Today was by far the most memorable and special day in Jaipur! I got to see 3 major attractions - city palace, Elephants and bapu bazaar.
After yesterday, I learned that it is best to get to the heavily touristic places first thing in the morning if you want to enjoy it. With that in mind I set out for City Palace.
City Palace is the royal residence and today 5 members of the royal family still reside there. There are two parts to the palace - general admission and the royal tour in which you can visit the exclusive parts of the castle where the royals reside for a steep fee. Since the Indian fees were already so steep, I was not trying to pay the foreign fees although right off the bat I screwed up. I couldn't find where to purchase tickets and so I accidentally asked the people who were checking tickets. I went to the Indian citizens counter and asked for “eik ticket” and he gave me it. When I returned to where they were checking tickets, the lady looked at me very suspiciously, let me go, and then decided to come after me. I told her I lived and worked in Mumbai but was born in the US. It turns out with my OCI I am fine either way and can get away with Indian prices. As I entered the grounds, tour guides started flocking me asking if I wanted a tour. Of course I said no and then proceeded to walk in the wrong direction so one guide came after me. I finally agreed and told him I also wanted a ticket to the royal residence so if he could help me that would be great.
Our tour started within the palace walls but outside the gates. There are 4 palace gates, each one for a different season. The gate I loved the most was covered with peacock designs and was for the spring season. The gate to the right was decorated with red flowers for the summer season. Now only one gate is used for visitors for ease but it was practice to align the gate with season.
The first place in the royal residence we checked out was the palace of mirrors. This room was made up of thousands of mirrors. All the mirrors were slightly tarnished now so they did not have the same shimmery effect but it was very impressive to see the work they had accomplished using mirrors. The room was built with the same Islamic art style with lots of arches framed in gold. The mirror room is the warmest room in the palace due to the fact that in winters, the royals would have thousands of candles placed behind a screen that would warm up the room and provide light. The guard did a mini demo of this by closing the doors and lighting two candles. As he moved the two candles, the mirrors caught the light and twinkled creating a mystical experience. The mirror room was empty so it was perfect to just take it all in and enjoy it in peace.
The next room we checked out was the gold room! The gold room was by far my favorite room! I had only heard of the blue room so it was a nice surprise to find out that there was even more to see than just the blue room. The gold was as you guessed it, covered in hues of royal red and gold. Inlaid within the gold work were red and green jewels. Everything was covered with such detail and symmetry. On some walls there were small mirrors which the guide was taking my photo from. In the middle and off to the sides in the room were large velvet cushions that tourists were posing on. This room really fit my vibe and boy do I want a room like that in my palace one day!
The last room of the royal residence was the iconic blue room made famous through Instagram. The room is covered completely in blue and white floral motifs. It was such a pretty room but also the most crowded. Influencers were waiting to take their photos. I by this point was done with the guide clicking pictures of me as I had never had anyone take this number of pictures of me.
Having a guide was handy as he took me around to all of the hidden rooms that I would not have been able to find. He was on the other hand hitting on me the entire time. He said “oh Preeti like pretty” , asked my age, even asked if I was married oh my! He was obsessed with me and would not stop clicking my picture.
We stopped at the rooftop palace cafe for a chai and to sit down. This guide was really something else and took the opportunity to try to give me his number and ask for my insta. My favorite part was when he said I looked uncomfortable. Well he read that one correctly.
With the remainder of my 2 hours I explored the rest of the palace. Compared to the royal residence the rest of the palace was not as spectacular so I am glad I paid the extra fee to explore those rooms. There was a museum of block printing garments as well as an armory. I loved the architecture of the palace in general!
The last place the guide insisted I go to was a demo for Pashmina. Pashmina is the fur from the beard of the goat. The demo he took me too explained how to tell real pashmina from fake. A lot of pashmina is not 100% pashmina since it is hard to get that much material from the goat's little beard. Thus, often it is mixed with cotton and other materials and marketed as pashmina. He took the rip of both a real pashmina shawl and a mixed shawl and burnt the tip. The mixed shawl smelled very synthetic and gave off an awful odor while the real pashmina only burnt a little and the ashes flaked and it smelled more like human hair. It was fascinating to learn how to tell them apart!
The thing I was most excited about today was the elephant experience! Jaipur has many known private tour elephant experiences and I had found one of the cheaper ones called Elephant Joy to go with. The best part is that they arranged transport. I had the owner meet me outside of City palace and to my relief he seemed very nice and friendly after dealing with my creepy guide for 2 hours. He put me in a tuk tuk and from there it was a 30 minute journey to Elephant village right near Amer fort. Elephant village is a village of about 50 families living together with each family owning a couple of elephants. Agencies have then created tourist experiences that bring in income for the village families to be able to afford to take care of the massive mammals. Apparently several elephants died in the pandemic because the village families were unable to source funds to take care of the elephants.
The family whose property I was visiting today had 4 kids all who were in the courtyard with their mother. There were also two other fellows who were painting an outline on the elephant. My guide Mudassir started me off with an introduction to the elephant named Shanti. Shanti is the Hindi word for peace. In the elephant village they only keep female elephants as they are more docile and calm. They also don't have tusks like the males. The males are only used for breeding. It takes 2 years for the female elephant to give birth and she requires a lot of rest during that period. Shanti was 32 years old and had given birth to one baby so far who sadly died in the pandemic. Elephants live about the same age as humans depending on how well they are taken care of. Shanti was a very sweet and obedient animal. She listened so well to the commands of the two other men. She spends 14-17 hours a day eating food of which her favorite food is sugarcane. She loves sugarcane because it also has juice within it. I held stalk after stalk of sugarcane in my hand as she grabbed it with her trunk. Elephants have 40,000 tiny muscles in their trunk making them very capable of picking things up. I was impressed how she was able to chew the hard sugarcane like that. I couldn't see any of her teeth but I could see her pink tongue occasionally.
Shanti was going to be attending a wedding tonight for the groomsmens entrance. In honor of the occasion she also had to be painted. I had come at the perfect time to paint the elephant. The two boys who had started painting her made it look so easy when it was not. The brush was not that great but more so Shantis skin was so rough and she kept moving. The first flower I did had to be redone by one of the guys but eventually I got the hang of it. My guide commented that it is a skill of Indians to be able to pick up new things quickly.
The paint used on Shanti was all natural colors and came off as it dried so I was covered in a variety of different colors by the end. The two boys had done the outline and I had filled in the design with bright green, pink, purple, and yellow. It was such a special experience to be able to be this close with an elephant and paint her.
Once the painting was done, it was time for Shnatis walk. Elephants need to walk a lot to digest all the food they eat. They walk about 50 kilometers a day so I would be taking her on a walk around the village. I really wanted to sit on top of her so I climbed up a staircase so I could sit on her neck. Apparently elephants have very strong spines so sitting on their back or neck doesn't not cause any harm to them. I placed my hands on her head for support and we were off. All over her head and body were little tiny black hairs. She had many on her tail as well but I was warned the tail hairs are very sharp and painful. Shanti sauntered around the village at a very slow pace, stopped once to use the bathroom and let everything out. It was very peaceful and relaxing to ride the elephant through the village led by one of the fellows. He did a good job leading her and she listened obediently to his words.
My elephant experience was definitely a once in a lifetime experience and a very memorable one! I have never been that close to such a majestic creature and I loved the 3 hours I was able to spend with Shanti. She was such a beautiful creature and I am so grateful for the memories I had with her. It was definitely a highlight of my trip to Jaipur!
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