There are plenty of tourist spots in Jaipur and their attractions are mainly their forts. There is Amber fort (pronounced as Amer fort by the locals), Jaigarh fort, Nahargarh fort as well as their museums. Best is to stay 3 or 4 days in Jaipur. Suggest that you start your day early morning as some of the fort could take you hours to reach and some are not reachable by tuk-tuk and you need to get the taxi. Most of the forts are situated high above the hills, so stamina is very important. Get a good workout before your departure.
As our hotel is in the city, it cost around Rs 200 for a tuk-tuk to bring us to the City Palace. These prices may vary and you can bargain with the tuk-tuk drivers. It's all about bargaining in the city of India.
As our hotel is in the city, it cost around Rs 200 for a tuk-tuk to bring us to the City Palace. These prices may vary and you can bargain with the tuk-tuk drivers. It's all about bargaining in the city of India.
We decided to visit the City Palace as that is the nearest attraction in the city and it was nearby to our hotel.
City Palace, Jaipur, which includes the Chandra Mahal and Mubarak Mahal palaces and other buildings, is a palace complex in Jaipur, the capital of the Rajasthan state, India. It was the seat of the Maharaja of Jaipur, the head of the Kachwaha Rajput clan. The Chandra Mahal palace now houses a museum but the greatest part of it is still a royal residence. The palace complex, located northeast of the centre of the grid-patterned Jaipur city, incorporates an impressive and vast array of courtyards, gardens and buildings. The palace was built between 1729 and 1732, initially by Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber. He planned and built the outer walls, and later additions were made by successive rulers continuing up to the 20th century. The architects achieved a fusion of the Shilpa Shastra of Indian architecture with Rajput, Mughal and European styles of architecture.
The City Palace is in the central-northeast part of the Jaipur city, which is laid in a grid pattern with wide avenues. It is a unique and arresting complex of several palaces, pavilions, gardens and temples. The most prominent and most visited structures in the complex are the Chandra Mahal, Mubarak Mahal, Mukut Mahal, Maharani's Palace, Shri Govind Dev Temple and the City Palace Museum.
There are a few entrances and you can choose either one to enter. Choose the one nearby to Jantar Mantar. Ask the locals if you're unsure.
The City Palace is in the central-northeast part of the Jaipur city, which is laid in a grid pattern with wide avenues. It is a unique and arresting complex of several palaces, pavilions, gardens and temples. The most prominent and most visited structures in the complex are the Chandra Mahal, Mubarak Mahal, Mukut Mahal, Maharani's Palace, Shri Govind Dev Temple and the City Palace Museum.
There are a few entrances and you can choose either one to enter. Choose the one nearby to Jantar Mantar. Ask the locals if you're unsure.
Ticket priced at Rs 400 and it will take approximately 3 hours to finish the whole tour and you can rent the audio recording between Rs 90 to Rs 118. It tells you detail story of the palace and most tourist attractions provide this service. Tour guide is not necessary since you can rent the audio recording.
This wall was built around the city with pink colors in order to protect the city from enemies.
Why was the city painted in pink?
For the time, architecture is very 1876, during the regime of Sawai Ram Singh, the whole city was painted pink to welcome Edward, Prince of Wales. Today, avenues remain painted in pink, giving Jaipur a distinctive appearance.
The 2 blue entrance that you can see in the below picture represent 4 seasons (winter, autumn, summer and spring). There are 2 more entrance which I did not take photo of.
Some caretaker will ask for a small amount of pay for taking photos of/with them (like below) which they're not supposed to. Say no in a nice way. This is a way to earn extra income apart from their fixed salary (Wage pay in India is extremely low that some of them take up more than 3 jobs in order to support the family or themselves)
Do you know that these silver urns were recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest sterling silver vessels?
Why they were recorded as world's largest sterling silver vessels?:
There are two huge sterling silver vessels of 1.6 metres (5.2 ft) height and each with capacity of 4000 litres and weighing 340 kilograms (750 lb), on display here in Diwan-I-Khas (picture below). Diwan-I-Khas was a private audience hall of the Maharajas, a marble floored chamber. These urns were made from 14000 melted silver coins without soldering. These vessels were specially made by Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II, who was a highly pious Hindu, to carry the water of the Ganges to drink on his trip to England in 1901 (for Edward VII's coronation) as he was finicky about committing religious sin by consuming the English water. Hence, the vessels are named as Gangajelies (Ganges-water urns). There are a number of crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling (normally covered with plastic sheets to prevent dust collection), which are uncovered on special occasions.
The palace architectures and drawings are so well preserved that you can see every details of them. I do not know how they did it but indeed, it is something that we can learn. The man-made monuments are so well kept that they looked like as if they were built yesterday. They were all mainly made from high grade marbles, precious stones and some were also gold painted drawings. The structures are man made and mostly made out of red sand.
