After some hard bargaining with a wily old chap in a rickshaw we headed up the long back road that eventually lead to the fort entrance. He stopped on the way to allow us to take some pics.
Looking back across the old and new cities to the distant silhouette of the Umaid Bhawan Palace. This palace was apparently conceived by Maharaja Umaid Singh as a job creation program in a time of high unemployment and took 3000 workers 15 years to complete.
After I had assured our driver we didn't want him to wait and then drive us around all day visiting rip-off shops and sites we had had no interest in, he unceremoniously dumped us at the bottom of the final section of steep winding road up to the fort entrance. As we trekked up in the boiling midday sun, we were overtaken by various other groups of tourists who obviously hadn't pissed off their rickshaw drivers.
Clairy thought the indigo blue houses of the old city looked like a glacier stretching down in to the valley.
Genuinely quite mahoosive.
Opposite this gatehouse a cheerful security guard sheltering under his own tiny gazebo (or gay-zebra as Clairy likes to call them) checked our bags for guns and bombs then waved us on through.
Another pidgy-paradise where they had masses of space, but still chose to all live on a few tiny ledges.
'Weeeeeeeeee'.
After passing through the first of the fort's seven gates, known as Jayapol and built by Maharaja Man Singh in 1806, we headed towards the ticket counter. Meherangarh was the first of a number of places we have visited where they have whacked up the price of entry for foreign tourists, but now include an audio tour in the price. Now neither of us were that keen on the concept despite its advantages of allowing you to take the tour on your own and at your own pace, but the lonely planet had decreed that all should 'cast aside their audio tour prejudices as this one is genuinely quite stonking...' or words to that effect, so we did, and it was.
From the atmospheric Rajasthani folk music, interviews with the royal family, and vivid retelling of ancient battle strewn stories, the audio was consistently excellent and had been produced to a really high standard. The narrator had a beautiful old world Indian-British accent that suited the content perfectly and me and the lady were totally enthralled from the start.
The audio began with the description of a very nearly successful attempt to conquer the fort that managed to break through the outer walls to the second gate shown below. The cannonball marks are still visible on the left hand side.
Looking down at the area of the old city behind the fort where we were staying.
The shape of the fort follows the contours of the 125m high hill that it is sat upon. The path up to the final gate was very steep.
Just before entering the Lohapol (iron gate), Clairy was mesmerised by the musicians that played for tips. She certainly seemed to get the chap on the left's attention.
The final gate had been designed cleverly with defence in mind. First it was at the top of that steep hill, and the gate was positioned at a tight right-angle to the hill, meaning it would be impossible to build up any momentum for the purposes of ramming. Secondly were these horrifically nasty looking spikes just at about the height of an elephant's forehead.
Just inside the iron gate were these tragic terracotta hands. These represent the marks of Maharaja Man Singh's widows and concubines who through themselves upon his funeral pyre in 1843.
The palace within the fort was designed around a number of airy courtyards. The doorways and windows would have cotton covered blinds hung from them in the heat of summer that had been dipped in scented water. This created a natural fragrant cooling effect. These blinds were known as chics.
Off this first courtyard was an impressive selection of royal howdahs (seating for riding elephants).
Lovely scalloped walls running though the howdah gallery.
This was our personal favourite with its peacock motifs.
Every surface was dripping with intricate carving like a south-American piped iced cake.
This gold pallequin ... was apparently one of the most expensive ever created (though could maybe do with a little affectionate restoration these days). It required twelve strapping chaps to lift it.
Peeking out an upstairs window after making it up some slightly vertigo inducing steps. This was not helped by the arrival of the noisiest Indian family yet, whose multitude of children meant our audio tour could only continue if we held our hands over our ears to block out the piercing background shrieks.
Looking back across the beginnings of the Shar desert. A great spot for picking off your enemies with canons.
And right on time come the squealing swifty-peglets.
They do tend to turn up when the Clairy reaches the rooftops.
As the shrieking children retreated with their faces glued to bottles of fizzy pop purchased from the halfway point museum tuck-shop we experienced a quite mesmerising phenomenon. Out of the quiet, came astonishingly complex yet clear rampages of noise from the streets and bizarres below. We could hear individual voices through the bustle and chaos as if they were just beyond the wall, not kilometres away. To me it was almost as if we were hearing sounds from an ancient city blown up to us from across the desert.
From our viewpoint up the top Clairy got this great shot of one of the security guards using his turban as a handy pillow.
Lovely jalis (carved stone screens) on the women's part of the palace. This was so that they could look out but not be seen themselves.
This was one of the previous Maharaja's entertaining rooms, decorated after the British had begun there arrogant interference in India's affairs. Sadly the preferred types of decoration and art style quite swiftly became more oriented towards European ideals.
In this picture the Maharaja is being entertained by his many ladies, with tasty food and drinks all around him. Apparently he would regularly stay up all night. Personally I think I probably would have done too in his position. The addition of the halo around the Maharaja derives from the artist's exposure to Byzantine styles.
The royal ladies playing polo. The lucky things didn't have to cover themselves from head to toe as the Maharaja is the only bloke present on this occasion (and we assume his impure thoughts are actively encouraged!).
Pidgies! Go do something useful!
Down below are the recently renovated fort gardens that we didn't end up having time to check out.
Ahh...and a good half an hour after the previous picture the guard was still sleeping. We didn't really blame him. To me it had to be a similar level of boredom to my brief foray into the retail world at Esprit in Clark's Village. Unlike this chap though, I invested a fair amount of time in finding places to sleep where I wouldn't be spotted.
The inattentive guard was supposed to be keeping an eye on this collection of cradles created on the occasion of the birth of a new royal.
Within the Zenana (women's section) was this room with lovely stained glass. From here the Maharaja occasionally conducted important meetings. On the opposite wall were high recesses that looked decorative, but in fact were hidden balconies from where the ladies could eavesdrop on suspicious types present at the meeting and report back to the Maharaja later on.
The Zenana was particularly ornately decorated, inside and out.
When traders came to the door of the women's section, the guard who was normally a eunac, would decide if he thought they were capable of dealing with the temptation contained within!
The final courtyard where sadly the audio tour ended. It really was fantastic.
A close up of some lovely floral motifs.
And last but not least, the beautiful Clairygirl.
There was a small exhibition just before the museum shop, which turned out to be organised by the V&A of all places. It was a collection of romanticised and picturesque scenes and landscapes from all over India painted by turn of the century European artists. It made quite an interesting end to a really stunning tour of Meherangarh.
No comments:
Post a Comment