Jaipur

The city was first painted pink in the 1800's to welcome a visiting Prince of Wales. Pink is the colour of hospitality.They say that the royal family think that the world smells of wet paint - well this is where it all started.

Jaipur is also known as the city of kites and, sure enough, as we approached town the sky was dotted with little square kites in all colours bobbing up and down, swooping and diving. If you have seen "The Kite Runner" or read the book you will be able to imagine the scene. There is a kite festival in Jaipur but we had missed it by a couple of weeks. All of the electricity pylons and cables and all of the trees were littered with downed kites.

This was the first planned city in India - laid out within city walls and accessed by ten identical gates with growth and space to expand. Between the gates wide tree lined avenues are themselves lines with small shops selling, tea, spices, fruit and veg, shoes, perfumes, precious stones and jewellery and clothes. In the centre of town there is a large palace, still occupied by the present king, with large sections open to the public. Adjacent to the palace is the worlds largest collection of astrological instruments, including the worlds largest sundial which is accurate to 20 seconds. These were designed and constructed by the founder of the city, Jai Singh in 1727.

This is a very different city from Delhi, cleaner (relatively), brighter and on a more human scale. It is cold in the mornings and evenings but as the sun gets into its stride the temperature rises to the mid 20's in the afternoon. Our hotel was just outside the city walls. In its day it would have been a grand hotel and the staff work hard to maintain that allusion but without any investment in 50 years it's not so much tired as exhausted. Still vey cold and night with no heating (lots of snuggling up) but at least there was hot water.

Jai, our CEO, took us on a familiarisation walk through town. He showed us how each little shop made and sold their products. We sniffed different grades of tea, tasted different sweets, enjoyed the aroma from the spice shops and Bruce even had a go at chewing Bettle leaves. The leaves are smeared with spicy pastes, pickles and spices. The leaves are then folded up, popped in the mouth and chewed until the flavour has gone. Bruce lasted about 30 seconds before the leaves came out rather faster than they went in.

The original palace is within the Amber Fort which sits just a little way out of town. It is built on four levels - the soldiers level at the bottom, the public level where the king would dispense justice to the people. The private audience level for ministers and dignitaries and the women's level where the royal wives and concubines lived. The palace and it's setting are astonishingly beautiful and I will let the pictures do the talking.

In the afternoon we strolled through the shops, enjoying the ambience of a frantically busy shopping street and Susan chose a lovely pink and red floral pashmina to help keep the cold out in the evenings.

In the evening Susan and I split from the group and went to see a Bollywood Movie. It was pure pantomime with the beautiful heroine, evil villain, handsome hero, village idiot and pantomime dame. There was much audience participation with cheers for the heroes, boos for the baddies and I'm sure I heard someone shout "Look out behind you!". Even though we only understood the occasional word, television for example (it was like listening to a Gallic conversation), it was easy to follow the plot. After much singing and dancing it all ended well and everyone lived happily ever after.