Cast your mind back a few years to October 2011. Can you remember what you were doing that month? Sandra and I were on a visit to India. We’d spent a week in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan before arriving in Delhi at the start of a tour of India’s Golden Triangle to visit Udaipur, Jaipur with the plan to arrive in Agra in time to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our first meeting there on October 21st, 1971. The whole trip had been planned so that we would be back home in California in good time for the anticipated arrival of Kimberly & Benjamin’s baby. Not to be! Sometime on the 15th when we were in Udaipur, we get a phone call from Benjamin to let us know that Kimberly had gone in to labour some three weeks ahead of her anticipated due date. Long story short, Jaipur (and Agra) would have to wait for another day as we beat a hasty retreat from Udaipur and headed back to California, arriving just as Benjamin was bringing Kimberly and our new grandson Bennett home from the hospital!
Fast forward now 12 years and a few months. And here we are now in Jaipur, the “Pink City” for a brief visit tagged on to the end of our spectacular three week safari in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Assam. Bit of a hairy journey to get here - a six hour drive from Kaziranga National Park to the city of Guwahati, a three hour flight to Delhi with a hair-raisingly short connection for the short flight to Jaipur, saved in the end by what else but a “technical problem” which delayed the flight by an hour
In Jaipur we’re staying in one of the city’s numerous royal palaces which have been converted into hotels dating back to the early ‘70’s, the time when then Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi forced India’s many royals to give up much of their remaining wealth and privileges. Ours is called the Rajmahal Palace, a vast island of relative peace and quiet (the noise of the nearby railway notwithstanding) in an otherwise not particularly salubrious neighbourhood outside the walls of the Pink City itself.
It’s close to midnight when we finally arrive and we think we’re being led into the hotel lobby to check in. So we’re a bit taken aback to discover that we’re not actually in the lobby, but in the sitting room of our vast suite - named for Earl Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India who’d apparently also stayed.
Certainly made up for the very long journey! Other suites in the hotel are named for Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II and some Kennedy or other who’d also stayed at one time or another
The original walled city of Jaipur, the so-called “Pink City” because all of the buildings are sort of pink-coloured (actually more terracotta) is heaving with tourists, westerners and locals. It’s years since we’ve seen so many - certainly since well before the Pandemic. But we have an excellent guide and over the day we get to experience most of the city’s highlights, other than shopping (well that almost….😉). The old city has really only been this “pink” since 1876 when the then Maharaja had all the city buildings painted this colour to welcome the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) - “pink” being the traditional colour of welcome. Now all buildings within the old city have to be painted this colour.
The local royal family still lives in the City Palace, but they now only occupy two of the five floors while much of the rest is open to limited public visiting. It seems that we get access because we’re staying in a former palace, now a hotel. While in the Palace courtyard, we “bump into” the current Maharaja, Sawai Padmanabh Singh looking much the same dressed totally in white as he does in a photo of him we spot in one of the palace rooms.
We do spend a really interesting couple of tourist-free hours at an impressive family business in the village of Bagru, around 45 minutes outside of Jaipur. Here we, or rather Sandra learns the ancient art of block printing cotton fabric.
Our guide here is the young “scion” of the family whose forbears started the business in 1831, some eight or so generations back.
The business has expanded mightily (and very successfully it seems by the impressive array of cars parked in the main building forecourt) but it would certainly seem that the very-labour intensive process has changed little since the company was founded.
In addition to local sales, much of their product is exported to the UK, Canada, the US and Australia where there are large communities of people of Indian origin to be turned into saris, shirts and suits and so forth.
We drive (or rather are driven) back to Delhi for a short night at an airport hotel before setting off for home. The 150 mile (240 km) drive takes around six hours but is endlessly fascinating. We have staggering admiration for our driver. There’s no way a casual visitor could possibly drive in India. I see “don’t drink and drive” signs everywhere. On the contrary, I’d need a few drinks, and stiff ones at that, before taking on the daunting challenge of driving in this country 😱
So this journey has come to an end, not only a memorable safari, but we’ve finally closed the circle that we started in October 2011