Home of the Amber Fort

Jaipur, India

Home of the Amber fort, an example of Rajput architecture.

On our way to Jaipur, we were guided through the Fatehpur Sikri fort by a very dramatic local guide. This fort is unique in that it was built by a Mughal emperor who had 3 wives, each of a different religion: Christian, Hindu, Muslim. Each wife had her own room, kitchen, and place of worship. How unusual, ehy?

We had a full day in Jaipur, to tour the sights. It was a long day of sightseeing overdose:

• Many stops for photo-ops
• Guided tour through the Amber fort (it’s all a blur now, but I do remember the colourfully decorated elephants, being paraded up the hill with tourists on their backs.
  Apparently many of them are blind from mistreatment. Imaginative Traveler encourages us all to think twice before supporting it. The fort also had amazing amounts of mirrors decorating the interior.
• Tour through a family run carpet making factory (very educational)
• Tour through Sawai Jai Singh’s outdoor observatory, in the City palace, which is like an astrology playground (very cool)
• Stop at the Artisans’ gallery/market, weapons museum, and art gallery (yawn)

At night, we all went to a very cool, ornate, movie theatre to watch a Bollywood movie. What a different movie-going experience from what we’re used to. Before the movie even started, the audience was starting to get revved up. Everyone already knew the words to the theme song, and started singing along. There was lots of cheering, laughing, clapping, and singing coming from the audience throughout the movie. If only we knew what was happening in the movie. We left after intermission, hoping to maybe rent the movie with subtitles some day.

01 Fatehpur SikriOn our way to Jaipur (capital of Rajisthan), we made a quick stop at the ancient and abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri. At one time, this city was the capital of the Mughal empire in the 16th century but was abondoned after only 14 years when it ran out of water. Here's Jo being something like a human checker on a giant game board.

02 Amber FortThe interior of the Amber Fort located just outside of Jaipur is embedded with thousands of tiny mirrors which produces an interesting star light effect at night when candle light twinkles upon them.

03 Carved marble sun screenIn abundance in the Amber Fort are intricate carved marble "windows" that allow viewers to see out of buildings, but not in.

04 City PalaceA scene of the City Palace - the principal current residence of the former royal family.

05 Jantar MantarJantar Mantar - the world's biggest sundial. This sucker had shawdow ticks 2 seconds apart. Just hard to carry around!

06 Carpet FactoryWill never again look at a handmade Indian Carpet the same way again! Incredible amount of labour and love goes into every splendid creation.