Perhaps I could say that Jantar Mantar is one of my favorite place. As you step into the Jantar Mantar, you'll be aww with their huge size and variety of astronomical measurement instruments.

Jantar Mantar is situated at the opposite road of the city palace (note that there are a few entrances to the city palace). The entry price is around Rs 400.

The Jantar Mantar is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments, built by Sawai Jai Singh who was a Rajput king. He had constructed a total of five such facilities at different locations, including the ones at Delhi and Jaipur. 

The name is derived from jantar ("instrument"), and mantar ("formula", or in this context "calculation"). Therefore Jantar Mantar means literally 'calculation instrument'. 

The Jaipur observatory is the largest and best preserved of these. It has been inscribed on the World Heritage List as "an expression of the astronomical skills and cosmological concepts of the court of a scholarly prince at the end of the Mughal period". 

The Jantar Mantar was made by Sawai Jai Singh as he was particularly interested in learning about the sky above his head.

The observatory consists of fourteen major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars' location as the earth orbits around the sun, ascertaining the declinations of planets, and determining the celestial altitudes and related ephemerides. 

Built from local stone and marble, each instrument carries an astronomical scale, generally marked on the marble inner lining. Bronze tablets, all extraordinarily accurate, were also employed. For further reading, you can go here.

Photo courtesy: I Love Jaipur
These 12 monuments represents the 12 horoscope. Each one measures each horoscope.

Do you know that the Brihat Samrat (refer to photo below) probably the largest gnomon-sundial ever built. With a gnomon arm 22.6m high and two lateral quadrants of radius 15.15m, it measures local time to an accuracy of 2 seconds? More facts about the Jantar Mantar here.

The Brihat Samrat is one of my favorite instrument in the Jantar Mantar. Why? Because the instrument is so huge!. Spectacular will be the word I can use to describe this one.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 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.

Our first stop during our trip to India was Jaipur.

Jaipur is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan in Northern India. It was founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, after whom the city is named. The city today has a population of 3.1 million. Jaipur is also known as the Pink City of India.

We started our journey on 21st March, midnight, with Air Asia bound to Kolkata (RM 690, 3 hours of flight). From Kolkata, we boarded India's budget airline, IndiGo( Rs 13,726). All flight tickets are purchased before hand.

Our flight from Kolkata to Jaipur took about 1 hour and 30 minutes and it was a smooth flight. The sun rises very early in India. Around 6.15am and we managed to capture the sunrise during our Jaipur bound flight. The time different is 2 1/2 hours behind Malaysia.

On roaming:
Purchasing a local sim card is not easy in India. Some require a lot of documents for verification. Fret not, because internet is available at most hotel/hostels. Check with your network provider if your sim card is equip with roaming service before flying. It's more convenient that way.

On weather:
The temperature in Jaipur is around 33 degree Celsius in the day and could go down to 29 degree Celsius at night. The weather is not as hot as in Malaysia. Wear cotton clothing and something light. If you plan to go for backpacking, bring clothes with light materials where they could be washed and dry easily.

 As we arrived earlier than expected, we called the hotel to inquire if we could check in and they said the room is available for us. We stayed at Laxmi Palace Hotel. The hotel is situated near to the City Palace and other local attractions. You can check out their rates here. The price is affordable and the room and shower are spacious. What I like about this hotel is the bed is big enough to fit 3 to 4 person (with my size). You should also try their food in the hotel. They serve breakfast from 7am to 11am, lunch from 2pm to 5pm and dinner from 7pm till 11pm.

A day that we were supposed to check out from our hotel, we asked the hotel reception if we could have a shower before we check out. Just reserve a room for us to clean up after our trip to Amber Fort. The thing about budget hotels in India is, most of them are flexible enough to cater to some of your needs, like ours. You can inquire from them should you have any specific request a day before your check-out or perhaps the day when you check-in into the hotel.

