Amber Fort, Jaipur

Palace of the Wind

Our day started with a photo stop for the Palace of the Winds, a five story facade, which is the symbol of Jaipur. It and the rest of the old town are painted the color that led to the nickname "the pink city"
The town of Jaipur was founded later in 1727 as a planned city, which include wide streets at right angles, water wells spaced every block and a underground sewer system.

Amber Fort

The Amber Fort was established about 800 years ago along an ancient trading route. Through many invasions, the founding family continued to rule by paying tribute to the conquerors rather than fighting them.  The Amber Fort itself was the most spectacular sight we've seen so far. It is up on a hill within a huge wall surrounding the area. The Fort is more of a palace than an actual fort, but with two gates with a steep rise between them as well as fortified walls, it would be easy to defend. We got to ride up in jeeps from the town.
After passing the moon (western) gate, we were in the first large courtyard which was a reception area for visiting dignitaries. After climbing stairs or a ramp, we were at the Hall of Public Audience. Here the king would hold his audience while seated under a canopy. The entrance gate here is a 17th century fresco. Above you you can also see lattice screens where the women could observe the public affairs while remaining hidden. Here too is a small window from which the queen could call, then drop flower petals as the king walked through the next gate to the private quarters. The third level had the Hall of Private audience which had elaborate mogul designs fashioned in silver mirrors on marbles walls. Here too is a formal Mogul garden, which would look like a Persian carpet when the flowers were in bloom. From the upper most level, we had great views of the walls, other forts, the town below and the gardens along the lake. Finally we went to the women's quarters. Man Sing, who built the harem, had twelve wives, each had their own room around the interior courtyard and the king had a private entrance to each of their rooms from his own bedroom.

Entrance to Private Hall

In the afternoon, we had a brief visit to the bazaar. Afterwards, we had our home-hosted dinner with Punkaj and Vanvida. He was a catastrophe manager in charge of training first response teams. She was a housewife with a son and daughter as well as caring for her in-laws. Being a middle-class family, they also had a servant to help prepare dinner tonight. We had a wide-ranging conversation from Miss Universe to raising children as well as discussion on both Indian and American politics (the 2012 election is a few days away). An interesting observation from Punkaj was that most of his visitors have been democrats (all six of us were tonight). The food was traditional Indian food, quite tasty. This was one of our best home-hosted dinners because our hosts encouraged interesting topics of conversation. Most interesting quote: "India has been a conquered nation for over a thousand years, now our elite, rich politicians are now the conquerors over a vast, relatively poor country."