Jaipur Bimble
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sat 20 Apr 2019 23:57
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Jaipur Bimble
  The
city of Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Jai Singh II, the Raja of Amer who ruled
from 1699 to 1743. It is the tenth most populated city in India (just
over three million) and is the capital of Rajasthan. It is known as the Pink City due to the dominant colour
scheme of its buildings – a local requirement and the government
paint the facades. Jaipur is a major tourist destination with a huge amount of
history, so here we are. The traffic is shocking, the hooting and honking is
just this side of intolerable, made so much worse as there is a metro currently
under construction.
 Main streets in old
town are two or three storeys, shops at the bottom with shutters
and the upper floor residential with no access at the
front.
  Palace gates don’t have to be pink
and some building ‘ends’ can be very
fancy.
 The new side of town has buildings a bit
taller but there are no high rises.
 New made to look
old.
 Hawa Mahal or Palace of Winds is constructed of red and pink
sandstone. The palace sits on the edge of the City Palace and extends to the
zenana, or women's chambers. The
structure was built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. He was so inspired
by the unique structure of Khetri Mahal that he built this grand and historical
palace. It was designed by Lal Chand Ustad. Its unique five-story exterior is
akin to the honeycomb of a beehive with its 953 small windows called jharokhas
decorated with intricate latticework. The original intent of the lattice design
was to allow royal ladies to observe everyday life and festivals celebrated in
the street below without being seen, since they had to obey the strict rules of
"purdah", which forbade them from appearing in public without face coverings.
This architectural feature also allowed cool air from the Venturi effect to pass
through, thus making the whole area more pleasant during the high temperatures
in summer.
  Many people see the Hawa Mahal from
the street view (as we did) and think it is the front of the palace, but
in reality, it is the back of that structure.
   A huge variety of people,
another gateway (of the seven) and a real cobra.
 Another
gateway.
  Busy
people.
    Buildings opposite the lake and of course thousands of
tuktuks.
 TLC required with some
buildings.
After our tourist ‘stuff’ we gathered fruit and my carrots from the local market.
The lady is carrying a colossal weight in the three crates on her head.
The Albert Hall has been a museum since 1887. It is named after King Edward VII (Albert Edward), during whose visit to the city when he was the Prince of Wales. He laid the foundation stone on the 6th of February 1876.
Back to our digs and we moved from our dark cave with the rock hard bed - upstairs with better wi-fi.
All the to-ing and fro-ing moving rooms, it was only right to have a quick dip in the little pool.
ALL IN ALL SO MUCH TO SEE BIT OF A MAD HOUSE |
