Amber Fort
Amber Fort is about 11 km from the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan, in Amber, which takes its name from the common local stone of the area. It was my first major tourist site in India and I was not disappointed
The impressive visit began with having to queue for an elephant ride, which was taken full advantageof by the many salesmen wishing to sell you paintings, postcards, marionnettes, or else some form of rudimentary sitar. Prices, even for the same things from the same seller vary wildly, depending on how much they think they can get out of you, and it is not uncommon for a seller, having got a no from you for buying something for 20 rupees, to then jump up to 50, somehow belieing you’ll be more likely to buy it for that price than 20!
The elephant ride was an exciting and delightful, though slightly saddening and mildly disgruntling experience. The seats that are placed on top of the elephants for tourists at Amber Fort are simple constructions that manage to fit 2 people per elephant in a mildly uncomfortable sideways position. The ascent up to Amber Fort gives the passenger an ever inceasingly spectacular view of the surroundings and the 18km wall that goes around the fort, which is the third longest complete defensive wall in the world. As the slope steepens, you find yourself having to constantly readjust yourself as you slip towards the back of the elephant.
Looking more carefully at the other elephants as you continue up- particularly whilst looking into their eyes- you will begin to feel uncomfortable as you see how sad and tired they look. The healthy dark grey colour that you usually see of elephants’ trunks had faded into a peachy, pigmented sort of look on most of the elephants there- perhaps a mark of ill treatment? Surely they are not meant to be this colour?
As you follow the pathway up, there are at least 3 photographers along the way, seemingly desperate to get your photo and calling out or you to smile and look in their direction. The confusion we all felt at this soon cleared as we were leaving the fort and men suddenly jumped out clutching photos of us on our elephant, and, thrusting them into our hands, tried to sell them to us for as much as 2 for 250 rupees (about £4). In the end, bought 3 from one photographer for 50 rupees (just under £1), which I thought was quite reasonable.
Even if you have already paid for the elephant ride itself, you will certainly be asked for a tip as you are getting off. We gave the driver 10 rupees, which doesn’t seem like that much, but considering the average weekly wage in India is Rs. 500 or Rs. 600, I didn’t it seemes like too little. The driver protested that this wasn’t enough, however, so we gave him another 10 and asked to get off. He then proceeded to refuse to let us off until we paid him further more, a move which made me feel uncomfortable, a bit angry, and highly resisitant to the idea of giving him more money. We refused and though he kept us up there quite a while more, I realised that it was not in his interest to keep us there too long, as he evidently would make more money by moving on to transporting new customers as quickly as possible. That soon proved to be true, as he gave up and we were let off in the impressive first courtyard of Amber Fort.
Having been stuck in the unpleasant disagreement for the last part of our ride on the elephant, we had not yet had a chance to appreciate being inside the fort itself. We were taken around by a guide which I would say is definitely worth spending the extra on, particularly if you are a larger group, as there are not many signposts around the fort and you get so much more out of the experience, if you know more about it.
We were first shown around the hamman, or Turkish baths, which were only allowed to be used by the king (or raj) and whichever of hisqueens (rania) he happened to favour more at the time. The baths were complete with running hot and cold water and a steam room, which seemed so much more spectacular to me after just the few days I had been in India so far. Even staying with a host family who were very well-off (the husband was a doctor), we had still been limited to one bucket of cold water each per day due to ever increasing water shortages in the area. Running water was only available one hour per day, and our hosts told us that the Indian goverment have announced that water will soon only be available once every 3 days all across India. Whilst wandering through the maze of the bath complex at Amber Fort, it was bizarre to think that the raj was bathing here in whole pools filled with hot water back in the early 19th century.
Sheek Mahal (mirror palace) second largest mirror palace in the world after Versailles.
The secret corridor around the appartments of the 12 rania, so that the king could see one of them without the others knowing. Appartments around a pavilion where the 32 children of the 12 ranis played.
The natural cooling system on the side of the palace facing the mountains- waterfall of scented water behind a screen, and as it runs the room on the other side of the screen is cooled because of the cool winds coming through the waterfall into the room.
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