22nd December 2014,
This took a lot of breaks in writing, the quality might not be consistent.
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This took a lot of breaks in writing, the quality might not be consistent.
The Pink City
I reached Jaipur last night with Federico and Matteo, I met Federico at Zostel Agra and Matteo in the train(He was sitting beside me), we were joined by Kiran who was staying in the same room as us at Zostel. Early in the morning, we decided to take a tuktuk(I have heard the term being used more often than the word auto) to the Amber fort, Jaipur looked a lot cleaner than Agra and Delhi, and as per my new found friends it is better than the other Indian cities they have visited.
Amber fort is known for its grandeur and elegance, built by Maharaja Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, it is one of the three Forts in Jaipur, Jaigarh and Nahargarh being the other two. I didn't visit Nahargarh and Jaigarh because we all had to move to other cities and time is always a constraint. We heard that Amber fort beats all other forts at the elegance and cultural heritage. I cannot confirm if it's the most beautiful fort, but I sure was spell-bound by it. The intricate pattern and the karigari on the walls is spectacular. After roaming around the city for a couple of hours, we decided to move towards the old city to get glimpses of famous monuments and do some window shopping in the market,You can see the Hawa Mahal there which is the face of Jaipur and often Rajasthan, since I've been travelling on a budget, I didn't enter the windy palace, I parted ways with the other fellow travellers here as I wanted to visit the Jantar Mantar which is a must visit if you're in Jaipur, though do take an Audio Guide to understand all the equipment which is in there. I had to meet the guys at Paanch Batti Circle, after an hour and the hour passed just like that, the circle looked to close on map but, then it turned out to be 3 Kilometers away, not feeling like taking a bus, I decided to run to the place jumping in spaces on the road between cars stuck in the traffic jam and stopping for a 5 minutes in between for lunch, I did reach the place on time, but the guys were not there, I thought they left without me, I still decided to stay there hoping to see them, and you know what? Hope is indeed a good thing. I was looking at the other way and all of a sudden Federico jumped before me.Thankfully The guys had had their lunch already and I wasn't the odd one out. Our tour of the city ended with us walking half the way to Zostel, losing our way and then taking a tuktuk.
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| The Hawa Mahal |
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| Elephants at Amber fort |
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| One of the guards at Amber fort |
It's Not Pasta
Me and the guys were not very keen on eating out, Matteo had a bad experience with food in Agra and wasn't ready to take the risk, and then I saw some English guys who wanted to cook Indian food, their menu included Chapati, Aalu Gobhi, and Matar Pulao, I saw their first chapati and decided that they needed help. I taught them to cook chapatis the Indian Mom style, on an open flame, their first reaction -"Crazy Stuff Man!", I did three chapatis for them and then left them on their own, minutes later I smelled something burning. The rest of the chapatis were done by the in-house cook at Zostel, since the kitchen was going to be busy for a while, we decided to have the evergreen Maggi. We went and bought a few veggies for it. Kiran helped me with the veggies and Federico worked with eggs he James, and Matteo were having. The Maggi was served with shredded cheese on the top, Federico went on a loop calling it pasta and I on "It's not pasta". Me and Federico parted ways in Jaipur, I left for Pushkar the next day. The adventure to Pushkar would be the next post. which I hope would be posted soon. Federico, if you're reading this. Let me repeat. "It's not Pasta"
