From the Pink City

Tonight I flew into Jaipur, the capital of the state of Rajasthan and known as the "Pink City".  Ironically enough, it received that nickname because it's pink.  In preparation for a visit from the Prince of Wales in 1853, the city was painted pink to give the impression of red sandstone Mughal architecture (the Persian Mughals ruled most of what is currently India for about four hundred years prior to the British).

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This is the palace my hotel is part of.

 

Founded in the eighteenth century, Jaipur was India's first planned city.  As you can see in the map, it is laid out much more orderly and logically than most European cities.

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I think Paris makes for a good comparison.

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Jaipur has been named as the seventh best city to visit in Asia and has much better infrastructure than the rest of India.  The airport is shiny and new, in stark comparison to the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi (Indira Gandhi was an assassinated female Prime Minister, not the assassinated bald guy who led India to independence from the British Empire... she was assassinated by Sikhs after she sent troops into the holiest Sikh shrine to remove armed separatists who were amassing weapons there... the operation killed as many as 5,000 Sikhs).  The city has become a hub for education in India, sort of like Boston.

As visible in the photos, the city is famous for it's palaces and is known for it's hospitality.  The hotels and resorts are known for replicating the hospitality once reserved for royalty.  One of the coolest options is the Palace on Wheels, which runs throughout Rajasthan (pronounced closer to Rah-jah-stan).

We are in Jaipur because Rajasthan is India's largest (by land area) state, while also being one of the most populated and poor.  Outside of Jaipur, the state's economy is primarily agriculture and crafts, e.g. textiles, with high levels of malnutrition (about half the children) and child mortality rates (1 in 10 will die before age 5), with poor access to water (28% of households have running water, compared with nearly 90% for the entire nation) and sanitation.

We are mostly meeting with state government officials before heading to Hyderabad on Thursday, so unfortunately I don't think I am going to get to see much of the state beyond Jaipur.  If I do have time for an excursion, I'm going to head to the border with Pakistan to watch the daily flag ceremony.  I joked with some of my Indian friends that I should throw some quarters at the Pakistanis to see if I could provoke a border skirmish (don't worry, Mom, I won't... though I bet I could get an amazing book / movie deal out of it).