A fine affair …
Tea and tiffin on the terrace – what could be nicer!
Afternoon tea turned out to be a fine affair. Having got chatting to the food and beverage manager, we took tea on the terrace. In a discussion about the teas on offer, we discovered that one was a typical India tea called ‘Chai Masala’. Basically, it is tea with a mix of ground spices added to it. Whilst that doesn’t sound all that appetising, it was. The blend of spices is made by the hotel and includes cinnamon, cardamom (green), cardamom (black), cloves, pepper and more that I can’t remember. It was actually very nice indeed. We had asparagus tips wrapped in cheesy filo pastry, smoked salmon sandwiches with dill, vegetable sandwiches of roasted pepper and roasted courgette, stuffed mushrooms, a disk of rye bread with chopped ham and cheese on it, half a croissant filled with chicken in a creamy sauce, a selection of small cakes and two scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Having devoured the majority of it, more was brought out to replace it! When it comes to scones with clotted cream, whilst I enjoy the flavour, the cream is not enjoyed by my stomach – I am a little lactose intolerant. Not wanting to miss out entirely, I suggested to Captain Clarke that I would eat half a scone whilst he had the other half and the remaining scone. I’m afraid I may have said something rather indelicate at this point – having completely demolished two platefuls of savouries and all of the small cakes, Captain Clarke turned round to me and said, “I don’t think I’ll eat that other scone”, to which I’m afraid it sort of just slipped out, “Why? Are you watching your weight?”. Oops! That didn’t go down all that well!
Captain Clarke and his parents in our living quarters!
No sooner had we finished our tea, Captain Clarke went off with our driver Jaswant to collect his parents and bring them back to the hotel where we would entertain them with dinner. Whilst he was gone, I took an opportunity to ablute and prepare myself for the evening. They arrived back in good time and we took the opportunity to show them around our suite and the rest of the hotel. I think they were suitably impressed although as we climbed the beautiful 17th century marble staircase to our suite, I did hear Captain Clarke’s father mutter under his breath, “Hmm, it may be posh but our hotel has lifts!”. Touché! Having given them a tour of the hotel we retired to the ‘Polo Bar’ for pre dinner drinks. It turned out that Captain Clarke’s mother wasn’t feeling 100% have got a touch of the ‘Delhi belly’. I provided her with suitable medication and, having done so, she forced down a gin and tonic! Captain Clarke’s father doesn’t like spicy food – I know he’s in India but that’s because Captain Clarke’s mother wanted to come … he doesn’t like spicy food, he doesn’t like it too hot, he doesn’t like crowds and he doesn’t like the smell of incense – this is probably not the perfect place for him!
Dinner was served in the – one of the four restaurants available in our hotel of 13 rooms!
Knowing that his mother does, we had pre-ordered a Thali for Captain Clarke, his mother and myself. A Thali is technically the name of the dish it is served in but a Thali meal is to offer all the 6 different flavours of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, astringent and spicy on one single plate (before some of you comment, I know the last two aren’t technically flavours). The concept of a perfect Indian meal is a balance of all six of these flavours. We had butter chicken, (nothing like that sweet sickly dish at home!), mutton marinated in yoghurt, pea and mushroom masala, okra and onion, a fantastic daal and yoghurt with pomegranate. This was all served with buttered naan and rice. Unfortunately, having eaten our appetisers of marinated chicken with spinach and mutton in a spicy tomato sauce, Captain Clarke’s mother didn’t feel up to eating the Thali so we had to do a rapid change and ask chef to prepare a second dish of plain lamb chops with greens as was being prepared for Captain Clarke’s father. I’m afraid I didn’t cotton on early enough when Captain Clarke kept trying to stop me talking about goat – the chops were, of course, not lamb but goat! I didn’t even click when Captain Clarke’s father said that the chops didn’t taste like lamb to him. Fortunately, I think I got away with it … just!
Captain Clarke’s parents being taken back to their hotel in one of our hotel cars.
The wine in our hotel is not cheap. It isn’t cheap anywhere in India, but in our hotel it is particularly expensive. We did have a bottle of wine but I declined the imported wines at just over £100 a bottle for the cheapest one and plumped for an Indian Sauvignon Blanc which was actually very good and a bargain at just £29 a bottle! After dinner we enjoyed a small brandy (it was small but I hate to think what a big one would cost!) and then the hotel offered to take Captain Clarke’s parents back to their hotel in one of the hotel cars. I think the evening had gone well and they had enjoyed themselves. Captain Clarke and I both agreed that they didn’t seem to enjoy the food very much but they liked the hotel and the grounds and they liked the atmosphere and ambience. We will not be seeing them again now as they are off on a tiger safari whilst we will move to Agra and to the majestic Taj Mahal in the next day or so. They have tagged a short break in Goa onto the end of their holiday so they will actually arrive home after we get back!
