Jaipur is beautiful, known as the Pink City due to the color of all of the buildings in its historic district. Of all the places I visited on this trip, this is the one that most encapsulated what I thought of when I heard "India."
It's the capital of Rajasthan and the whole city feels like it was made for royalty. Indians love luxury, and while a lot of restaurants, hotels, and bars we walked into around the country definitely evoked that sense, I would say none so much as in Jaipur.
We'd arrived the evening of Holi after a long drive from Vrindavan and just headed out once more that night for dinner (which was a task since a lot of places were closed for the holiday). We ended up at a very fancy restaurant called Cinnamon which is Exhibit A regarding Jaipur luxury. The goblets and plates were gold, for fuck's sake.
This was also the first place (aside from the airport) where I saw India being affected by Covid, as it had been one of the main cities in the country with known cases. There were signs around everywhere reminding everyone to wash their hands and watch distancing, plus the staff at that first restaurant took our temperature upon arrival and were all wearing masks. At this point in my trip (March 10-12), I was not yet concerned, as clearly evidenced by the hundred or so people I allowed to touch my face in Vrindavan for Holi. At that time, media coverage was still making it sound like a glorified flu, and India did not have many reported cases but the situation was starting to escalate quickly back in the US. I was watching the headlines daily.
Day 4 of our overall trip Hawa Mahal, City Palace, & Chokhi Dhani Cultural Village
Our first day out sightseeing in Jaipur was eventful, but let me start by hyping up our beautifully unique boutique hotel, Pearl Palace Heritage. The decor was so fitting for Rajasthan, every room was completely unique and themed, and it was just an overall cultural vibe so book it.
We were in the Varanasi themed room and I was loving the touches put into it from the carving behind the bed to the color of the walls to the very detailed tiling in the bathroom.
We both wanted to take a walk around the whole hotel to see more, and during housekeeping hours we were able to peek into a bunch of different rooms, some of which were amazing.
They ran a free tuk tuk to their sister restaurant, the Peacock, which we went to for breakfast that morning. The rooftop decor was nice but I wasn't a huge fan of the food (aside from Vietnamese iced coffees, always my favorite). That might be my own fault for ordering eggs florentine. The few times I tried western meal items in India I ended up disappointed, so I recommend just sticking with eastern cuisine.
The Hawa Mahal, meaning Palace of the Winds, was our first tourist stop of the day. It's a gorgeous pink palace whose exterior hosts 953 tiny windows. The reason for the miniature window size was so that the women could look out onto the streets without being seen.
The interior is fairly bare, but you can go up to the top, and there are also a few nice hidden spots to photograph. The picture below was taken on one of the far sides of the palace where basically nobody else had bothered wandering.
Afterwards, we went across the street to the Tattoo Cafe rooftop bar so that we could get awesome views of the Hawa Mahal front. We got a couple of beers and took pictures on both tiers of the bar- the lower bit had a cool pink dome.
We walked over to the City Palace from there and hit the bar first for a couple cocktails and a small meal for Lewis. The standard of service in India is a total roulette. Sometimes meals will be out in 5 minutes, other places, like here, you'll sit for an hour waiting for a caprese salad. It took them a half hour or more to bring us two cocktails (after Lewis went to question them twice), and we were walking out after an hour of no food when the guy rushed in with Lewis's salad going, "Here," and was back two seconds later to dump the bill in front of us before we could attempt to leave again. This was a fancy looking, half empty bar attached to one of the main tourist attractions in the city.
Another fun thing about meals in India is the completely random order you'll get your dishes. It's not uncommon to receive the first person's main course followed by the second person's drink, then the second person's main, then the first person's drink, and finally your appetizer twenty minutes later. No sense at all.
The City Palace was great though. We mainly just explored the outside without buying tickets (just go through the bar entrance after a drink).
Again, it is all super pink. The main courtyard is very large, and they happened to be setting up for an Indian wedding that looked like it was about to be very swanky. The entire perimeter of the courtyard was being set up for catering and drinks, there were nice tables everywhere, a red velvet ceremony stage, and performers practicing a routine at the entrance. The decorations were over the top. I've heard it isn't uncommon to randomly be invited to an Indian wedding and that is a definite goal if I visit again.
We also made a point to stop at the famous peacock door which is in a smaller courtyard along with a few other pretty painted doors.
That evening, we took an uber 45 minutes or so out of the city to the Chokhi Dhani Cultural Village. This place made me feel like I was on drugs. It was a cultural theme park which seemed aimed more towards local tourists than foreigners, and it was a huge maze of craziness.
We received a welcome drink upon entry which was a milky white traditional Rajasthani beverage and tasted kind of like a cheesy potato soup. My best guess after doing some Googling is that it might have been a bajre ki khatti raabdi made with buttermilk, flour, and salt. The sign below says "rabari" which is an ethnic group from India, but there is also a barley-yogurt drink called "rabri", so that's another possibility.
