© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

We couldn’t wait to get off of the train, get to our hotel and have a shower. All of our clothes were completely wet, it was so hot on the train. They say horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow, well in that case ... Neigh! We practically ran off of the train and out to the front of the station, to get a taxi to where we wanted to stay. Thankfully the driver was also in a rush, we were soon at our destination. We had chosen the Arya Niwas Hotel, Sansar Chandra Road, behind Amber Complex. It looked nice, we went in and spoke to the receptionist, they had a vacancy. We went up to look at the room, it was much nicer than we thought it would be, especially for the price. It was massive, with a lovely en-suite, cool tiled floor, and there was a much appreciated air conditioning unit in the bedroom, and a large private balcony enclosed by huge curtains. We were home for the next few days. Perfect. The Arya Niwas is located in the heart of Jaipur, the pink city of India, it is an old haveli building, and everywhere was impeccably clean. The Arya Niwas is a family run and award winning hotel. The staff were very friendly but there were lots of rules to follow, the main rule that concerned us was the strict no alcohol rule. There was no alcohol served at the hotel, and absolutely no alcohol to be bought elsewhere and consumed at the hotel. We had heard that the food was good though, the restaurant was said to be excellent. The hotel had a very relaxed feel to it, it was very busy with guests and people eating at the restaurant. All along the front of the hotel, overlooking the lush green lawn, there were wicker chairs and tables, perfect for relaxing with a drink ~ a soft drink! A lot of the other guests were older than us, many of them were there to ‘find themselves’, whatever than means, and to practise yoga. We ate lunch at the hotel restaurant, the Chitra Cafe, on our first day there and it was excellent. When we were staying there the restaurant only served vegetarian meals, and Richard loves his meat, but even he enjoyed the food there. The Chitra Cafe was a self service place that was always busy, queues were often quite long. As the food was so good we ate there a lot, for lunch and dinner. We planned to stay in Jaipur for quite a while, we felt at home at the Arya Niwas, so we started exploring the local area. We were sitting in the back of a taxi on our way back to the hotel one day when Richard saw a bottle shop. Our driver pulled up outside and Richard went in, a few minutes later he came out smiling. He had bought some Vodka. Back at the hotel we decanted the Vodka into an empty mineral water bottle. We carried this bottle of ‘water’ down to the restaurant with us every time we ate there. We often sat outside after dinner playing cards, chatting and drinking our Vodka.

HAWA MAHAL ~ Palace of Winds

We walked out of our hotel into the stifling heat of the day. We wandered toward the Hawa Mahal, the walk was very pleasant. The roads were busy with cars, hgv’s, rickshaws, mopeds, bicycles, and wooden carts, some of which were pulled along by ox, and some by men. The pavements were busy too, but we were not bothered by any of the shop owners trying to sell us their goods. We did stop off at the occasional shop to browse and once again we were not harassed. Hawa Mahal is one of Jaipur’s most famous monuments along with the Jantar Mantar, both of them lie within the City Palace Complex at the heart of the Pink City. The streets of this quarter are all laid out at right angles in accordance with the Vastu Shastras, ancient Hindu architectural manuals. The local maraharaja adapted and applied these architectural teachings in the eighteenth century. The buildings have not always been pink, originally they were yellow. It was during the preparations for the visit of Prince Albert from England in 1856, that the buildings were given a wash of pink, as pink is the traditional colour of hospitality in Rajasthan. Since then the pink colour has been compulsory with regular applications to the buildings. Each quarter in the Pink City is home to a different commerce or activity. Suraj Pole Bazaar houses the elephants and their owners. Nehru Bazaar and Bapu Bazaar are special centres for perfumes, textiles, and the locally styled pointy toed camel skin shoes. Tripolia Bazaar and Chaura Rasta is the place to buy textiles and household utensils. We arrived at the Hawa Mahal, and stood on the opposite side of the road looking up at the intricate detail of the facade. Hawa Mahal was built in 1799 to enable the women of the court to be able to look out and enjoy the street processions and not be seen, while remaining in a strict state of purdah. From the outside it looks huge, its facade has five storeys, there are 593 finely screened windows and balconies, but in most parts it is just one room deep. The most interesting part of this building is the facade, but it is possible to go inside and see where the women used to sit, and to see up close the detail of the stonework. We went in and walked round, admiring the views of the street below. It was nice and peaceful being behind the huge pink facade peering through the carved windows to the bustling noisy road below.

