our tour.
Mr. Sandeep drove us up to Amber Fort, also known as Amer Fort.
Amber Fort was yet another labyrinth of ornately decorated rooms, grandiose courtyards, sweeping archways and expansive gardens.
One of my favorite rooms was the Sheesh Mahal: The “hall of mirrors.”
To access Sheesh Mahal, you stroll through the gorgeous Ganesh Pol (gate) through a courtyard.
Once you make your way through the courtyard, you’re greeted by a building decked out in a dizzying array of mirrored tiles, arranged in a beautiful intricate design.
It was stunning!
After we left Sheesh Mahal, Ryan and I wandered around a few more hallways and courtyards inside Amber Fort.
A quick side note: One of the things we loved about our tour with Surya and Janu was the perfect balance of guided tour/ alone time. Surya walked us around and gave us a narration for the first part of each tour stop, and then gave us some time alone to wander unescorted while he waited for us to finish our solo explorations.
Again, I really, really recommend Janu if you end up booking a guided tour in Jaipur.
Finally, after stumbling down sloping stairways and leaving Amber Fort, we made our way to our last stop of the day: A vantage point of Jal Mahal, the water palace.
The water palace appears to float on Man Sagar Lake. It’s privately owned and apparently isn’t well maintained, so it isn’t open to the public.
However, it was still really cool to see the stunning Rajput architecture from the viewpoint, and to learn about how the building’s engineers planned for rising and sinking water levels of Man Sagar.
Overall, I was really, really pleased with our guided tour. Ryan isn’t really a guided tour person (surprise!) and usually prefers to just show up in a city and putz around, but I really, really wanted to learn as much as I could about Rajasthan history and culture, and I am so happy I ended up booking a tour for us.
Also, I have no sense of direction and I’m fairly sure I’d still be stumbling around inside an Amber Fort courtyard if we didn’t have a guide to help us get from destination to destination.
Our first day in Jaipur was so full that we ended up retiring to our hotel room early. That Mughal-Rajput architecture completely wore us out! We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, and went to sleep soon afterward.
Our second full day was a little more low-key and slower paced.
We started it with breakfast at our hotel, and then went back to the Old City area so we could explore some of the markets and bazaars in the area.
I bought wayyyy too many bangles, and Ryan found himself a carved wooden elephant.
After that, we grabbed lunch at the street food court Masala Chowk.
The biggest piece of advice I got before traveling to India was “don’t eat the street food.”
If you know me… you know I love street food. So… that was a bit of a downer.
But, Masala Chowk was kind of the perfect answer, because I was able to sample so much street food in a completely sanitary environment.
I tried so many things — my favorite being this sweet saffron lassi that I could not get enough of.
After our lunch at Masala Chowk, Ryan and I went to the Albert Hall Museum for a few hours.
We finished our day at Tattoo Cafe, where we watched the sunset while soaking in the view of Hawa Mahal.
And, that was about it! Ryan and I took a tuk-tuk back to our hotel, and then started packing so we could wake up the next day and head to our next destination: Agra!
I think if I ever get the chance to come back to India, I will definitely spend more time in Rajasthan. Jaipur was incredible, and I would love to see more of its monuments and history.
I’d also love to explore Jodhpur, Pushkar, Udaipur, and some of the desert landscape outside of the major cities, including the Ranthambore National Park.
Two days in Jaipur definitely was not enough to explore. Ryan had to keep reminding me that seeing some of Jaipur was better than seeing none of Jaipur, and there’s no possible way to see the entire country of India in a short two weeks.
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