I briefly wondered if we'd actually been slipped hallucinogens as we made our way through the large park past magicians, tightrope walkers, dancers, elephants, camels, carnival games, a labyrinth, a huge glowing jungle god, a very calm temple on a lake with meditative chant music playing, a giant recreated war scene, and, inexplicably, a dinosaur.
There were also random historical tableaus like a man about to cut a baby in half and a cat stealing a young girl's last piece of roti while she cried. There were even scenes hidden down dark cave-like passages. I determined that I was probably not on drugs because my brain would be melting from sensory overload if I were.
Plus no way I'd have approached this guy.
We also rode down a slide, petted some cows, did a bit of shopping, wandered through a mock traditional village, and then went to sit down for the dinner we had bought as part of our package. The food was amazing! We were all seated in rows on the floor against the wall, and they came down every few minutes with another dish for us. Each of us got a vegetarian thali (basically a Rajasthani sample platter) that included at least six different curries, three desserts, naan, roti, rice, and more. It was absolutely delicious.
We were extremely full and also worn out after a long day, so we headed back to the hotel after dinner.
Day 5 Galta Ji Monkey Temple, Birla Mandir, Albert Hall Museum
We kicked off the morning with an awesome breakfast at a rooftop spot called Tapri Central. I ordered bhelpuri for the first time ever and it was so good! It was made with puffed rice, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, peanuts, and spices. Definitely recommend!
One thing that I have never tired of throughout my Asian journeys are monkeys. I ADORE MONKEYS. Tell me an attraction features monkeys and I am there. I love their little faces, their cleverness, their constant energy, their human-like interactions, their propensity towards thieving...
Here is a monkey on Holi who stole someone's glasses and traded them back for juice. About a half hour later I watched another monkey literally jump up and steal the glasses off of a woman's face.
There is a temple outside of Jaipur called Galta Ji but is more commonly referred to as the Monkey Temple. Along with the promise of monkeys, it looked gorgeous in photos, so that was the main stop of our day.
This was one of the places we went that charged us an additional "camera fee" to take photos, and just be aware that people in India will rip you off whenever and however they can. If you hide your camera when you go in, there is usually nobody around afterwards to check if you've paid or even monitor the place at all, so don't bother. People will also do things like invite you to a view a temple, put powder on your forehead as a blessing (the dots I have in these Jaipur photos were not my own doing), or pose for a picture (like the guards at the City Palace), then ask you for money afterwards. Just tell them you don't have cash and leave.
The Monkey Temple was beautiful, the main part being this temple built between the cliffs and a pool of water out front. We walked further up but there wasn't much to see (except- as I just mentioned- a guy who insisted on showing us a tiny locked temple that was full of mice and then acting annoyed when we didn't pay him), but there was a long uphill path leading to another temple that I just didn't feel up to walking.
We mainly sat and hung out with this pretty view, as well as befriended these two tiny puppies who were seeking shade beneath our legs and their mother who we'd met further up the path. A bunch of macaques came to join us after a bit, and Lewis had a leftover sandwich from breakfast that we offered them. They were not pleased with the contents and picked through every vegetable one by one sniffing them before disgustedly throwing them to the side. Once they ate through the parts they wanted though they went back for the rest.
There were plenty more monkeys we passed by on the way in and out of the temple grounds. Just hanging out, being cute. I picked up some discarded apples off the ground to hand to the babies. Also cows. Always cows.
We caught an uber back to the city and stopped at the Birla Mandir Hindu temple. We arrived just as it was opening back up (hours vary throughout the day) and witnessed a huge procession of Indians arriving. We were able to go in (they wouldn't let us carry our shoes and tried to make us pay a cloak room attendant, so we just threw them under a bench instead), but no photos inside.
It was still early in the evening and we had plenty of time to kill, so we decided to head to the Albert Hall museum which we'd driven past the previous day. Do I particularly care for museums? No, and this wasn't an impressive one. The building was nice though and they had a little Egyptian section in the basement featuring a mummy.
They also had a weird rule at both the museum and our restaurant that night where I was not allowed to take photos with my actual camera but taking them with my phone was totally acceptable. Ok, so I can only share photos of your establishment if they're shit quality, got it. That was especially such a shame at dinner because the place we ate was gorgeous.
Think how much nicer these pictures might have been if I could have used my ACTUAL CAMERA.
We went to Bar Palladio, an Italian restaurant, mainly because I read the interior was so impressive- which as you can see, it was. The food and cocktails were also good, plus they had an outdoor seating area out front with lights, candles, and cushioned benches.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to use the communal shower, grab our luggage we'd been storing there all day, and head to the train station. Everything in Jaipur had been really lovely, and it would have been my favorite stop of the trip if it weren't for our next destination, Udaipur, which is also in Rajasthan and therefore makes Rajasthan the hands down winner of states I've seen in India. I'll tell you about it next time- plus, more monkey pictures.
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