Yuman explores ancient Indian kingdom
Leaving Delhi on our tour bus, we traveled overland to the ancient city of Jaipur.
Because there are very few miles of four-lane superhighways, the trip was made on two-lane roads that are crammed with trucks, buses, tractors, camel carts, ox carts, other cars, tuk-tuks and the ever-present swarm of small motorcycles, which are frequently carrying three or four people.
It was interesting to watch, but hardly a speedy journey.
Rajasthan is a separate state from Delhi. There are 28 states in India and beef is banned from sale or consumption in 25 of them. Jaipur, also known as the "pink" city for its colorful paint scheme, is also the capital of Rajasthan.
The ancient kingdom of Rajasthan is the home of the Rajputs, a warrior tribe that settled in this area of India more than 1,000 years ago. The history of the area is replete with wars between competing rajahs (kings).
The British Empire found them so difficult to deal with that they let all the small kingdoms in the area keep their palaces and their land instead of confiscating them. Thus, most of the magnificent forts, palaces and mansions in the area are still owned by the original families.
All of this fierce independence on the part of the people means that Rajasthan is an area unlike any other in India. The state is jammed with great tourist sites, including Amber Fort (pronounced Amer, the b is silent), just outside of Jaipur. Begun by Man Singh I in 1572, it was completed centuries later.
Amber Fort is so huge that its ramparts stretch for miles over the surrounding ridgelines, looking exactly like an Indian version of the Great Wall of China. Built on top of a steep mountain, the fort is traditionally reached by having tourists take an elephant ride from the bottom to the top.
Although this service is still available, we rode in Jeeps, as a couple of years ago, one of the elephants got a bit grumpy in the searing heat and dragged a tourist off his back and stomped him flat. Bouncing around in the non-air-conditioned Jeep in 110-degree heat, I had to sympathize with the elephants.
The view from the top of the fort is stunning. It's hard to believe that so much wealth and power resided in one family's hands for so long. The rajahs were famous for their lavish spending from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, and even today their wealth is still very much in evidence.
Jaipur is a city that was built by order of Jai Singh II and completed in 1728. Apparently tired of being confined to Amber Fort on the top of a mountain, the city was laid out in grids and of course includes a royal palace.
The palace is so large that it covers one-seventh of the ancient walled city. It is still occupied by the Singh family descendants, but major portions of it are open to the public.
Inside the palace is a beautiful museum with collections of clothing from the rajahs and a complete armory of weapons both ancient and modern. The most interesting costume had to be the royal robes of Sawai Singh. He measured 4 feet wide and tipped the scales at over 550 pounds.
In the armory, there was an unusual weapon I have never seen anywhere else. A two-handed dagger, the weapon could be plunged into your opponent and with the flick of a switch, the blade would spring wide open in a scissors-like shape. Not exactly a precision weapon but it must have been awesomely effective.
Known as the "pink" city, Jaipur was ordered to be painted pink in 1876 by Maharajah Ram Singh in honor of a visit from the Prince of Wales. Because the color pink in India represents hospitality, the city has remained pink ever since.
It is also one of the gemstone centers of India. While shopping in the local stores, I was approached by dozens of gem dealers, who would whisk little folded pieces of paper out of their pockets and show me a fortune in gemstones. Or maybe not.
Not being an expert on stones, they could be cut glass or colored agates and I would not know the difference. Our tour guide assured us that some of them were legitimate, but warned there was no way to tell the difference. I resisted buying gemstones.
The next day everyone on the tour was really excited because we were leaving Jaipur to drive to Ranthambore National Park, one of the largest tiger preserves in India.
Formerly the hunting preserve of the Maharajah of Jaipur, this private park was donated to the Indian government in 1972, when tiger hunting was formally banned in all of India. Totaling nearly 100,000 acres, they now estimate that between 30 and 40 tigers reside here, up from a low of 14 in 1979.
In addition to tigers, the park also contains leopards, nilgai (large, blue-gray antelope), spotted deer, marsh crocodiles, wild boar, monkeys, gazelles and over 400 species of birds, including a huge population of peacocks.
Although we didn't actually see any tigers on our Jeep safari, we did run across some tiger tracks in the dirt road. Still, Ranthambore National Park is so beautiful to look at that hardly any of us cared about not seeing tigers. The country resembles the red rimrock territory around Sedona, but with a great deal more vegetation.
The next day we were to leave for Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal.
