India: The Pink City

Today I woke up after spending a large chunk of the night listening to the storm that has been raging! It began with some light rain that got heavier as the evening progressed and then developed into a full blown storm into the early hours of this morning. There’s been thunder and lightning and everywhere is flooded to the point of some of the roads being impassable by pretty much all forms of transport.

I took an Auto Rickshaw from the pre-paid booth at the Bus Station to the Ajmer Gate of the Pink City. Deciding to walk around, I went up Kishaneol Bazaar past loads of bike shops: they must have a good trade in bicycles here, everywhere is selling them! Along this road I found a tasty food stall selling small bites and had a ‘slice’ which is sort of like a samosa and a ‘choli’ which was a soft potato-like snack with chilli in it. The man selling them also offered me a sort of ‘nic-nak’ shaped thing that tasted really spicy, very nice though.

I walked up to Choti Chuapar and onto Tripolia Bazaar…and got thoroughly lost! I eventually found the City Palace and took a wander around the outside of it before coming to the Jantar Mantar. It was raining fairly hard by this point so I took shelter in one of the City palaces gates until it settled a little.

Jantar Mantar was next, lots of photo were taken of all of the interesting shaped dials.

Speaking to a random man by a mosque (?) I was told about a place a little out of Jaipur where fabric is printed. I decided that this sounded interesting and took an Auto Rickshaw out to it. The beautiful materials and fabrics that are all around India are actually made in places like this. It was interesting to see how the fabric starts pure white and then images are printed on using natural dyes and wooden stamps. Each image needs around three or four different layers and colours to form the finished product.

Dinner was in a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet Guide: Nero’s. It was founded in the 1950’s and the waiters wear really cool old uniforms that look like something from colonial times: all white and loads of buttons etc.
I made the mistake of assuming that the curry I usually eat at home would be the same here. Well, I was very wrong. I ordered a Chicken Korma, which was ‘blow-your-head-off’ hot! I couldn’t eat it all.