Jaipur - part 3

Today, our 2nd full day in Jaipur, we set off to explore the rest of the old town. First stop was the Jantar Mantar, an observatory created by Raja Jai Singh in 1728. It contains 19 different large-scale devices for measuring time, the elevation of the sun, the tilt of the earth, the position of the stars and constellations etc. They had fallen into disrepair by the end of the nineteenth century and were restored in the early 1900s. All the various instruments are still in working order and remarkably accurate.

The world’s largest sundial is shown below with the left hand crescent of marble showing the time to noon, and the right hand crescent from noon onwards. It’s supposedly accurate to 2 seconds, albeit that it is set to Jaipur time which is 17 minutes earlier than the official time in India (which has been set based on the central city of Allahabad. The last two images show the detail of two of the other devices. We had the services of a local guide hired on site to make sense of it all - fascinating and well worth its UNESCO world heritage listing.

Then on to the Hawa Mahal (the palace of the winds). Little to see inside, but the outside is a very familiar image, which we were able to capture from a rooftop cafe opposite.

Then a wander through the bazaars, enjoying the local life and colour….and avoiding the persistent demands of the shopkeepers!

We walked as far as the Albert Hall museum, for which Bertie laid the foundation stone when we visited the city as Prince of Wales. Rather tired, so not a lengthy stop. Picked up an Uber and got out of town to see the Sisodia Rani ka Bagh, a small palace and gardens built for a princess of Udaipur who married into the Jaipur royal family but demanded her own place as as price. More or less empty of tourists and a pleasant place to sit and eat our lunch and read for a while.