Saturday 7th July

Set out by auto-rickshaw for the Amber and Jaigarh forts which are about 11km north east of Jaipur. The options for getting up to the fort once you arrive in Amber are to go by jeep, by elephant or on foot. I opted for the latter, although was tempted by the idea of travelling by elephant! The poor elephants aren't exactly in the best of locations. Rajasthan isn't exactly a wet tropical climate and the few spots that might have water for them to bath in are nothing more than muddy puddles at this time of the year. Both of these forts are on the side of a hill, on the outskirts of Jaipur. Parts of this place reminded me of my visit to the Great wall of China a couple of years ago with structures stretching into the distance.



The views from both forts were pretty cool, with Jaigarh fort sitting further up the same hilltop as the Amber fort. I opted to continue on foot for the up hill journey to Jaigarh, although I did find myself questioning the wisdom of that option in the mid-morning heat on more than one occasion. I didn't come across any other westerners on the way up, although was joined by a few Indians. Thankfully there were a few stalls selling nice cold bottles of water once I reached the top, and there was also a nice shady ara to sit down. Without the water and the shade I probably would have been in a bit of a bad way after the long up hill walk in the heat, as I was feeling a little de-hydrated.

One of the main attractions of Jaigarh fort is a huge cannon made in the fort foundry which was constructed in Mughal times, dating from 1720 it has a barrel around 6m long made from a mixture of 8 different metals and weighs 50 tonnes. To fire it requires 100 kg of gunpowder and it has a range of 30km, although its debatable how many times this monster cannon was actually used.

Cannon at Jaigarh

The walk back down from Jaigarh to the village was much easier and enjoyable despite an increase in the temperature. I bumped into 3 local lads on their way home from school who have to walk up and down the steep path at least once every day. They caught me having a rest on the way down, and assuming I was on my way up to the fort invited me to join them on their up-hill walk. After chatting to them briefly I wished them well and continued the descent. A little further down I met a Canadian guy from Toronto who was on his way up. His first question was 'Is it worth it?', referring to the up-hill walk. When I explained what was to be found up at the Jaigarh fort he decided that the long up-hill walk probably wasn't worth collapsing over in the middle of the hottest part of the day and joined me on the walk back down to the village! We exchanged a few Indian travel tales on the way down and then went our separate ways. On the way back to Jaipur I stopped to take a photo of the 'Lake Palace', a fairly misleading name at this time of year as the lake is pretty non-existant.

The Lake Palace.

I had planned to go to the 'Monkey Temple' which is meant to be worth a visit at sun-set when large numbers of monkeys descend on the place, however this wasn't really an option due to some heavy rain showers. Instead I decided to grab something to eat at the OM restaurant which revolves to give good views of Jaipur from the 14th floor of the hotel that its part of. Unfortunately with the rain the visibility wasn't that great, and they didn't turn on the revolving mechanism until I was finished eating. It was a little odd being in what is supposed to be one of the top restaurants in the city and they didn't serve any alcohol.

Am travelling back to Delhi tomorrow evening by train for my last night in India!