Day 5 Jaipur

To continue our sightseeing we left Agra for Jaipur this morning. On the way we were planning on stopping to visit the oldest step well in India, and about halfway through the drive to the well we stopped at a rest area. In the states if I said we stopped at a rest area it would mean some possibly questionable bathrooms and maybe some vending machines, a very in-and-out experience. In India a “rest stop” is a carry over from the times of travel by camel when you’d stop to rest for a day. A “quick stop”, I’ve learned, really means we’ll be stopping an amazing meal and a fresh batch of chia tea, this means we’re resting for about an hour. If we’re really in a rush it’ll just be the tea but it sill takes about 20 minutes. Not that I’m complaining, it’s become one of my favorite things and if we don’t stop to have tea at least twice a day the entire group complains. I just find the difference to what we do back home entertaining.

We got back on the road, fully rested and refreshed, and finally made it to the step well. This was nothing like the well from a few days ago. This was a massive 13 level well with a full temple built into the side.

The area was used to store water obviously but it was also used to escape the heat of the desert, and the temple used the water to preform scared rituals. The well is no longer used for its intended purpose but it is connected to the ground water in the area and will react as those levels change.

The area was impressive, but my favorite part of the day was actually on the bus after leaving. This group is made of almost entirely engineers and rather than simply enjoy the scenery and move on, someone posed the question of “if you jumped from the top, could you make it to the water at the bottom?” This seemingly simple question turned into an hour debate that involved math and physics, there were full diagrams and calculations being done. Throughout the discussion we decided we would optimize out chances and assume the jumper would be an Olympic level long jumper, so of course we had to look up the record for the longest jump. After a truly impressive amount of discussion, we were so animated our professors joined in on the debate, we decided that there wasn’t enough of a run-up area to get the necessary speed to clear the steps so it would be impossible to make it to the water. This turned into a discussion on what we could do to make it possible, what tools we could use to make this hypothetical work, my contribution was to run on a treadmill to build speed and then jump. Then it was a competition to come up with the most absurd way to cross the opening. Then it was a question of if you could jump from one of the top step block to the next to go around the perimeter (you totally can), which involved even more research and diagrams. It was a really great bonding moment with the group and it was really fun to use all the design and calculation skills we have to just have fun rather than complete an assignment.

The final drive to Jaipur passed quickly with the entertainment and soon we were driving though the ancient walled city. Before heading to our hotel we visited the bazar. A bazar is basically an outdoor mall/market where you can buy pretty much anything, the catch to this is that you have to haggle for prices. I quickly learned I’m very bad at that. I strongly prefer just knowing how much something costs and moving on so I turned to people watching while the rest of the group tried to drive down prices, some were more successful than others.

After a full day of travel and shopping we were very ready to rest. We chatted on the bus for a bit as we drove and when we stopped front of a beautiful palace we were slow to get up because we thought it was another tour and while we were excited to see more, we were also confused because we were told we were done for the day. So we were very happy to learn this wasn’t another place to tour, it was where we’d be staying for the night… in a literal palace! We couldn’t see much of the main building in the dark but the interior was beautiful, open air courtyards, cozy seating areas and everything painted the iconic Jaipur pink it was a pretty good end to a very fun day.

P.s. for those reading this (thank you), my group says hi