Few shop signs in Jaipur are written in the Roman alphabet, even when they contain English words – all the words are transliterated into Hindi. This is not a rare phenomenon in India, but I’ve never seen it on this scale anywhere else. I amused myself filming a few and pronouncing the words as written. English subtitles provided for those who can’t understand (or hear, given the background noise) my accent.
India Vlog 2005: Teej Festival, August 8
In the evening we saw the Teej parade.
India Videoblog: Jaipur – How to Tie a Turban
We ate lunch at the Surabhi restaurant and turban museum, where the waiter was delighted to discover that I speak Hindi – though not enough to follow everything he was saying. “I feel sad because I don’t speak much English, so I can’t converse properly with the customers,” he said. He was very concerned that Ross didn’t look happy (she was hot and tired). His solution, while we waited for lunch to arrive, was to demonstrate how to tie a turban.
This is only one of the many kinds of turban traditional in Rajasthan, as we learned when we visited the turban museum, which has examples of around 50 different types of turbans, most of them incredibly complex.
India Vlog: Jantr Mantr in Jaipur
India Vlog: Jaipur – Amber Fort
The book mentioned is Stephen Alter’s “Elephas Maximus,” a thorough account of the Indian elephant, in all its scientific, historical, mythical, and symbolic facets.
Amber Fort, just outside Jaipur, is best reached by elephant, and the ride is included in standard tourist packages. So off we went. It takes about 20 minutes altogether, but I edited it to 4:31 min, 28 MB
