Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...and elephants! Our trip to Amber Fort

Yesterday was our grand excursion through Jaipur, and yes it was grand. To give you a little history, Jaipur is in northwest India, about 250 km south of the capital, Delhi. The city was built in 1737 and was the first well planned city in India with systematic roads. Many refer to Jaipur as the "Pink City," but the actual pink area of the city is very small. The 8th King of Jaipur chose the pink-toned terra cotta paint to symbolize welcoming when a British prince came to visit the city. The pink area of town is surrounded by a 20 foot tall and 5 foot wide wall for protection. The newer and larger part of Jaipur is only about 30 years old and the total population of the city is about 4 million. The city is surrounded by the Aravali mountains which are about 600km in elevation and are the oldest and largest mountains in India.

Our first outing of the day was to Amber Fort. Amber Fort is a palace built in the 16th century for the royal family. It is situated on top of a mountain over looking the city. They chose the name Amber because it means sky in Hindi and because on the mountain people thought it looked like it was in the sky. Surrounding the palace is a wall lining the tops of the mountains. It is 9 miles long and was modeled after the Great Wall of China. Soldiers would line the walls to ward off enemies (Muslims).

In order to get to the fort we rode elephants!! It was two people to an elephant so Kathryn and I hopped on the first one. Our "driver" told us the elephants name was Chun-Chun. Unfortunately, even though we were the first elephant to leave, we were the last to arrive. I think we literally had the slowest elephant on the planet, but hey I guess that means we got more ride for our rupee (so to speak) haha. Kathryn and I decided Chun-Chun must have had one too many King Fisher Beers the night before and he was all sort of hung over. For some reason this random guy followed us the whole way up playing this obnoxious instrument with the same short song over and over again...needless to say it got a little old. I had a feeling he was like the mariachi players at Mexican restaurants in Old Town, everyone thinks they're free the first time, then they don't leave till you tip them. Plus we're 90% sure one or two of Chun-Chun's legs were shorter than the rest (which Kathryn could identify with since one of her legs is shorter) because riding him was exactly like those elephants in Jungle Book who sway dramatically from side to side while lifting their feet high as they dance and sing. With every step we felt as if we might just slide off the side under Chun-Chun’s slow gait, and then be forced to tip the annoying instrument player that we never asked for.

Finally we arrived at the fort and began our tour. The first king to live in the fort was a mogul emperor who had 3 wives. He was really just trying to be a good diplomat because he had one for each religion, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. He separated them though and kept his Hindu wife here.

All the white marble in the palace came from 30 km outside Jaipur, and is the same marble as was used in the Taj Mahal. The fort was built entirely handicap accessible because the Hindu queen wore over 25 lbs of gold and jewels and clothing so she couldn't walk; instead she used an elaborate wheel chair to get around.

The next king to live there was a bit frivolous in his additions to the fort. In 1653 he ordered glass from Belgium which was placed in plaster of paris and inlaid with polished silver to create a mirror-like palace area which had a dancing room inside. He also created what was called a "pleasure room" with 3 rooms separated by grass curtains which constantly had water falling down them creating a natural cooling system. He also built an additional fort higher up just for his Army to better protect the fort and city.

The last king to inhabit the palace added 12 special (and very separate) apartments for each of his 12 wives. The king built his own apartment higher up overlooking the other 12, and he had 12 separate secret passageways to each of his wives apartments. I couldn't help but wonder if he ever got confused in the middle of the night and walked into one wife's apartment just to tell her "Oops, sorry wife number 6, I meant to go to wife number 7". Now this king was a bit over the top if you ask me, he had guards in front of each wife's apartment and all the guards were women. He didn't allow a single man in the apartment section of the palace besides him. AND, if 12 wives wasn't enough, he had over 200 "concubines" aka mistresses, whose rooms each had a whole in the top so he could look in on them...ewwwww. What a terrible boring life it must have been for these women. We decided he must have had to pick one to be his main squeeze as the public's actual Queen. We figured its probably like that Mormon guy on the show Big Love who has his one main wife plus 2 other ones to watch the kids, or like Hugh Hefner when Holly was his main girlfriend and the other two just for laughs and entertainment. But 200? That's a bit excessive yes?

After the tour we walked back down to the bus and were hassled by nearly 100 people trying to sell us trinkets. They were literally right in our faces, we had to dodge them. They even used little kids to try to sell us stuff, which I thought was a pretty low blow, how are you supposed to say no to a little girl offering glittery pens for "only 10 rupees for 10! Please, please I make good price!" Not easily, let me tell you. We did see a number of snake charmers on the way down however which was pretty cool...and also a bit scary because the tip basket was right next to the hooded snakes...finally we were back at the bus only for more and more children to be tapping on our bus windows thrusting puppets and little elephants and turbans at us. Thinking back on it I'm wondering what it must be to live a life like that as a child...

More about the rest of our day later.