Our final destination on this whistle stop quest for India at its best was actually two destinations: Jaipur and just-outside-Jaipur.
Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and is affectionately known as the ‘Pink City’. Technically, as you’ll see from the photos, that colour is more of an orange hue or a terracotta, but the nickname and the dedication to the colour are more to do with branding than they are to do with history. Pink is traditionally the ‘colour of hospitality’ and the Jaipur people are nothing if not proud of their hospitality. So proud are they that for a visit by the Prince of Wales in 1876, the reigning Maharaja declared that the entire city be painted pink in the guest’s honour. Since then, and due in no small part to a law against using any other colour to paint buildings, the Jaipur pink has just kept on flowing. So has the emphasis on hospitality, in our view. And both of these things attract tourists from all over the world.
Jaipur is one of the three corners of India’s so-called Golden Triangle—a bite-sized and very palatable trio of Indian cities frequented by tourists just looking to dip their toe. I was actually one such tourist almost 20 years ago, when I visited Delhi, Agra (for the Taj Mahal) and Jaipur with my father and two sisters. Jaipur itself didn’t seem to have made much of an impression and, as we toured around this time, I realised that’s because we never really came into the city. On that occasion, we stayed around 45 kilometres from the city—in a palace, as one so often does in Rajasthan—and sight-saw other palaces and forts on the outskirts too. Our hotel on that occasion was the Samode Palace: a monument to Rajputana regality having started life as a 16th century fort, then becoming a 19th century palace before being reincarnated as a hotel managed by the hereditary owners of the property. On this more recent trip, we stayed at the same family’s city mansion—an ornate oasis called the Samode Haveli.
The selection of this hotel was the first thing we did very, very right in our approach to Jaipur. It was at ground level with open space that was around 60% lawn and 40% swimming pool, home to several monkeys and many squirrels, and our gigantic suite of a room was a stone’s throw from the restaurant which served breakfast, lunch and dinner at very acceptable times. The staff embodied the very essence of Rajasthani hospitality and were remarkably tolerant of Jasper’s moods (read: meltdowns). Plus, it was situated in the ‘old city’ which meant the history written in the property’s beauty extended beyond its walled gardens.
Our airport pick-up team deposited us in an intense drawing room with hand-painted walls and ceiling. Glass chandeliers and large ceiling fans loomed over rich, imposing furniture on which our embarrassment of a child began to wipe his shoes and, when he thought nobody was looking, his nose. Frames and wall art gave a glimpse of family life for the owners. Battle scenes and magnificent moustaches gave way to soft-focus portraits and meetings with foreign dignitaries as the pictorial history flowed through paintings to photographs and right up to modern day.
From the drawing room, we were led through a ponded courtyard, past the swimming pool and down a tree-lined path to the wing which housed our rooms. As we took in the cornflower blue sky, the buttery yellow haveli, the lush landscaping, and the smell of french fries wafting from the pool cafe at a very early (by Indian standards) almost-lunch time of barely midday, some of the horror of travelling with a feral Jasper began to subside. Having ooh-ed and aah-ed at the decadence of our rooms, we spent the rest of the day swimming, eating, Aperol Spritzing and, for those of us who were open to it, napping (including Jasper this time, thank goodness). Then it was time for dinner.
Dinner was a blemish on our otherwise perfect Jaipur scorecard—a blemish entirely of my making. Long story short, I had seen a photo on instagram of another hotel and had decided it looked worth a dinner. While beautiful to look at, the hotel was on the other side of town (in the new city), was as empty of atmosphere as it was of people, and served lacklustre, nondescript food dressed up as some sort of fusion. If it hadn’t been for the joy I took in seeing Joanne and Dee blending into the wallpaper of the restaurant in which we dined—alone—it would have been a completely wasted trip. That’s not entirely true, actually. While the journey there was unremarkable, and the dinner too, the drive back allowed us to experience a festooned and illuminated Jaipur revelling in its last day of Diwali festivities. The streets which had earlier been quiet with the anticipation of the evening market trade were now bursting with colour, lights, cars, auto-rickshaws, people and deep fried snacks. While Joanne, Jasper and Dylan snored away in the back of the minivan we had been assigned for our days in Jaipur, Dee and I took it all in and arrived back at the hotel secretly thankful for the excuse to see Jaipur by night.
