Jaipur

Monday, 14 September 2009

Jackie Lallier wrote: "Up at 7:00, breakfast at 7:30 and on bus at 8:30. We saw hoards of pigeons being fed along the way to the Prince of Wales Museum (he stayed here in 1776). Everyone here has their own altar in their homes. We then went to the "City Palace" built in 1728. Today one-fourth of the city belongs to the maharaja who rents out the buildings. The rugs here were made by prisoners in the jail. The present maharaja has a daughter who married a commoner arid had 3 sons. The oldest son was adopted by the maharaja and will be his successor. We visited a textile gallery next. The people always used carpets in their living space - no furniture (the Europeans brought :furIuture). We also visited an art gallery and an astrology observatory where
we observed a giant sundial "clock". India has no times zones.
We went back to the hotel for a wonderful lunch and rest. At 4:00 some of us got on the bus again back to go back to the "old" city and then went on rickshaws through the area. We went up on top a building where some priests were signing and drumming and we looked out over the traffic. We did some shopping but the shopkeepers were very harassing. We saw a lot of monkeys. The Islamic rule of 700 years pushed women to the back of everything. "