Jaipur -- Forts, cannon, wall . . . .

After leaving Amber Fort, we proceeded on up the mountain to Jaigarh, a spot famous for one thing:  it's the home of the world's largest cannon.  Having been built, the cannon was fired only once. They say that the cannon ball went 32 kilometers and created a lake where it landed.  The fuse was timed to take 12 seconds to burn its way to the powder.  One end was at the cannon and the other end was at a large pond at the foot of the hill.  After lighting the fuse, the soldier dove into the lake and waited below the surface of the water for the boom.  If he had stayed anywhere else in the area, his eardrums would have been blown out by the force of the blast.

From Jaigarh, we got a good view of the Jaipur Wall.  Originally the wall circled the entire city of Jaipur, but Jaipur has sprawled to the point where, from the top of the mountain, it reminds one of Los Angeles, which seems to spread out forever.  Much of the 35 kilometers of original wall has fallen into disrepair but is gradually being rebuilt by the government.

Down in Jaipur city proper is beautiful Jaipur Palace.  As at all of the places we toured, there was a guide waiting for us.  Also, as usual, I lagged behind taking pictures and often annoying our guides, who always seemed to have very definite ideas about how a place should be toured -- usually way too quickly for my eyes and camera.  The longer we traveled the more persistent I became about getting the shots I wanted  and managed to capture quite a few images from Jaipur Palace.

In the afternoon, we went to Jantar Mantar.  That is to say, we went to the Jaipur Jantar Manter; there's also one in Delhi, which we visited 25 years ago.  A jantar mantar is a sculptural observatory.  Using various parts of it, one can calculate the exact time of day, season of the year, locations of the north star and various constellations, and a number of other astronomical features.  From a purely scientific standpoint, they are fascinating, but I find them to be beautiful works of art, as well.  I actually had more fun photographing the one in Delhi because we were almost the only people there that morning.  Being the only jantar mantar that is still in good working condition, the one in Jaipur is thronged with people.  The crush of people and the increasing irritation of our guide at my refusing to pay close attention to all the scientific details he was so carefully spouting made photography a little difficult, but I did manage to get a few shots.

This sundial is not small.  At it's peak, it's probably 20-25 feet tall.  There are two of these, one for one half of the year and a second one, which faces in the opposite direction, for the other half of the year.  I'm afraid my fatigue was threatening to make me say things I'd later regret, but I managed to just stay quiet.  However, my first thought on seeing these two immense structures was that the common sundial we are familiar with in the west, which lies flat on the ground, is not only easier to build but can also be used year round (provided there's sun, of course).

You can't really tell from this angle, but this structure is a huge bowl-shaped structure.  A person can actually walk in the room below it.  If I could remember exactly what it calculated, I'd tell you, but as I've mentioned, I wasn't really paying attention. . . . kind of reminiscent of much of my early childhood. . . .

Sensing my impatience with the crowds perhaps, our guide announced that he knew a place that "she is certain to enjoy".  He was right.  The cenotaphs of the maharajahs was just thing thing I needed.  Lovely architecture and nearly devoid of both people and long-winded explanations. 

But I will share with you what little I know.  The maharajahs of the rajput era were all Hindu, so no actual tombs were built to commemorate them as they were for the mughals, since Hindu custom dictates that bodies be cremated after death.  The Taj Mahal, for example, is the final resting place of Mumtaz Mahal, the favorite wife of Shah Jahan.  Instead, cenotaphs were erected to memorialize the maharajahs.  The beautiful cenotaphs below commemorate numerous generations of Jaipur maharajahs.

A local inhabitant checked us out before hurrying on his way.

Our exhaustive tour of Jaipur included two more places.  This first was Mahdavendra Palace and the final spot was a local carpet and block printing shop.  Here are some interior shots of the Mahdavendra Palace. . . . (It can often be quite difficult to get exterior shots of places due to the crush of buildings around them.)

 

And a couple of parting shots from the fabric and rug shop. . . .

Block printing on cotton with a hand-carved wooden block.  The block is first dipped in the dye, then placed carefully on the fabric, which in this case was printed earlier in a different color, and finally the block is hit on the top with the heel of the hand to set the colors in the fabric.  Once the fabric has dried for a day or two in the sun, it is washed with salt water to fix the color.  The fixing process also dramatically changes the colors -- in some cases, all the way from red to green or blue.  Block printed patterns often consist of four or five different stages of printing -- all done by hand with these small, wooden blocks.

The rug weaver at the shop. A hand-knotted rug is like a pointilist painting, with the pattern consisting of tens of thousands of tiny spots of color, each one a scrap of yarn, knotted by hand and then pounded down against its neighbors.  Depending on the size of the rug, one rug can take anywhere from a few months to several years to make in this way, so there is a veritable army of cottage industry hand-weavers supplying shops like this one.