Our first World Heritage site in Rajasthan covers a series of six Hill Forts, spread
across much of the state. For our visit, we opted for the Amer Fort, just outside the
city of Jaipur. Located on a hilltop, this enormous complex is a combination of fortress
and palace. Although there's been a fort on the site since the 10th century, most of the
current complex was built during the 16th and 17th centuries by the local Rajput rulers.
The fort itself is massive, with a large series of audience halls, palace chambers, ceremonial
gateways and courtyards, temples and pavilions. And the decoration is simply sublime, with
flowery Arabic and Persian-inspired motifs running across many of the structures, but
with classically Indian styles as well. The whole effect is stunning, and it takes most
of a day to see and appreciate the whole structure. Next up is an unusual World Heritage site,
a classical observatory, known as the Jantar Mantar. It's a collection of 19 astronomical
instruments built by king Jai Singh the Second in the early 18th century. The instruments
are mostly built of stone and marble on a fairly large scale to enable greater accuracy,
and includes the world's tallest stone sundial - accurate to within about two seconds!
Other instruments are used to calculate things like the position and movement of stars, predict
eclipses, signs of the zodiac, changing of the seasons, and even a sort of world clock!
It's a really interesting spot, and fascinating to spend a few hours wandering around and
thinking about the instruments. Keoladeo National Park is considered one of
the most important bird sanctuaries in all of India, possibly even the world. Every year,
thousands of migrating birds (mostly water birds) flock here during the winter - an incredible
spectacle that attracts hundreds of different species. We spent an atmospheric foggy morning
cycling around the wetlands, where we saw all sorts of different birds: storks, pelicans,
ducks, egrets, kingfishers, cranes, cormorants, and many others.
One thing we actually found quite interesting about the area is that the wetlands are man-made!
They were originally created in the early 18th century with a system of canals and dams
altering the flow of nearby rivers. This turned what was part of the local flat desert land
into a wetland and haven for birds - fascinating! Although not technically a current World Heritage
site, the Pink City of Jaipur is a Tentative World Heritage Site, and will be voted on
at the World Heritage conference in 2019. India has nominated the centre of Jaipur for
the World Heritage List due to what's known as the "Pink City" area - the historic core
of the city where all of the buildings are painted in a pale shade of pink.
Apparently, pink is the colour of hospitality in Jaipur, and the buildings were painted
this colour in honour of the Prince of Wales, who visited Jaipur in 1876. The most impressive
building here is easily the Hawa Mahal, or the Palace of the Winds, with its huge and
intricately designed pink-and-white facade.