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Feeling tired from the walking and the heat, we took a rickshaw back to our hotel. After another delicious vegetable curry at the hotel restaurant, we spent the rest of the evening sitting outside playing cards. There was a small shop at the hotel which sold lots of different things. There were some lovely pictures of Indian scenes on silk backgrounds, beautiful notebooks with flowers pressed into the pages, jewellery, and much more. The first time I went in, I bought a couple of the silk pictures. I couldn’t believe how reasonable they were, no doubt they would have been even cheaper out on the street, but this shop was so cool and calm. As we sat outside drinking, playing cards and chatting most days, it wasn’t long before I wanted to have another look. This time Richard gave me a bundle of notes, he stayed outside. I bought lots of everything, the beautiful notebooks, lots more silk paintings, and a little present for myself, a really ornate heavy silver necklace. The man who worked in the shop took great care wrapping all of my purchases in tissue paper. He found some stiff card to help keep the silk paintings safe too. I wanted to buy the whole shop, everything was so lovely and it was all excellent quality. As we were only travelling with hand luggage, I thought I might have to throw some of my stuff away to make room for my new purchases on the plane, but somehow I managed to squeeze it all in.

CITY PALACE ~ SAWAI MAN SINGH MUSEUM

We walked to the City Palace, as it was near to our hotel and next to the Hawa Mahal. The magnificent City Palace is enclosed by a high wall in the centre of the city among gardens and courtyards. The royal family still occupies part of the palace, on formal occasions they advance through the very grand Tripolia Gate. The palace was built by Jai Singh, with many of the apartments and halls added by his successors. The interior has lost none of its original splendour. The doors and gateways are all incredibly decorative, the chandeliers are in perfect condition, and to help keep things that way there are turbaned retainers dressed in full royal livery on guard, reminding you of the presence of the royal family. In the first courtyard stands the solid marble Mubarak Mahal. This palace was built in 1890 and houses the textile section. There are antique pashmina shawls from Kashmir, throne carpets, and a pink padded jacket once worn by Madho Singh I, who apparently stood at 2m tall. Also on display are the musical instruments that used to entertain the rulers, and decorated ritual objects. The most interesting item on display was the former maharani’s Diwali outfit, which was a beautifully gilded black outfit covered in gota appliquÈ. The royal arsenal is housed on the first floor of the building next to the Mubarak Mahal. Originally the harem, with mirrors twinkling on the ceilings and wall paintings, there was a display of swords, spears, shields, carved jade handled daggers, silver, crystal, and gold. The largest crafted silver objects in the world, as listed in the Guinness Book of Records, are housed in the raised Diwan-i Khas, the Hall of Private Audience, in the second courtyard. Built using marble and sandstone, open sided with a raised roof resting on marble pillars, the two huge silver urns ~ gangajalis, are a spectacular sight. Each urn is more than 1.5m high with a capacity of 8182 litres. Apparently these urns were once filled with water from the Ganges and taken to England, when Madho Singh II attended the coronation of King Edward VII in 1901, as he did not trust the safety of western water! These urns were very popular with all of the visitors, and whilst we were admiring them there were lots of young children looking at their reflections on the gleaming surface. The largest section of the museum is housed in the Diwan-i-Am, the intricately painted walls are the perfect background for huge medieval Afghan and Persian carpets. In glass display cases you can see the miniatures from the Moghul and Jaipur schools, and Jai Singh’s translations of the astronomical treaties of ancient scientists such as Euclid and Ptolemy, in Arabic and Sanskrit.

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