day one in Jaipur: Hawa Mahal & Jantar Mantar

March 20, 2016

"Not open" a man says as we try the door to the bakery. "Open at ten" he says. "Who drinks coffee at ten?" Patrick says.

The rhythm of cycle touring doesn't match the rhythm of India and never more evident than on rest days. We still wake early, dress and go in search of C'est Bon Bakery. It's 8am, and the shop is closed. Checking the tablet and Lonely Planet, we go in search for the Indian Coffee House, the LP walking tour of the old city ends here. We have a picture of the place, we walk, check the GPS, we've passed it. We walk, check the GPS and we've passed it in the other direction. Finally Patrick spots the sign. The top of the building is gone, so no longer looks like the picture. We go through the passageway and find the coffee shop.

Turns out to be a bit of a hidden gem. French toast, jam and toast, scrambled eggs, Banana shake and coffee. After breakfast, we continue to walk the old city. Again, through the bazaar we are too early. A few of the shop owners are sweeping the trash from in front of their stores, most shops not open yet.

We find the ticket office for the various sites. There is a long line of men waiting to purchase tickets. Then a man tells Rachel to go to this other window with no line just next to the men's line. This is the time when there is an advantage to being a woman, because men and women line up separately. For 1000 rupees per person, we get entry to five tourist sites good for two days.

First we visit the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the wind, a five storey sandstone beehive of screened windows with little wooden shutters to peek out of. It was constructed in 1799 to give ladies of the royal household a chance to see how regular folk lived. From the upper floors are nice views over the city.

Next we walk to the Jantar Mantar, an observatory full of stone instruments built to measure things of the universe that make our heads hurt. Just inside an Indian family asks to take a selfie with us. After the pic, Patrick jokes "10 rupees" they laugh. Construction on the observatory was started in 1728. The huge sundial is accurate to 2 seconds. Other instruments measure things like azimuth, declination, predict eclipses and measure movements in the sky. Pretty amazing. Patrick wonders how they were able to build and calibrate these stone instruments with such precision, obviously most Indian craftsman today lack even the most basic skills.

We buy samosas at a street stall for lunch. Then negotiate a fare for a tuk tuk to take us back to our hotel. The traffic is even more chaotic seen from a tuk tuk compared to from the back of the bike. Just as in Ajmer, most the motorcyclists are wearing helmets and we see helmets being sold on the street. We return to the Pearl Palace for dinner of a BBQ chicken sizzler, mashed potatoes and spring rolls.

Early morning walk through the Pink City. Yep, it's nasty.

Rachel likes the decorated tractor at the Hawal Mahal.

One of the windows in Hawa Mahal. The small wooden shutters open for a peek.

View towards Jantar Mantar and Royal Palace.

27 meter tall sundial, accurate to 2 seconds.

Lots of compound curves cut from stone. Amazing they were able to do this and calibrate it.

The disk in the background has two sides, related to the plane of the equator. The stone bowl in the foreground has multiple uses, none of which we understand.

Patrick and Rachel's shadows on a very complicated instrument.

Back to today's world. Rickshaw wallah's waiting for work.

Mad dash through crazy traffic back to our hotel.

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