Buildings and India, Jaipur

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To complete the golden triangle in India, I traveled to Jaipur, the capital of the Rajasthan state. The name Jaipur means victory city, but the city is more commonly known as the pink city.
From what the tour guide told me, this name came because a prince of some country was scheduled to visit Jaipur, and the Jaipur ruler told everyone to paint the buildings pink to make a good impression. Over time and with additional coats, this seems more terra cotta to me, but still impressive.
In the first hour of entering the city, I got to do two importantly classic Indian things: see a snake charmer, and ride an elephant. I was so happy!

Ghulabkali the elephant
On to the architecture. The Amer Fort, also known as Amber Fort, impressed me with its scenery, the planning of creature comforts (heating chambers for water for spas, for example), and the architecture itself.






Afore-mentioned water heating chamber






One of the other impressive things: apparently the guy
who lived here had a lot of wives and mistresses, each placed in her own apartment in the complex that were accessed by secret passages so that the others would not know who the man of the place was spending his time with. It helped keep the peace.







Next we went to an astronomical observatory called the Jantar Mantar. It's quite a large complex, and boasts the world's largest sundial.
Unknown man helps to show the scale

Jai Prakash Yantra. Don't know what it measures






The last significant structure I saw in Jaipur was the City Palace. My favorite part of that was the gates opening to an outdoor dance room. So that's mostly what I have pictures of.




Next stop: GOA

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