As much as there was to see and do in Jaipur, the highlight of these few days was our accommodations at 28 Kothi, a guest house with lovely, quiet grounds, exquisite food, and the most charming of hosts. After the hubbub of our last large hotel, coming here felt like staying in the home of attentive, and very stylish friends. Our room had a small balcony where we could lie under the trees and wait for visits from birds and little chipmunks. When the sun went down the mini lights came on on our deck and everywhere. If you know me, you know how I feel about mini lights.

Dinner was served in the garden.

One of the first things you notice when you arrive in Jaipur is that the buildings are all painted pink (which explains why it is called The Pink City). Why, you ask. The answer: the city was painted Pink to welcome Prince Albert in 1876. A law was passed requiring all building to be painted pink, and it remains in effect.

As you can see, it’s kind of a salmony- pink.

We had been told about a number of options for seeing the old city, and had chosen Pink City Rickshaw Company which like many local tours uses auto rickshaws.

Our first stop was Albert Hall, a museum that, in case you’re wondering, was also named to honor the visiting British Prince.

Inside, a collection of art and artifacts that would take days to see properly. Think “Victoria and Albert”.

a few examples of the vast collection of pottery, these from Hungary

This from England: layers of paint applied in damp clay, then scraped away

This appealed to me:

10th c. twelve armed Shiva

as did this (maybe just the mood I was in)

Many examples of miniature paintings, a specialty of this region. Each panel here is about 2-3 inches wide. Many tell a story; this one records the dreams of a woman while she was pregnant with her son.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our next stop was at the City Palace, where we concentrated our attention on a series of what look like bizarre sculptures in the courtyard.

These are actually astronomical instruments that were constructed for taking measurements of and recording data on celestial objects. This is one of a number of such installations in India built in the 17th century by the Maharajah who founded Jaipur.

Jaya Prakash Yantra, used for finding “all the positions of the heavenly bodies”.

A quick stop along the way to see the Hawa Mahal (“Palace of Winds”) a fantastic honeycomb structure  built by Maharajah Sawai Pratap Singh in 1799 to allow the women of the court to discreetly watch the goings on on the street below.

The building is constructed of pink sandstone and has close to 1000 windows.

And now a word about Pink City Rickshaw Company.. This is a social initiative to train 200 women living in the slums to drive, and to take tourists around Jaipur on pre-arranged routes. Our driver (“Pinky”) was fearless, dealing not just with the mind  blowing traffic, but the dirty looks and insults of many male rickshaw drivers. The picture below was taken by someone at the company at their request, to use on their website.

With our driver

“Pinky” had a small journal, and she motioned to me to ask if I would write something in it (only one other person so far had done so). Along the way I had looked up how to say “You have the heart of a lion” in Hindi. I showed it to her on my phone and then wrote the English version in her book.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~