The following morning we had a lie-in but were still the first hotel guests to reach the breakfast buffet. Our guide was due to collect us at 9am and we were ready with a game plan: to ditch Jasper halfway through the day’s sight-seeing agenda. Naturally, with him being as able as he is to protest loudly and dangerously (and with him being a small child), we weren’t planning to send him off alone. No, Dylan and I had come to the agreement that in order to preserve some enjoyment for Joanne and Dee, and some sanity between the two of us, we needed to divide and conquer. One of us would take the tour, the other would take the tyrant.
Our first full day in Jaipur started with a drive-by of the iconic Palace of Winds (Hawa Mahal). This famous, pink honeycomb of a facade rises high above an otherwise fairly ordinary street. Ordinary for Jaipur, that is, meaning a wide road with wide pavements lined with rows of identical, compact, boxy shopfronts, uniform in their size and of course, colour. Jaipur was India’s first ‘planned’ city and they really were meticulous in their planning—from the big stuff, like the location of the palace, right down to the signage script above each shop. The city was planned using principles of Vastu (vash-too), which is the ancient ‘science of architecture’ but which in today’s real estate world often manifests as a matriarch wandering around an apartment with a compass checking if the master bedroom is appropriately aligned to maximise the chances of having a grandchild (or that’s what I’ve personally witnessed, anyway). In the case of Jaipur, I think/hope they used Vastu more to ensure the location, orientation and layout would guarantee the city’s success as a trading hub and royal stronghold.
We admired the Palace of Winds just long enough for me to hop out of our minivan and perform my duties as ‘most enthusiastic photographer in the group’, and to hear about how it leans backwards. This lean, together with the intricate lattice works on the windows, allowed the royal ladies of the palace to watch the common folk processing and partying without ever being seen, which was important for royal women in those days. The lattices also let in the breeze which is where the name comes from. Wowed and educated, we then we set off for Jantar Mantar: Jaipur’s home for oversized astronomical instruments.
As we crossed the road from the carpark to the entrance to Jantar Mantar, our guide imparted an invaluable nugget of great wisdom: ‘When crossing the road, be a cow.’ It made sense. Cows are sacred in India. No car or motorbike or bus would ever hit a cow. While I am not sure that a group of tourists would enjoy the same immunity, we really tried our absolute hardest to be cows every time we crossed: keeping a slow, steady pace and ignoring the cars. We stopped short of defecating in the middle of the road, or pausing to mull over some already-twice-digested leftovers as traffic piled up behind us, but I’d say we all adopted something of an arrogant sway and the odd imperceptible tail swish.
If four of us were cows, however, then Jasper was the cowherd. His infamously lazy legs had given up before we’d even started and he was perched high on Dylan’s shoulders as we entered the park. Home to 19 enormous (and I mean, the height of buildings enormous) astronomical instruments, built to read the stars with the naked eye, Jantar Mantar is quite something to look at. Looking was all I could really do because I volunteered to wrangle Jasper. I am not mathematically-minded and knew there would be zero chance of me relaying any information to Dylan later, so I self-sacrificed in the hope Dylan would retain some knowledge he could share (which he did, but none of which I can now remember). Jasper and I, meanwhile, played hide and seek around the world’s largest stone sundial (Samrat Yantra).
From there, it was only a few bovine strides to the City Palace where the bulk of our day’s touristing would take place. It took us less than five minutes to conclude that Jasper was all toured out for the day and so Dylan took him back to the hotel. This left Joanne, Dee and I to enjoy the Jaipur City Palace, a leisurely lunch and then a trip to the block-printing workshop and showroom. Unrushed by the destructive behaviour of a small child, I even had time for Joanne to talk me into buying a very beautiful but highly impractical hand-tufted silk rug with an elephant on it, right after I talked Joanne into having a couple of skirts tailored in Jaipur block-print fabrics. We returned to the hotel thoroughly satisfied with our shopping success and headed straight for sundowners on the rooftop.
