The last two days I was in Jaipur. This city is fascinating for two reasons. First, most of the buildings are a shade of red or orange (which for some reason translates to pink here, not quite sure why). All of the buildings were painted "pink" in the 1850s when the Prince of Wales visited and the theme has been maintained since. This is one of the famous buildings, the Hawa Mahal.
Now all of the buildings in a city being painted the same color would be interesting anywhere. But it's particularly interesting here because buildings in India are typically painted a wide range of bright colors.
Another interesting thing about Jaipur is that there is a king here! I thought royal families were constrained to England, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and a few others. But Jaipur used to be its own kingdom and still has a royal family. I went to the old palace which was really impressive. There are two huge silver pots which a previous king used to carry holy water with him when he traveled.
This was the courtyard used for royal dances.
And this is the old guest house. I wouldn't mind staying there!
There is another Jantar Mantar in Jaipur (there are five in all), similar to the one in Delhi but with a few changes. This one has a whole garden of small sundials which were used for different zodiac signs.
There was also a hemispherical pit which could be used to precisely track the motion of the sun.
The shadow cast by the disk suspended over the center of the pit gives important astronomical information.
I also visited the Amber Fort, so called not because it is amber colored but because it was the center of the Amber kingdom. This was a very huge fort with walls extending to the neighboring hills.
Besides endless walls there were some beautiful gardens.
And many beautiful rooms.
Finally, I have added two new animals to the list of animals that I've seen. The first are all over the place, thankfully the second aren't.
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