The total cost was  around Rs 3,600 (Rm 220) including the hotel food we had for 3 nights. Although it is cheap, it would be nice if you could give some tips. The locals are mostly humble and helpful and they're happy if their effort are being appreciated. Like one of the hotel staff who had our needs fulfill throughout our stay (photo below). He helped us arrange tuk-tuk to bring us to our destinations, give us tips on being smart on the streets of Jaipur and we also had the chance of having a casual conversation with him. Oohhh, we gave him some tips too and I can see that he was happy and delighted.

He has been working with Laxmi Palace hotel for the past 7 years. He came all the way from Calcutta (24 hours of train ride) and only goes back to his home town once a year for a month. Interesting part is he only sleeps around 5 hours a day. His work schedule starts from 5am till 2 am with 2 hours of sleeps between 2pm to 4pm, and 2am to 5am. We had a pleasant stay in Laxmi Palace and recommend you to stay here and say hi to him if you do see him :-)

I don't deny that what you heard and see about India on TV are true. But behind those things, India is a unique and perhaps a systematic city. Their system maybe old but they work in their own way.

Pigs hanging out by the road side

Extreme pollution

Continuous honking on the road

Donkeys, cows, dogs and horses around the city

Extreme driving

Extremely dirty street

*This post contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing.

The city is filled with animals roaming around the street. When I say animals, expect to see pigs and dogs. Definitely not the average animals you can find on the streets of Malaysia. Certain places you can even spot horses and donkeys. However, the animals you see on the streets of India are majority tame unlike some that you see in our country.

India, officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya),is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

 India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.

 India is a pluralistic, multilingual, and a multi-ethnic society. It is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats.

A few tips that I pick up along the way:

1. For Muslims, advisable to bring a bottle or a bar of sabun sertu.

2. Wear shoes at all the time because most places are dusty and some parts are muddy.

3. Bring a face mask because the air is heavily polluted especially in Agra.

4. Tuk-tuk price is negotiable. Ask the hotel staff on the average price before calling for a for tuk-tuk because some tuk-tuk driver might charge you at high price.

5. If you're lost, don't panic. Ask the local who looked well dressed.

6. Not all local speaks English. If this happen, use word and body language. They'll be able to understand. Speak one by word in a slow manner.

7. Do not consume their road side food as they're mostly unhygienic.

8. Try not to take taxi unless if it is necessary. Taking tuk-tuk will enable you to see a clear picture of how India real thing is.

9. Don't travel alone. Bring along a partner or a friend. A group of 4 will be a nice number.

10. I also noticed that the locals are more interested in Asians compare to the whites, so try to dress down when you travel and avoid bright colors.

Since this is my first post on our journey to India, let me start with how did this trip came up.

It all started with a 'ping' notification on my Facebook. I checked. It was from Dianah, my sister. It was a reply to my question, whether she'll be coming back to Malaysia for her upcoming semester break. Not sure, was her reply. She then changed the topic into persuading me to visit India. BACKPACKing. She said she can be my tour guide. In fact it was her 2nd trip to India. The first was when she visited my dad a couple of years ago, which I also tailed later on.

The first thing that went through my mind when she mentioned the word, BACKPACKing was....dirty laundry, sweat, stink, dusty. But hey, there's always a first time for everything. I dragged Juan along.

She said she plans to backpack again before flying back, this time with one of her AFS friend and thought we might be interested to join. I asked Juan, and the rest was history. By the time we knew, we were in front of the PC, applying for visa..

Penang-Kuala Lumpur-Kolkata-Jaipur-Agra-Shimla-Bangalore-Kuala Lumpur-Penang.
 That was our itinerary. Dianah was supposed to arranged for our hotel, train tickets and return ticket. While I was in charge of purchasing tickets for myself and Juan to Jaipur which will be our meet up point. The plan started in November. The preparation for the trip didn't take much effort as I was familiar with some things there except there were few unexpected things I stumbled throughout my stay.

And so the adventure starts......