India Trip Part 2: Jaipur

It was raining when we arrived in Jaipur pretty late on Thursday, March 30. We went straight to our hotel, the Rambagh Palace, a Taj Hotel. It is a beautiful property and looked very romantic in the rain. It was originally a garden house, then became a royal hunting lodge, and then was the primary residence of the Maharaja of Jaipur.

We were feeling a little hungry so we ordered room service — dal makhani, naan, and chocolate cake for the kids.

The next morning we enjoyed the beautiful buffet breakfast and met some of the hotel peacocks (there are 200+ across the property!) before heading out for sightseeing.

We’d booked a car and driver for our stay in Jaipur, and they included an English-speaking guide, Raj. Unfortunately the kids had trouble understanding Raj’s accent so usually Andrew would need to repeat everything for them anyway! Oh well, we did our best. Our first site in Jaipur was the Amber Fort. We stopped on the way for a view and saw a real cobra!

We also made another stop en route to check out this step well.

Inside the Amber Fort!

First we saw the Hall of Public Audiences where the Raja would listen to the requests of the public.

There were beautiful views of the gardens and the wall surrounding the palace, which is apparently the 3rd longest in the world (the 1st being the Great Wall of China and the 2nd being something I can’t remember).

Then we went into the private area of the king and queens, where we saw some baths and even the royal toilet.

We also admired the Hall of Private Audience aka the Sheesh Mahal (Mirror Palace) because of the decoration with mirrors from Belgium.

Beyond this was the oldest part of the palace, completed in 1599. It was the private rooms of Raja Man Singh I and his wives. He had 12 wives and designed this central courtyard with 12 rooms around it, each with access to his rooms which were on the level above.

From there our guide took us to a site where they keep elephants for tourists to interact with. We felt a little bad for the elephants but it was neat to see them up close! I love elephants.

From there we went to see the Jaigarh Fort, which is uphill from the Amber Fort and was built to defend Amber Fort. The kids were losing interest at this point so we made it a brief stop and primarily focused on seeing the Jaivana Cannon which was the largest cannon in the world when it was built in 1720. It was only fired one time, and someone died from the kick back.

View from Jaigarh Fort down to the Water Palace.

We made a very brief stop at the third fort, Nahargarh, because the kids were ready to call it a day.

It also started raining! We tried to get a pic of the Water Palace but then ran back to the car.

We were all happy to get back to the hotel and relax over High Tea on the patio.

The kids were disappointed the rain would keep them out of the pool, but it turned out the hotel had a fabulous indoor pool as well. The most beautiful indoor pool I’ve ever seen.

For dinner we went to the hotel’s fancy restaurant, Suvarna Mahal. The kids liked all the gold plated tableware. The staff was wonderful, making sure everyone was happy. When the kids’ butter chicken turned out to be a little spicy for them the staff had the kitchen make them a completely non-spicy serving of chicken.

The next day our plan was to see some sights in the city — the Jantar Mantar, the City Palace, and the Wind Palace. The first stop was the Jantar Mantar, a collection of huge astronomical instruments built by Maharaja Jai Singh II and completed in 1734.

The giant sun dial was particularly impressive, it’s one of the largest in the world.

Next we visited the City Palace, current residence of the Jaipur royalty.

Here you could really see the pink which gives Jaipur the name the “Pink City.” It was painted pink in the 1800s because that was the color of welcoming.

There was some story about these giant vessels — the ruler at the time was traveling to visit England and tradition was that the ruler could only drink, cook with, and bathe in water from the Ganges. So they took the sacred water with them on travels.

These holes were to give the pet birds (parrots etc?) access to the palace.

On our way out of the City Palace we stopped to enjoy a brief puppet show!

We headed over to see the Hawa Mahal (Wind Palace) and market via electric auto-rickshaw.

At this point the kids were getting pretty antsy so Andrew took them back to the hotel for pool time and lunch, and I went to see the palace with Raj. It was a small palace built specifically to allow the royal ladies to watch the city festivals without being seen.

After this our guide took me to see some local craftsmen, demonstrating how block printing is done and also hand made rugs.

Then it was back to the hotel for more high tea and to meet up with Andrew and the kids.

I can’t say enough good things about the Rambagh Palace! I think it’s probably the nicest hotel I’ve stayed at– beautiful rooms and grounds, and every staff member was so kind and helpful. The kids were interested in seeing the kitchen so one of the head chefs took them in for a private tour and showed them how the tandoor ovens work.

We went on a brief tour of the palace and saw this train (which houses a restaurant we were going to that night). We also went for a ride in a 1961 Mercedes and a horse and carriage.