Spent two days in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, or the Pink City as it is also called. Jaipur is primarily famous for three things, the Hava Mahal (Palace of the Winds, picture below), the City Palace and the magnificent Amber Fort (picture). Outside of this, it is a very busy, dirty and aggressive city, where people are very used to tourists and have worked out many scams to trick them of money.
I took the public bus to Amber instead of a taxi or a rickshaw, just for the fun of it. It was basically free and took 30 minutes. I was the only foreigner on the bus and got a lot if curious looks when I entered. It was crowded to say the least, and the use of deodorant by some passengers would have been appreciated, but I had a great time watching the scene. I wanted to take pictures but felt it was not quite appropriate. Besides, I could not move enough to get the camera out of the bag anyway.
Amber Fort was a beautiful fort up on a mountainside. It was large, spectacular and beautiful. However, as lovely as it was, I found myself even more intrigued by all the Rajasthani women in their colorful outfits - shy, exotic and beautiful.
I tried to photograph them without being too obvious, worried that they would find it offensive or intrusive. However, I was soon to find out that the Indians themselves were just as interested in photographing me, and they were not quite as subtle. I was approached by two guys that asked if they could take a photo with me. When I accepted, their whole group of friends wanted in on the picture. I thought that was funny, and a bit odd. One hour later, when I had been asked to be photographed about ten times, I felt like a celebrity and it was becoming clear that for some reason it must be cool to be photographed with a western woman. I wonder what my day would have been like if I had been blonde…
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