The Grandeur of Amber Palace & Jantar Mantar in Jaipur

So, in my last post on my trip to India, I wrote about how I almost died of a heart attack on our ride over to Jaigarh Fort which turned out to be quite of an adventure with scenic views offered from its long verandas. Then we rode down the hill to Amber Palace whose facade as seen from the main road  alone stunned me with its spectacular view and architectures.

If I was really really mesmerized by the grandeur of a building here in India, it gotta be the Amber Palace. I mean, Taj Mahal was great – hell yeah – but I had seen and heard quite too much of it that I already expected what to see and feel although it is not quite the same when you are there for real.

Amber Palace for sure was something that I had never prepared myself to be amazed by. It was one of those times when you went – WHERE THE HELL HAVE I BEEN ALL THESE WHILE?? You see, it is one of the reasons why it’s always worth to travel to a place no matter how well you think you know about it. You are always in for a surprise.

Just when I thought there was nothing much to know about Jaipur, surprise came in the form of Amber Palace. The view of it perched on top of a hill was just so spectacular I couldn’t even afford to blink my eyes even for once second when I was right there looking.

I had the best feeling as I walked closer and closer towards Amber Palace. It felt so real and yet so surreal at the same time that for a moment I feared that the palace and all the beauty that surrounds it were not real, that they might disappear any moment, any minute even at the blink of an eye. LOL.

Quite typical to most palaces in Rajasthan and India as a whole, Amber Palace is full of large patios that are surrounded by walls that make it look more like a fortress than a palace. The paintings on the walls were nothing like most other wall paintings that I had seen in other palaces in India although I could trace a little bit of similarity with the ones at Taj Mahal. They were mostly dominated by floral murals which to me give them some looks and aura of feminism.

Having been in Rajasthan for the past few days, I could already see the similarities between the palaces and fortresses in Rajasthan. They usually have what appears to be a veranda that usually looks out to a large garden or probably an open courtyard with nothing but pavement.

That was probably the place where the royal family members would spend their time lepaking around and gossiping among themselves while all the warriors are out in the battle field fighting for their lives.

To tell the truth, I didn’t see any ‘real room’ at the Amber Palace, apart from the chambers that connect one portion of the palace to another. They are mostly patios with no roofs and the rest are walls – all walls.

It made me wonder if they had rooms with four walls somewhere underground – something that they could really call a bedroom or kitchen or something.

The chambers can be quite so puzzling that it is very likely than not you’ll find yourself tagging behind your own tail. Although I enjoyed playing hide and seek with my travel partner Audrey at first, I was beginning to get annoyed after awhile when I couldn’t even find my way around. Urghhh!

Some of the chambers would lead me to a series of stairs and just when you thought I was on the right path out, I found myself walking right to a dead end and I had to return to find my way back again. I found it quite exhausting after awhile. LOL.

Apart from the building itself, there was nothing much to see at the Amber Palace. There weren’t many activities or things to see and watch apart from the visitors itself.

I walked out of Amber Palace thinking how India is so blessed with a lot of attractions that are still probably unknown to most people – especially my fellow Malaysians.

Something I could be sure of is – the sight of Amber Palace perched atop a hill with all of its beauty and grandeur will stay in my head for as long as I live.

Then – the ugly reality of traveling struck again when we returned to the Tuk Tuk. The driver seemed to be even more furious then ever and he accused us of taking too much of his time than we were supposed to. He kept sticking his finger at his wristwatch as if doing that could make us feel guilty and would pay him more that what were agreed upon earlier on.

To hell we would. Martia the Italian guy shot back at him, telling him that he should be grateful because we had already canceled going to Nahargarh Fort – leaving us with only two places instead of three as per agreed. He had certainly saved some on his fuel, money and energy – if driving a Tuk Tuk even demands any energy consumption at all.

“SO WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!”, Matia shot back, clearly irritated by the way the Tuk Tuk guy behaved. We asked to be sent back to the city. With such attitude, we couldn’t wait to be disengaged from him.

Oh well, he must be stupid if he thinks that we would pay him extra after all the grunting and frowning and anger-driver reckless driving that he had fed us with. We paid 600 rupiahs – the exact amount of what was agreed upon when he took us in – and left without even turning back. I did take a short glance at his angry face but of course travelers don’t have to be on the losing end all the time. Heh.

SO, our next destination was Jantar Mantar – a place that has only been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site very very recently.

Buying a ticket was one hell of a funny thing to do at Jantar Mantar. They’d let you deal with them through what appeared to be a pigeon hole or something and you wouldn’t even see the ticket guy. It’s like doing a confession at a church or something. You don’t see the priest but you know he is there on the other side of the net listening to all your confession. LOL.

Jantar Mantar is more like an observatory that houses geometric devises for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars’ location as the earth orbits around the sun, ascertaining the declination of planets, and determining the celestial altitudes and related ephemerides. Simply put, it’s a collection of architectural astronomical instruments.

With all the advanced technologies that the world has now gained, Jantar Mantar might not be as much of a use as it used to be but the fact that it was built in the early 18^th century when most people still believed that the world was flat makes it something that India has to be so proud of.

But then, I wouldn’t make myself feel stupid by telling you guys how I enjoyed Jantar Manta when I actually didn’t. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t like it but I just didn’t see what there was to be amazed of – may be because I was not really into astronomy.

Besides, it was July so the sun was at its full force and I could feel the heat beating down so hard on me and my brains felt like melting in my head and every inch of my physical being was begging to be spared out from the wrath of Jaipur’s semi-arid climate which – during this time of the year – was currently at its hottest.

With a scorching sun like that, I couldn’t find any excuse not to shy away from it before I went mad. The continuous walk since morning had taken up quite too much of our energy and my stomach was beginning to growl, demanding to be re-fueled.

Again, finding a place to eat in Jaipur had proved to be not an easy task. I always believed that I was such an adventurous person but India had apparently slapped me hard with the bitter reality that I was actually not – NOT QUITE, at least ‘gastronomically’. Booooooo!

Oh well, my stomach might be the DBKL-type which is eager to mow just about every food away but my throat – which is probably in better communication with my brains tends to say NO to anything quite out of the ordinary.

So – after asking around, our pace took us to a building that had bamboo sticks as scaffolding. o.O Seriously, I wouldn’t take a million bucks to be on any of those. LOL!

Again, Lonely Planet seems to have recommended just about every restaurant in India. Every now and then I’d bump into a restaurant with “Recommended by Lonely Planet” plastered on its door that I became tired of looking at it after awhile. I mean, I’m not even sure if they really were recommended by Lonely Planet. Not that I bothered or had time to check.

Oh well – there’s this saying that if you come to another country, be a local. That didn’t seem to apply to me when I ordered this.

I had a lot of respects for my travel partner Audrey. She really knew what to order every time. That certainly made her a better traveler than me. 😀

SO – with a full stomach and renewed energy, it was time to go to our next destination – The City Palace.  But of course I’ve got another post allocated for it 😀