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Visit to the Palace at Amber and general sightseeing around Jaipur |
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Left the hotel at 9 a.m. & drove to Amber (c. 8 miles), passing through Jaipur via the Saganer and Amber Gates. Drove through the gate of the outer wall of Amber & to the foot of the Palace Hill. An elephant was waiting to take some people up the hill. I walked up to it & went all over the old Palace. Some of the marble carving is very good, fine pillars & carved panels. The interiors are mostly painted crudely and gaudily, or inlaid with mirror-mosaics. The preservation is for the most part good & there are fine views over old Amber and the sometime lake. One is pestered by quite useless menials who dog one about & ask for bakshish & generally annoy one. These pests spoil every place one visits & should be destroyed. |
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Afterwards I went through the lower part of the old town, still largely inhabited, and looked at the houses, temples (Hindu, Jain & Moslem) & shrines; and then I made for the Delhi Gate, which had enormous, iron-studded doors. I fed a large troop of Bhanda monkeys which were hanging about the buildings trees. They were very tame & some took food from my hand after the first shyness had worked off. I drove back to the hotel via the Amber & Chand Pole Gates, getting back at 1 p.m. Paid 8R. for the drive to Amber & back & 3R. to a guide. Peacocks abound in & around Jaipur, perching on the houses, nobody molesting the birds which are sacred. I spent the afternoon in writing. Caught the 7.20 p.m. train for Ajmere & Udaipur. Arrived at Ajmere at 11.30 p.m. Changed trains & started again about midnight. |
