The journey: Continued from my previous adventure in Manali, I found myself taking a regular seater bus to Jaipur. (From extreme cold conditions to extremely hot one). The journey time from Delhi to Jaipur is 4 hours approximately. When I was coming to Delhi from Manali, I had texted the guy I had met in the bus while going to Manali some 10 days back and he happened to reply (had exchanged Instagram IDs). So I just randomly asked him if it would be a good idea to explore his place for like 1.5 days which I had in hand. He was like sure, and there I was taking an afternoon bus to Jaipur since I reached Delhi that morning itself.

When the bus broke down: I was shifted from the seat I had booked to another seat next to a girl, more than 90% of the bus was filled with only men and they adjusted me and the other girl to sit together. Just when I thought things were calming down a little, the bus brokedown. 30 minutes fast forward, some people started going down and catching another bus on Rajasthan highway. I and the other girl discussed briefly and we also decided to proceed from there. The thing is, there were very fewer buses on that route and all of them were already full. After almost one hour of waiting and requesting we both finally managed to get into one bus. We were standing for sometime before 2 men gave up their seats for us to sit. The bus was so full that there was not even a proper place to stand but everyone sat at the edge of their seats to accompany as many people as possible, grateful for that.

Reaching Jaipur: It was late and I was told to get down near a point once I reach Jaipur and I did just that. The guy Utkarsh was already waiting to pick me with one of his friend accompanying him in his car. I dumped my bag and got in. I hadn’t had any food since morning and was famished! So we first went to “Saras” point which basically sells milk and its products. We had some juice and then we were just driving around the entire city as they both were showing me around places. Jaipur is really such a beautiful Pink city where we reached the city centre where all the shops, houses were housed on the same majestic pink-colour painted structures. They looked so royal and majestic, where the entire road was decorated with lights and the city was buzzing even in the night.

Jal Mahal: Then we went to see Jal Mahal – the floating palace. Basically, there was a palace which exists here half-submerged in water and surrounded by the huge Man Sagar lake. The structure is totally five-storied out of which four storeys are submerged in water. One can only see the one-of-a-kind palace from afar standing on the pathway built alongside the road and the length of the lake.

Albert Hall Museum: After spending a good amount of time here, we headed towards Albert Hall Museum. This is another spectacular building which is lit by colour changing lights in the dark. It is closed after 6pm in the evening but people still visit it after dark just to see its beauty when illuminated with lights as shown below. Then we also drove past the biggest mall in Jaipur – World Trade Park.

This was the last place we visited and I booked an Oyo room for myself to spend the night. I was dropped off at the hotel which was also in the same area as his place so that it would be easy for us the next day. Next morning, he came to pick me up in his two-wheeler and the first thing he did is take my rucksack to drop it off in friend’s place as it would be difficult to take it and roam around in his vehicle. I was waiting at a “Mithai” (Desserts) shop and was expected to have the mind-blowing “Kachoris” they sell there as my breakfast. They tasted very authentic as the people there are kind of famous in making them, and waiting for Utkarsh to come over.

Day Tour: So once he came, this time again we roamed all the streets of Jaipur seeing all the buildings now in daylight in contrast to the previous night. We drove past Raj Mandir – a cinema theatre (see pic below), stopped at the infamous Hawa Mahal just for taking some pictures. There are many interesting facts about Hawa Mahal few of which I came to know of:

• It was built in 1799 AD and consists of a total of 953 windows.
• This building was built without a foundation and hence is the tallest building in the world without a foundation!
• It is a five-storey building and an artwork of Rajput and Mughal architecture.
• This palace was built for the royal ladies to watch festival scenes so that they would not be seen by the public.

Then we again visited Jal Mahal this time witnessing it in daylight, we left early as the weather was too hot to roam outside in the sun. Next, we drove to Amer fort. It is one among the famous forts of Rajasthan and it is also called as Amer Palace, built using marble and red sandstone by Raja Man Singh. After looking around the fort, we headed to rest near a peaceful garden which was there just outside of this fort. As it was very hot, we just sat below a tree’s shade in that garden listening to the chirping of birds and squirrel’s running by.

We ate Chole Batura as lunch which was available outside of the fort. Nearby this we also have other tourist places like Nahargarh Fort, Jaigarh Fort and Jantar Mantar. We did not visit these places in detail. We then went to visit the Albert Hall museum whose architecture is so encaptivating, there is also a big herd of pigeons which will be outside of the palace making it a spectacular view. There was a minimal entrance fee to enter and inside looked no less than a palace having  Indo-Saracenic architecture, with all the historical woodworks, carvings, and other preserved things from the past rulers of this place. One unique thing which can be seen here is the sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy enclosed in a glass case preserved from centuries, there is an entire section downstairs in this museum which is filled with all kinds of information about mummification.

When we went there was also an authentic puppet show going on inside of the museum. Such kind of puppet shows can be seen all over Jaipur, even we saw a snake charmer on the shopping streets.

Shopping in Jaipur: You can find shops filled with traditional attires with extraordinary embroidery and artwork, bangles, embroidered shoes which look so royal, ceramic work, and much more for sale. Such shops are almost everywhere but still there are specific places in Jaipur where one can go for shopping such as

• Johari Bazaar – Famous for jewelry items
• Tripolia Bazaar – Basically jewelry and kinds of bracelets
• Chandpole Bazaar – Rajasthani craft items made of marble and textile items.
• Kishanpole Bazaar – Famous for textile products and wooden crafts.
• Nehru Bazaar– Rajasthani clothes and bandhani products.
• Bapu Bazaar- Jaipuri quilts and traditional block print and other print artwork.

This basically sums up my time spent in Jaipur, Rajasthan. I had booked an overnight bus to Delhi since I had my flight the next day and that was end to my 2 weeks leave 🙂