Jaipur: The Amber Fort

12/31/12

Hindi lessons started bright and early for Alex and I with our teacher Virendra Ji. The hotel that we are staying in was a colonial era palace, and our classroom for the week was the courtyard hall. It is quite a place to learn. For four hours the three of us sat and learned our first set of Hindi words. I feel okay about it, and our teacher said that we did Bahut Acchaa (very good).

After our lessons Alex and I went off on our own for the first time. We decided to go to a 15^th to 17^th century fort just outside the city. In order to get to the Amber Fort we took an auto-rickshaw, which is almost like a golf cart, but one that drives everywhere that cars do. Then again, so do tractors and bicycles rickshaws. Alex managed to get the driver to lower his price by 100 rupees, and away we went.

It was my first time on an auto-rickshaw, and because they are tiny have no doors, I was really able to get a feel for the streets. It was colorful, smelly, and above all else, loud. Brightly colored trucks have signs on the back that say “please honk” because it is the only way that they know other vehicles are around. The honking and yelling does not stop as road users of all varieties jockey for best position to make a little headway in all of the traffic.

I mentioned in an earlier post that nobody follows traffic laws, but somehow it works. Today this was taken to a new extreme when our rickshaw driver got mad at the bus in front of us and when on the other side of a raised lane barrier, driving into oncoming traffic with no way out for about half a block. I know that I should have been, but I was not scared; merely surprised, for I felt completely safe. The reason that we were able to get away with this is because nobody expects anybody to follow any rules, and so everybody pays attention at all times. In a way it may be safer than the order of America, where drivers can be complacent, thinking everyone else will do the expected, so they do not prepare for the unexpected. In India, nothing is unexpected in the middle of road, except a small, pale, redhead.  Of all crazy things going on, it is only my presence that makes the street stop and stare.

Alex and the stairs up to the fort

As we leave Jaipur city limits we come to a mountainside with stairs going all the way up to what is Amber fort and the nearby ancient military base. It is amazing. When we get to the bottom of the stairs our driver lets us out and goes to park where he will wait for us to return so he can take us back to the hotel. (The whole thing there and back costs us $6). We take the 15 min climb up to the fort, and which each step the view gets more and more breathtaking, Entering the first of four courtyards we see magnificence that America can only dream about. We take a quick look into the temple of the Hindu goddess Shilla, which was filled with praying Hindus. We just watched, and for the first time since we were in India, no one seemed to care that some white girls were there. They had bigger things on their minds. Don’t worry though, this moment of invisibility ended as soon as we left the temple and went up to the next court yard, which had the most beautiful gardens.

Amber Fort from the road

For the next two hours Alex and I had an amazing time wondering around the fort, getting ourselves lost in its dark passageways, only to find ourselves in compartments we hadn’t known existed, with views that shouldn’t be missed. Every time we turned around we faced either a mountainside view of naturally breathtaking beauty, or proof of the genius creativity and engineering of the Indian people. The frescos that covered the more important parts of the fort were stunning, both religious and secular, and the architecture was so smart that there was a passage way where the maharaja could visit anyone of his wives or concubines without the others knowing. That is called polygamy done right, when the sole goal is to bear a son.

Exhausted from a long day we headed back to our hotel for a rest and dinner. We finished off our New Years Eve going over our Hindi vocab, and I will be in bed before midnight. Blame it on the jet lag.

Things seem in the street today: 

• Cars, trucks, buses
• rickshaws, both auto and bicycle
• tractors
• people 
• pig, goats, dogs, cows, bulls, more dogs, even more people, donkeys, elephants, camels
• Trash
• gay couple 
• babies on motorcycles
• Not really elephants on the street (tourist attraction at the fort. notice the painted truck and lack of tusks)
• the Indian Tuxedo. 

Happy New Year!