Given the chance Captain Clarke would still be there now!
Before I move onto today’s activity, I should mention the sign. As we arrived at Captain Clarke’s parents hotel the evening before last, there was a sign by the security gate that seems to have become the norm in most hotels in India. You will see what it says in the photo on the right. Suffice to say that, given the opportunity, Captain Clarke would still be there now! And so, to this morning’s activities. We were met at 09:00 hours by our guide, Rakesh, who called our driver accusing him of being late. He wasn’t, we were a few minutes early and he was coming round the corner before they were off the phone. We have drawn the conclusion that Rakesh considers Jaswant to be inferior to him and treats him accordingly. We did not really take to Rakesh but have now said our goodbyes anyway. Jaswant never speaks in the car if Rakesh is in it but if we are alone with him he chats and is friendly. We feel quite sorry that he is treated in that way. He wasn’t by our guide in Delhi, Zareen, so it is just Rakesh that speaks to him as if he is subservient. He was sometimes quite rude about Jaswant and we don’t think he realises that Jaswant does speak some English and I am pretty sure understands exactly what is being said. That said, Rakesh was very knowledgable and seems to be known at every place we have been. He did start dropping hints about tips quite early on today knowing that our half day tour would be the last time we would see him. We did, of course, tip him but he would have got more if he had been a bit nicer!
This is the largest sun dial in the world and is accurate to within 2 seconds!
This morning we did two things. The astronomical park which is called Jantar Mantar and then the City Palace both are in the walled pink city of Jaipur. The astronomical park is quite an interesting place with the largest sun dial in the world which is accurate to within 2 seconds. There is also another, smaller but still very large, sun dial which is accurate to within 20 seconds. Not bad for something that was built by the Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh II, and completed in 1734! I have a modern day Rolex and that is rarely accurate to within about 2 minutes! The park consists of 19 astronomical instruments ranging from sun dials, to instruments to tell you the date and also instruments to tell you the position of the planets and the sun. All of these things contribute to creating horoscopes which feature still very highly today. Many marriages are based on horoscopes where the suitors date and time of birth is used to determine whether they will be a good match and then a horoscope is created for the current time to see if the marriage is likely to work. It’s probably a bit easier just to find yourself a soulmate, but who am I to question? It was very warm this morning, so Rakesh whipped us round the park at quite a speed before retiring to the shade of a tree. We then went back and took photographs whilst he waited in the shade.
The entrance to the City Palace
Next it was a trip to the City Palace. This is the only place that the current Maharaja maintains as a residence and is where he comes back to whenever he is home. Obviously his private quarters are not open to visitors, but there are a number of museums and galleries that are. The palace was built between 1729 and 1732, initially by Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber because he wanted to move his entourage out of the Amber Fort and into the city of Jaipur. His primary reason was water – the Amber Fort sits on a hill and getting water up there was problematic if the monsoons didn’t bring enough. Since the area only gets between 12 and 16 inches of rain per year, that often became a problem. In the city it was much easier to harvest, keep and transport the water. The place is right in the centre of the city and incorporates an impressive array of gardens, courtyards and buildings. Today, within the buildings, there are museums and galleries displaying fabrics from the various Maharaja’s times, clothing, artwork, portrait and even a Diwan-i-Aam (hall for public audience) as there was in the Amber Fort.
The Mubarak Mahal, or auspicious palace, was built solely as a reception centre for visiting dignitaries.
The buildings are ornate (as one might expect) and designed for very functional purposes. For example, the Mubarak Mahal (which means ‘the Auspicious Palace’) was used built in the 19th Century by Maharaja Madho Singh II as a reception centre for visiting dignitaries. The Pritam Niwas Chowk (or inner courtyard) was used solely as a space for entertainment. The courtyard is surrounded by rooms at first floor level so that the audience could look down into the courtyard and watch the dancers and other entertainers who danced, sometimes, all night. The Maharaja would sit at one end of the courtyard with his entourage, his visitors would sit at the other end and then on one side there are latticed windows or the ladies and on the other space for his invited subjects. There are four gates into the courtyard, each one representing a season and each with a different Hindu god over it. The City Palace has developed over the years and different Maharajas have put their own mark on it by adding buildings or changing them and their function. Unfortunately, it is forbidden to take photographs inside the buildings, so we have none to show in the gallery below.
