Visiting The City Palace & Hawa Mahal in Jaipur

So – with a full stomach and renewed energy, we were set to go to our next destination – The City Palace. Located just on the other side of the road from Jantar Mantar, it is probably one of the most visited attractions in Jaipur.And probably with the most expensive entrance fee of INR 300 (RM19/USD7) *booooo!

Oh well, The City Palace in Jaipur has a very long history and I wouldn’t waste my time going into details about it here coz I’m sure they are all over the internet if you really really want to know about it. 🙂

It is more like a palace complex with lots and lots of rooms and beautiful gates and a great fusion of spectacular architectures – Islamic, Rajput, European – you name it. Some of the rooms have now been turned into a museum and art galleries mostly portraying the exuberant lives of maharajas and their royal families in the past.

Unfortunately for me, it was just a matter of time before my camera went zzzzz after taking pictures like crazy right from the beginning of time. LOL!

But then even if I still had a full bar on my camera, I wouldn’t be able to take photos either because photography is strictly prohibited in most of the ‘vital’ areas of the palace. The good thing is, the janitors all seemed so friendly you wouldn’t really feel intimidated by their presence.

One of them was so keen to show his collection of foreign coins that he collected from visitors and he kinda brightened up when we gave him our own Malaysian coin of 20 cents. It really was the best feeling.

Bear in mind that The City Palace is still a residence to some remnants of the royal family but forget about any of those rare co-incidences of bumping into any of them because parts of the palace are closed to public where it matters.

One of the highlights of the whole complex is probably this giant silver urn here (there are two of ‘em). Weighing at 340kg, it is said to the world’s largest one-piece silver urn as recorded by The Guinness Book of World Records.

But then, I wasn’t really interested in its size but more of the story that it bears. Story has it that it was used to cater to the emperor’s need of drinking water when he went to England once because he believed that water in England is contaminated with ‘sin’. LOL! WTVR.

So – yeah, this might be the last picture taken of me before my camera ran entirely out of power. I accidentally pushed it open and the uniformed guard gave me one of those OMFG looks. Whoopsy! LOL.

So, there was at least one more place we went to before we called it a day. Called as Hawa Mahal, it is probably the most iconic structure in Rajasthan.

Story has it that it was designed to provide some kind of ‘peeping holes’ to the royal ladies who were under the strict law that prohibited them from being seen by any non-royal men. Thanks God it has all now become a thing of the past. With a rule like that, I am sure being born a girl in a royal family was certainly a curse instead of a privilege.

So, it wasn’t long before the sky darkened over the city of Jaipur. We returned to the hotel to disengage ourselves from a day’s accumulation of dust off our skin. Besides my camera and hand phone were in dire need of re-charging. I was so glad that we stayed at the Bombay Hotel because finding a good place to eat in Jaipur could be pretty daunting for somebody with a high gastronomical sense of rejection like mine. Bombay Hotel is probably one of only a few places in Jaipur where you can find at least something that your throat can give a green light for.

Since it was our very last day in Jaipur, we wouldn’t let the night slip by just like that without bringing our exploration of Jaipur to a higher level – hitting into the streets at night.Food in Jaipur is actually quite aplenty.  The big Q is not really whether your stomach could tolerate but more on whether your THROAT is READY for them or not.

Mine wasn’t. Not quite.Not when every now and then I’d see people spitting this thing out of their mouth right in my face like every where in Jaipur. The red markings of their saliva could be seen all over.  Erkkkkk. Walking on the streets of Jaipur could be a little bit intimidating if you were cursed with a white or yellow-ish or brown-ish skin or somewhere in between like mine. There’s certainly a price that you have to pay for being different among the people. You’ll draw more attention then you probably want it.But believe me; that attention wouldn’t really harm you. Jaipur people are some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. It was a mixture of friendliness and curiosity and some of them were so keen to have a conversation just to test how good (or bad) they are in English.Taking a picture directly at somebody might not be a good idea though. These are homeless people waiting to be served with free food and drinks at hotel restaurant, probably owned by some good Samaritan (God bless him, whoever he is. The world certainly needs more people like him ). I took a picture of them and those who noticed began to wave their hands excitedly at me. Then I snapped this photo and later showed it to him and his face lit up as if he had just won a million bucks from a Sunday’s draw or something. I am sure he had never seen his own photo in his entire life. He must be so glad that he didn’t really look that ugly after all. *kidding

It could have been a good feeling until a friend of his came up and asked to be photographed as well. Then another. And another and before we knew we were already surrounded by homeless people (which I assumed they all were) all asking to be photographed. We knew we had to get outta there before things kinda got out of control.And yeah, they could have made an ugly turn. Even after half a mile away from where we took the pictures,  some of them were still trailing behind us and when one of them poked a finger at my travel buddy Audrey, she turned back with the most ferocious look I’ve ever seen from her since we first set foot in India. That look alone had made the homeless go away – at last. Phew. 😀Night in Jaipur certainly has a different vibe. I wouldn’t say there’s as much to see as it is during the day but still there are a lot of activities and going-ons.  You’d see more of the food stalls although my curiosity was not strong enough to get anything to eat from any of them.

By then, it was too late to stay outside so we decided to return the hotel and joined the Italian couple for a little chit-chat at the café.

One of the best things about traveling is certainly to meet new people from different parts of the world. It is always good to have a conversation with other travelers because you get to hear their stories and experiences in doing something that you shared a great passion of –  traveling.

Believe me, when travelers meet travelers, they will always find something to laugh out loud about. There’s always a mutual understanding of some kind going on between a traveler and another traveler.

Mattia and Erica told me how the people in the south of Italy have a different social culture from their counterparts in the North. They told us how people in the South (Rome downwards) are much more friendly and sociable and family-oriented while people in the North are more submerged to their jobs and careers and money-oriented.“But of course we’re different”, they assured in between chuckles. “Traveling has changed us”, Erica told us while her husband Mattia nodded approvingly. Coming from a little town in the North of Italy, I could see how true it was. They were certainly different. In fact, they were some of the friendliest people I’d ever met.

With so many things to talk about we could have stayed up until morning but of course there would be time when the bed would make a shout out and your physical beings would demand to be retreated back into the comfort of a mattress.

But before that, there was one question that I had always wanted to ask to Italian people whenever I had the chance. “Do Mafias really exist?”, I popped the question to them and found myself bracing for the answer.

“Yes. They DO exist”, Erica and Mattia nodded in unison. I went to bed with images from my all-time favorite movie The God Father flashing in my head. Part of me wished I’d wake up the next morning as Don Corleone. But may be the younger version lahhh… 😛 ZZZZZZZ