On the schedule for day two in Jaipur were an early morning (not early by our standards, however) market visit followed by a trip to the Amber (or Amer) Fort around ten kilometres outside Jaipur. Unfortunately for us and our unstable cargo of a ticking time-child, the jeep in which we hoped to ascend a rough village track from the base of the hill to the entrance of the fort within the regulation five minutes, started leaking oil half way up leaving us stranded until someone found a way to bung the hole. The delay did nothing for Jasper’s enthusiasm for old buildings and so by the time we finally passed through the ticket gate, he was suitable for nothing more than a chocolate milkshake in the castle cafe. We two hot-footed it through the old fort as quickly as our little legs, the crowds, the uneven doorways and confusing signage would let us, and were soon as happy with an activity book as the monkeys were with clambering up the ramparts. Joanne, Dee and Dylan soon sauntered into the cafe and we all bundled back to the hotel for a rest before one last burst of brassware and crockery shopping in the evening, for which we left Dylan in peace to do some work.
We were now on the home straight—day ten of our adventure—with just one last stop before returning to Mumbai. At Joanne’s request, we were in search of elephants. Dera Amer, home to two elephants, sits on the outskirts of Jaipur, but once you’re there, you’d never suspect you were anywhere near a city. The extremely comfortable glamping tents and al fresco dining of the self-styled ‘Wilderness Camp’ reminded us of our honeymoon in Namibia, but the tandoors (clay ovens) turning out freshly baked flatbreads and the still-manicured grass on the former elephant polo pitch grounded us back in India—and we were very happy to be there.
Having checked in and been guided to our rooms, there was a creak of deck chairs and a collective exhale as we all sat down to sip fresh mint tea and consider the scene stretching out from the porches of our twin tents. Each ‘campsite’ is private in that a fence marks the boundary with the common footpath which leads back to the welcome pavilion and restaurant. Two sun loungers, a dining table and a clay buffet bench (complete with our own tandoor) sat on the dusty, yellow ground right outside our tents. Laxmi, our elephant, majestic and commanding even with her one tattered ear, chomped on the trees just outside the fence. Obviously Laxmi was not really ours, but she was assigned to our camp as the elephant we could bathe and feed cucumbers to during our stay. The elephants are at the sanctuary having been rescued from a life of performance from which they often bear scars such as torn ears. Colourful and melodious birds adorned the tree tops in and around our campsite and peacocks strutted around below; the rest of the expansive view was all sky.
For the jaded city-folk among us, this uninterrupted blue and its accompanying nature-punctuated silence was what we came for. The silence was short-lived, however. Rather unfortunately, Dylan had poisoned himself on some smoked salmon (we think) earlier in the day and while the wonderful, but increasingly concerned, staff cooked up a candlelit feast for our dinner, Dylan was peace-shatteringly ill in the tent behind us. In some wildly unnecessary act of solidarity, Jasper then proceeded to drink two pints of apple juice at such a pace that he quickly turned his own stomach inside out. Even Dee and I, whose guts were the only ones still processing food normally, lost our appetites. Such was the digestive chaos in our camp that the manager came to investigate the hullabaloo.
Happily, the following morning was rosier all round. We started the day with a dawn ramble around the estate, ate (and retained) breakfast, and then it was bathtime—for Laxmi. I think washing an elephant may be one of the most joyful activities around, whether you’re participating or just watching. Elephants are magnificent any time of day, but under a shimmering halo of water diamonds glinting in the morning sunlight, they are even more so. Joanne and Jasper donned their togs as we really weren’t sure who was going to get wetter: Laxmi or her novice grooms. I know Jasper isn’t very big, but he looked extra specially small next to Laxmi. He barely came up to her knees! The size difference didn’t phase Jasper in the slightest, however, as he scrubbed away under the careful guidance of Laxmi’s mahout. And for the first time all holiday, he didn’t complain once about the day’s activity.
We were sad to leave our wilderness life and were even sadder that it signified the end of our trip. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end and, after 11 days on the road, some of us just wanted a home-cooked meal. Plus, we hoped a return to Jasper’s usual routine might return him to his usual behaviour too.
As happens every time we get out of Mumbai and explore even a tiny slice of ‘the rest of India’, we said ‘we should do more of this’ a lot once we were back in our apartment. We should. We could. And perhaps we will. But I think we will save the really intrepid travel for after we learn a bit more about exorcism and/or Jasper is a little bit older.
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