Saturday, May 30, 2009

Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur

Along with palaces, and other attractions we set our eyes on exploring the most important tourist attractions of the city i.e., the forts. In Jaipur there are 3 most amazing forts - Amber Fort, Jaigarh Fort and Nahargarh Fort. In this as the title of the post suggests we will explore Nahargarh Fort.

This fort is also known by the name Tiger Fort. When seen from the air it forms marvelous sight along with other two forts. It occupies the Northern part of Jaipur on the Aravalli Hills. It is strategically placed to cushion Amer from the enemy attacks.


According to the legend, this fort was named after a dead Rathore prince, Nahar Singh, whose spirit used to haunt the site and would cause collapse of the construction of the fort. Later a Tantrik's prayer was arranged to drive away the spirit, who agreed to leave on the condition that the fort should be named after him. Hence the name. The entrance of the fort leads one into spacious and impressive main courtyard, with large ‘dwars’ on both sides embellished with decorative motifs of elephants, warriors on horseback, flowers and birds. There are also weather-worn cannon carriages that have faced the ravages of time.

The Monsoon Palace



This palace was designed by eminent Bengali architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya. Built in two floors, the ground was for summer and the first floor for winter residence. It has nine suites, one for each of the nine queens of the maharajah. There are bathrooms, toilets, and kitchens, all well-lit and ventilated. An interesting feature is the long and architecturally elegant, but narrow, corridors, some with windows overlooking the main courtyard. It is believed that the these corridors were used by the maharajah to access each queen independently without the others having knowledge of his whereabouts, but hopeful of a visit nevertheless!

The doors and windows had colored panes, some of which are still intact. And some of the rooms still have Belgian mirrors adorning the walls. Even the brass door latches work. Each suite has the same design of floral and bird motifs. Even the hooks used for hanging the manually operated fans have painted designs to blend with those on the arches and in the niches. The plaster on the walls is of limestone, clean and smooth.

This is the top of the various suites of the palace.

Next we will explore the Jaigarh Fort.

P.S: December is the month when lot of tourists land in Rajasthan. So if you really want all the arrangements to be done properly this has to be done before October end.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Jaipur, the Pink City and more

After visiting many palaces of the city in Jaipur we continued to explore the city and visited quite a lot of forts and other monuments of the city. As we did not spend much time for shopping on the trip we thought of shopping in the city of Jaipur.

In Rajasthan this is the best city to do the shopping. There are many markets known for the art and craft of Rajasthan. Some of them are Kishanpol Bazar, Haldiyon Ka Rasta, Mahiharon Ka Rasta, M.I. Road, Jauhari Bazar, Bapu Bazar, Nehru Bazaar. Each of these markets offer wide variety of products. Explaining the variety does not make any sense and best enjoyed only by experience the shopping here.
There are several monuments in the city and let us visit few of them and the remaining in subsequent post.


Chokhi Dhani

It is neither a monument nor any heritage site. But it does showcase the Rajasthani tradition. It is a five star ethnic village resort located at Tonk road 35 kms away from Jaipur.

For the tourists visiting Jaipur it provides awesome experience with respect to Rajasthani culture. Every day one Mela is organized in the evening. People can visit Chokhi Dhani Village resort, have dinner, enjoy camel ride, Elephant rides, Bullock cart rides on nominal charges. They can also enjoy traditional dance forms, folk songs of Rajasthan here. There is opportunity for everybody who loves shopping in handicrafts.

Albert Hall

Many of the palaces of the rulers of Rajasthan were designed by a British architect, Sir Swinton Jacob. He also designed the Albert Hall. Today, it is home for exquisite collection of sculptures, paintings, objects of art, natural history specimens, an Egyptian mummy and a beautiful Persian carpet.

This is a beautiful place not to be missed during the Jaipur trip. Unfortunately we could not go inside as it was very early in the morning and we had to proceed with our journey as planned earlier. We could take only snaps of the place from outside and proceed further. But on my next visit to the city I surely plan to cover this and many more.

In the next post we shall visit other remarkable forts of the city.

P.S: December is the month when lot of tourists land in Rajasthan. So if you really want all the arrangements to be done properly this has to be done before October end.