Day 13 – The Amber Fort, Amazon and a Girl Named Lachmi

In the morning we drove to the Amber Fort and rode an Elephant on the pathway to the main gate high above us. At first it seemed unnatural and uncomfortable, but Amazon struck up a conversation with our driver. The elephants name was Lachmi and that was about all she could get out of him. After about a 10 minute steady climb, we entered the fort and alighted from our lofty perch back to terra firma at the landing platform. We reunited with our guide to start the tour.

Very early on some similarities emerged between this and prior forts we visited on this trip.

1. Each had separate male and female quarters.

2. Each queen (there were several in every case) enjoyed their own qauarters with secret or hidden passages to the king’s quarters.

3. Each had separate accommodation for children.

4. Concubines were kept in different quarters, away from the queens.

5. The king’s courts were very similar to each other with a raised platform for the king, a lower floor base for his ministers and advisors, a lawn below that for the commoners to observe proceedings and screened rooms, one level above for the queen’s to observe proceedings without interfering with proceedings and out of sight to all below.

6. A separate place for king and guests to observe entertainment (queens above and screened off).

I have summarized this in the interest of brevity and to avoid boring the reader with what Amazon repetitively referred to as “amazing” and “unbelievable”.

We followed this with a visit to the astronomical observatory adjacent to the City Palace. It has several unique forms of sundial to accurately tell time using the sun’s angle of declination and a shadow cast on a time scale. Together with a reading from another device, local time can be calculated within 20 seconds. A larger version on the site can read to within 5 seconds. These contraptions are so large, you can actually see the sun’s shadow moving.

There are also devices dedicated to locating the 12 signs of the zodiac. These are used by hindu priests to select acceptable marriage dates for couples based on their zodiac signs. Our date was picked by my father in law based on the availability of Farrell hall (he supplied catering services there. That seems a whole lot simpler and he was under a time constraint to get Amazon married before she ~~came to her senses~~ changed her mind.

Next, we saw the City Palace museum where artifacts of the family of the Maharaja’s of Jaipur were displayed. The current Maharaja ascended to the throne at the age of 4 and is now 70 years old. He lives next door in the posh side of the palace with his wife (alas no concubines), managing the family wealth including 4 local hotels (2 at 5 star status). I think Amazon was thinking what might have been had she visited India before she ~~settled~~ married me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the good old days and concubines.

That night I went for a wander around our hotel and found a Hindu wedding just starting up. I found my way back to our hotel and called up Amazon to tell her what I found. When I got to the room she was gone without leaving a note. She was in a big hurry to see the spectacle.