Rajasthan

We left Leh Tuesday morning and headed to Jaipur, a city of close to 3 million people in the state of Rajasthan. Lonely Planet describes Rajasthan as "a step back in time from Delhi". We were not certain how that was possible, and definitely were unsure of what to expect.

On the plane here, I read an article about Rajasthan. Near the end, it said that Rajasthanis regard moustaches as a sign of "manliness, virility, and macho power" and nearly every man has one. So of course I decided that I was trimming my emerging beard down to a moustache. And it's sweet.

In many ways, Jaipur is what I expected Delhi to be like. Its a pretty big city, and there is definitely poverty everywhere (beggars on every corner and people sleeping on every sidewalk), but there are also some nice areas as well. Traffic is still chaotic at times but some intersections have traffic lights and a semblance of order.

There are also a few interesting aspects of Jaipur worth noting here:

Jaipur's maharaja in the early 1800s was huge. Literally. He was 6ft 6in tall and weighed 560lbs. He also had 108 wives. This is where he lived. His pants were on display, but sadly photos were not allowed. The waist was over 4 feet.


Jaipur is known as the pink city. This is because, naturally, all the buildings in the old town are painted pink. This is not an ancient tradition however. In the 1800s the British King visited Jaipur. They painted the city pink for his visit, then decided to keep it.

As Rajasthan is largely desert, camels are big in Jaipur. So added to the traffic mix are urban camels pulling carts of vegetables and construction supplies or passengers. And in front of many buildings are hitching posts for tying horses (also used regularly) and camels. See if you can find a camel, horse, auto-rickshaw, bike-rickshaw, bicycle, scooter, pedestrian, and bus in the photo of the busy intersection with no traffic signals below.

The maharaja a few rulers previous to the fat man was a huge astronomer. He built 5 observatories around India, but the one in Jaipur is the biggest and best (#1 observatory). It also has the worlds biggest sundial (#1 sundial) in addition to numerous other astronomical and astrological instruments. Supposedly they all still work. It seemed like that was at least mostly true. We took a sweet guided tour. Also, a monkey ran around the observatory with us.

We went around to a few other forts and palaces which were fairly cool.

Below is me with the #1 largest silver object in the world, along with some guy who guards it.

Our last stop of the afternoon was for coffee. Jaipur's super trendy coffee shop is of course at a gas station. I sipped an iced mochachino as we listened to Ludicrus and US hip-hop music in comfy, modern, air-conditioned couches. Outside, 6 gas station attendants scurried around the 4 pumps serving rickshaw drivers a liter of gas at a time.

Finally, to reiterate, I have a moustache, and it's sweet.