The Pink City, Carpets and Palaces: Snapshots of Jaipur India

22Mar
by Cherryl

Jaipur India

Jaipur India, one of the most popular tourists stops, Jaipur is the biggest city in the state of Rajasthan (land of the kings), famous for its love of pink, proud elephants and pretty palaces.

Jaipur also happens to be home to one of the most expensive hotel suits in the world, and many palace style hotels, not that I got to sample any of these 😕 but the Lalit Jaipur Hotel was very nice indeed ✨

Popular Jaipur activities include a visit to The City Palace, visits to carpet and textile outlets, a wander around an observatory and practicing your haggling skills in the countless shopping bazaars.

Out and About Jaipur

Bangles at the Amber Fort

Street life, Jaipur

Lots of street sellers along the waterfront, by the Jal Mahal

Amber Fort, Jaipur

Chamber of mirrors at Amber Fort, beautifully mirrored ceilings and walls – it’s hard to convey in a photograph, you really need to stand and surround yourself with it, seeing all the twinkling reflections in the sunlight  🔆

Amber Fort in the Aravalli Hills
Amber Palace
Amber Palace Chamber of mirrors
Jeep ride up to the fort, instead of an elephant ride

Elephants at Amber Fort Palace, they carry thousands of tourists up and down the fort every day

Jal Mahal, a palace in the middle of the Man Sagar Lake

You’re never far from a seller….

Jewellery and Crafts

We did couple of craft visits.

These places were quite an Aladdin’s cave of curious ornaments and accessories for the home.

There were some beautifully framed mirrors, and artistic wall displays not to mention some of the most stunning decorative marble tables and table tops I’ve ever seen.

Some of these tables were huge, stunning – they were quite pricey too, but probably a lot cheaper than you’d pay back home for the same quality (we were not allowed to take pictures in the marble factory).

Some of these tables glowed in the dark when a light was placed beneath them, showing off their beautiful patterns and gemstones – I’d never seen anything like this before – very dreamy, and sure to score you some ‘Come Dine With Me’ points!! 😉

If you’re kitting out a new home and you want unique charismatic items – India might be a good place to add to your shopping destinations list.

I used to work with someone who said they went to India and had lots of furniture shipped back to the UK because it was such good value/quality – you’d probably pay the earth for the same things back home because of it’s novelty factor.

Fancy a game of chess? This board was literally like a huge wide dining table, for sale in this crafts showroom – they had some beautiful things in there….move over Ikea, step aside TK Maxx! (I’ll take that back – I do love TK Maxx) 😊

Ornate doors for sale – probably hand crafted

More from The Pink City

City Palace

The iconic Hawa Mahal, built by a king for his queens to look out into the streets. I was surprised that this was on a ridiculously busy main road – not what you think when you see pictures of it. You stand on the pavement, in front of two way traffic to get a photo – it was pretty chaotic – everyone trying to get a selfie without ten other people photo-bombing it 😆

Carpets and Textiles, Jewellery and Crafts

During this visit we got to see how block prints are made on textiles, and the different stages of rug/carpet making, before a few personal shopping opportunities, with shipping thrown in…..I had a feeling that was coming!

Crouching and squatting like this all day, nimble fingered and very patient workers – this particular factory confirmed that they supply rugs to John Lewis in the UK amongst others

Yarn

Block printing onto fabrics with natural dyes…the displays behind this worker are examples of what they can do – beautiful!!

The arts and crafts aspect of India appeals to me a lot – the artistry and vibrancy embedded throughout and within Indian culture is ever enticing….its feels to me like an expression of joy, Indian joy!!

A spot of lunch time entertainment

Jantar Mantar

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really paid much attention to astronomy or horoscopes, so when I heard we were stopping off at an Indian observatory I didn’t know quite what to expect, it was pretty eye opening, and a a very busy Jaipur India tourist attraction.

Jantar Mantar was built in the seventeenth century – the instruments and giant sundials were/are used to help with the timing of certain rituals – in line with planetary and ‘earth axis’ related alignments (way over my head type-stuff).

There were even a set of fixtures dedicated to each of the zodiac signs, which were very popular.

Apparently, some of the instruments are still used today to help predict the seasons, including monsoons and possible famine.

Back on the road again

Jaipur was a great last stop – before heading back to Delhi for the flight home the next day.

My mind bursting and buzzing with all the colours, designs, sights and sounds I’d absorbed, as we made our last leg of the tour.

69 thoughts on “The Pink City, Carpets and Palaces: Snapshots of Jaipur India”

    1. Cherryl

      Hi Usfman, sorry to hear you were ‘blasted’, there are polite ways of making a point, it’s easy to be hostile when hiding behind a screen. SMH 😣

      They say bloggers need to have a thick skin (probably true) and there are many who thrive on any excuse to criticise and argue online, no matter what you do or say (as per in life generally tbh).

      However the topic of animal cruelty is defiantly something that I wondered about – as mentioned in my post, the tour company I went with did not include a ‘popular’ elephant ride (we took a jeep ride up to the fort and palace instead) due to ‘concerns’ about the welfare of the elephants.

      I know there are very strong opinions on this and there are many who will want to vent against a picture of a working animal.

      I don’t believe bloggers should hide what they saw for fear of what others might say – that ‘was’ your experience after all and isn’t that what you wanted to chronicle and share Others can learn from it.

      Everyone’s going to have an opinion and not everyone will agree.

      Do you know much about how well the elephants in Jaipur are cared for/their welfare?

      One of the things I admired and respected about India was its apparent harmony with animals, the way animals and humans seem to have a connection that we don’t really seem to see in western societies. I am sensitive to these differences as well as the potential for cruelty.

      It’s a deeply debated topic – how some animals are deemed to be abused simply because they are in human captivity, whilst others are farmed and bred, killed for food or designer leather shoes/bags/belts/wallets/jackets etc or ploughing fields – the list goes on, but those things don’t seem attract the same anger because they are more widely seen seen as the norm (rightly or wrongly) by the majority.

      Keeping a beautiful bird in a cage or exotic fish in a tank in your front room…..the ‘pet’ industry in general….???

      I picked up that India has a long history of living with and using the help of elephants in every day life, which is perhaps an alien concept to some of us who live a very different reality/’norm’ – it’s easy to judge/criticise differences – but if the animals are being abused/poorly cared for then raising awareness of this is helpful, and should help deter people from riding them and apply pressure to improve the quality of life for those animals.

      Some bloggers have shown and described negative examples of animal cruelty in their blogs from their travels, and this helps raise awareness.

      There are certain animal encounters that I have chosen not to partake in – e.g like dolphin shows (on holiday) for similar reasons, after learning more about how their health and behaviour is negatively affected by the confined conditions they’re forced to live in – but I don’t really know much about the current welfare of the elephants in Jaipur, I’d certainly be interested in hearing more….

      Thanks for reading 😊

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  12. Dawn Renee

    There is so much beauty there. I love awesome old doors, so I really liked those photos. I would need to visit a palace & listen to their unique music after experiencing that traffic – that looks hectic & I heard how loud it was. I hope the elephants like the interactions & are treated very well. In Costa Rica I refused to ride the horses on the beach because they did not seem happy, were a little too skinny & I saw signs of old, healed wounds. I’m glad you had this neat experience!

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