DELHI, INDIA
The last stop on our three-day Golden Triangle tour was the City Palace Museum of Jaipur, which we visited this morning just as it opened. In addition to being a public museum, it's also the private residence of the Maharajah of Jaipur and his family. I was a little disappointed that unlike my friend Kirk, who somehow actually got to meet the Maharajah on his tour of India, I had to settle for looking at his collection of royal stuff.
Still, it was a pretty interesting collection. We walked through galleries of textiles and clothing once worn by the royal family and their ancestors, and large armoury featuring more guns, knives, swords, daggers, maces, and slicing implements than I think I've ever seen in one place. Oddly, this collection also featured an array of back scratchers--you know, the kind that looks like a hand on a stick--only these were fancy ones made of silver and precious stones. I'm not sure why these were included with the deadly weapons, although I suppose you could cause some damage if you lobbed one at an enemy. There was also an interesting art gallery that included more miniature paintings, some huge Oriental rugs, and a collection of photographs taken by a previous Maharajah around the turn of the 20th Century whose hobby was photography. We also saw a collection of ancient royal carriages and automobiles, and two huge silver urns in the museum courtyard which are supposedly the largest silver objects in the world.
Most of the rest of the day was taken up by the long ride back to Delhi, about 300 kilometers to the east. Thankfully, the road between Jaipur and Delhi is in much better condition than the one we took yesterday.
The last stop on our three-day Golden Triangle tour was the City Palace Museum of Jaipur, which we visited this morning just as it opened. In addition to being a public museum, it's also the private residence of the Maharajah of Jaipur and his family. I was a little disappointed that unlike my friend Kirk, who somehow actually got to meet the Maharajah on his tour of India, I had to settle for looking at his collection of royal stuff.
Still, it was a pretty interesting collection. We walked through galleries of textiles and clothing once worn by the royal family and their ancestors, and large armoury featuring more guns, knives, swords, daggers, maces, and slicing implements than I think I've ever seen in one place. Oddly, this collection also featured an array of back scratchers--you know, the kind that looks like a hand on a stick--only these were fancy ones made of silver and precious stones. I'm not sure why these were included with the deadly weapons, although I suppose you could cause some damage if you lobbed one at an enemy. There was also an interesting art gallery that included more miniature paintings, some huge Oriental rugs, and a collection of photographs taken by a previous Maharajah around the turn of the 20th Century whose hobby was photography. We also saw a collection of ancient royal carriages and automobiles, and two huge silver urns in the museum courtyard which are supposedly the largest silver objects in the world.
Most of the rest of the day was taken up by the long ride back to Delhi, about 300 kilometers to the east. Thankfully, the road between Jaipur and Delhi is in much better condition than the one we took yesterday.
posted by John Kuge at 9:17 PM
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