Our artist signing a piece of artwork that we bought!
In one of the palace buildings there is a craft centre. It was established by the last Maharaja Man Singh II to encourage local artists to maintain dying arts of creating beautiful objects and paintings. (I feel a purchase coming on!) We visited this and ended up talking to an artists who paints the most beautiful painting using only natural colourings that he gets from plants and stones and uses gum from a tree to fix them. He paints with a brush with a single hair and the intricacy of the work is remarkable. Whilst we talked to him he created a little sketch of an elephant which he then wrote our names on it and signed it from himself. We decided to have a look at some of his work (which is for sale but with prices set by the government) and, of course, ended up buying. We bought a painting in stunning colour painted on royal parchment paper that is over 120 years old. Of course I am not entirely telling the truth … we bought three! The artist signed each painting before packing them up for us to take home. Neither of us remembered to note down his name, so we can’t find out until we open the packages when we get home. What we do know is that Prince Charles has bought two of his painting … one for Princess Diana and one for Camilla! The artists has the photographs of both occasions (and yes, Prince Charles is handing over money!) which creates some interesting thoughts!
Standing in one of the doorways into the Pritam Niwas Chowk (Inner courtyard) that represents summer.
One other thing we learned about today was about Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh I. He was the Maharaja from 1750 to 1768. His older brother committed suicide so he became the Maharaja. He was over 7 feet tall and over 4 feet wide and weighed over 250 kg. His clothes hang in one of the galleries and they are enormous! What I found most interesting though was that he died at the age of 39 and left behind some 108 wives! He was a busy fellow! I have to confess to finding this whole Maharaja thing quite fascinating. When British rule ended in India there were 565 kingdoms, each with its own Maharaja. These kingdoms were under indirect rule and worked in a subsidiary alliance with the British Raj. When we left and created partition all of the kingdoms effectively had to accede to one state of either India or Pakistan. What a legacy we left them! We took over direct rule, introduced a whole host of rapid development of infrastructure and took them from being one of the richest countries in the world to one of the poorest. Somewhat of a record not to be particularly proud of! They have a history of being ruled by others; the Dutch, the Danish, the French, the Portuguese have all colonised India at some time or another, but none asset stripped it as well as we did! Fortunately, the India people are very forgiving and don’t resent what we did to them – maybe a lesson to us today. One the subject of leaving, I must just share a description of Brexit that I saw the other day. It doesn’t matter what side of the fence you sit, it is still amusing (and true!). The President of Luxembourg was asked what he thought of the Brexit issue, he replied, “Ah, the British. First they wanted in with lots of opt out clauses, now they want out with lots of opt in clauses! They have always been special partners!” I think that sums it up perfectly!
Each of these two urns holds 900 gallons of water from the Ganges!
Talking of exports, the Maharaja at the turn of the 20th Century was Madho Singh II. He was a devout Hindu and, having been invited to England to the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, he was concerned as to how he would manage with European water which he didn’t believe was suitable to drink. He also wanted to have access to water from the holy Ganges river for religious ceremony. In the end he came up with a brilliant idea – he had two urns made out of silver to carry water from the Ganges with him on his trip to England. Each urn is over 5 feet tall and holds 900 gallons of water which he took with him! Now that’s what you call exporting! The bloke in this picture stood in my way as I was taking a photograph of the urn and then started badgering me for a tip. In the end I gave him one, “Don’t stand in front of the urn, you’re spoiling my photos!”. Flaming cheek – it is on thing that beggars try it on at traffic lights sometimes (although we have hardly experienced it here and have done far more in Spain), or the hawkers are trying to sell you stuff you really don’t want at some of the tourist spots, but standing in the City Palace and then demanding tips goes too far. I wouldn’t have tipped him with cash anyway when he had that attitude! I think that just about sums up the last 24 hours or so. Oh, apart from I too now have a bit of dodgy tum. I don’t think it is anything more than pay back for me eating clotted cream yesterday afternoon and yoghurt yesterday evening. Still, I am glad I brought some medication with me! It is, after all, RudyMenTerry!
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