Jaipur 19th, December 2008

RAJASTHAN THE LAND OF KINGS

From here till the end of my trip I was alone.
My dearest friends, Mahesh and Pooja. They saved me from a very dangerous situation last minute. When a western woman is traveling alone sometimes bad surprises may come on the way.. Not easy to be an alone woman traveller, I found out at the end of my trip…

One of the two larger silver jars in the world, they weight about 345 kilos each and their capacity is 4091 ltrs. They are at Guinness Book of World Records! Each jar is made from 14000 Jar Shahi, silver coins. Maharaja Sawi Madho Sigh II filled them with water from the Gange and took them on his voyage to England to attend the coronation ceremony of Edward VII in 1902.

From the first time I notice her slenderness, the colors and the way she fill the
place around her, she had a wild beauty.

Finally, I didn't care if she was him or her...

The Maharaja's guards. In our days relatives of the Maharaja's family still live in the palace.

The Jantar Mantar Observatory.

The Giant Sundial, known as the Samrat Yantra (The Supreme Instrument) is the world's largest sundial, standing 27 meters tall. Its shadow moves visibly at 1 mm per second, or roughly a hand's breadth (6 cm) every minute, which for most people is a visibly profound experience.

In India women are not working only at paddy fields but also at street or building structures!

The observatory consists of fourteen major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars in their orbits, ascertaining the declinations of planets, and determining the celestial altitudes and related ephemerides. Each is a fixed and 'focussed' tool. The Samrat Jantar, the largest instrument, is 90 feet (27 m) high, its shadow carefully plotted to tell the time of day. Its face is angled at 27 degrees, the latitude of Jaipur. The Hindu chhatri (small domed cupola) on top is used as a platform for announcing eclipses and the arrival of monsoons.

The name is derived from yantra, instrument, and mantra, for formula or in this context calculation. Therefore jantar mantar means literally 'calculation instrument'. In local Rajasthani dialects "yantra mantra" offen means temple of instruments or journey of magical worlds, abracadabra or tantric incantations.

The Jantar Mantar is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments, built by Maharaja Jai Sigh II at 1727. He had constructed a total of five such labs at different locations, including the ones at Delhi and Jaipur. The Jaipur observatory is the largest of these.

The Jal Mahal Palace built in the lake!

Jal Mahal of Jaipur is a pleasure palace built in the 18th century. Jaipur Jal Mahal Palace is an architectural beauty and was meant to be used for the royal duck shooting parties. The Mansagar Lake is also a bird watcher's paradise as it serves as the home of a variety of local as well as migratory birds. Opposite the palace are the cenotaphs of the royal family.

Jaipur also known as the Pink City, is the capital of Rajasthans state.
The stories say that the Maharaja (King) gave an order to paint the city pink because pink
is the color of hospitality.

The men and the women at Rajasthan adore jewels and they wear the most colorful clothes in the whole territory. We can see the most rare color combination and the imagination doesn't have an end!

Snake charmers playing flute and cymbal as a king cobra hang out in the basket.

In order to decorate the palace they used gem stones, marble, mirror glass and
the finest artists in the area!

The Hawa Mahal means the Palace of Winds.

The women at India are very hard workers, they are working at street or building structures.