Day 11 - Up the Monkey's Backside

Day 11 - Thursday 10 November.

Up the Monkey’s Backside, Jaipur

View of "frontside" from Suriya Termple on hilltop

Tomorrow's date, 11/11/11, is a once in a century coincidence; it also adds up to 6 (good news for Hindus) and coincides with the full moon and the holy month of Kartika. So it’s is an ultra-auspicious time for a pilgrimage. Our rickshaw driver, Ravi, wants to take us to the Temple complex at Galta, in the hills just east of Jaipur city. Usually, it swarms with thousands of monkeys, hence its popular name of Monkey Palace. "You want go up monkey backside?" Ravi asks. Slightly dubiously I ask for the alternative. "Monkey frontside no good for you," he warns, "too much walking." At least, I think he says walking. Unfortunately, almost everyone else prefers the backside, too, so the narrow road is totally constipated with traffic and we end up with a blockage. I leave the rickshaw by the roadside and join the throng to continue on foot.

Banana boy at the fire pit

This is not one temple, but a series, rising in terraces up the steep hillside. I buy offerings, bagged up in a stapled sheet from a Hindi newspaper -  peanuts in their shells (for the monkeys, though most seem to have scarpered, displaced by the human flow), rice sweets and grain. There’s a brisk trade too in candles, incense sticks, marigolds and bananas, glittery ribbons and cloths, which are either given to people at the pathside, or left prayerfully at the many shrines. The entrance arch (50 Rupee photo fee) leads to an open square heaving with pilgrims, and lofty courtyard temples up steps on either side. I enter one barefoot. At its heart is an ashy firepit, smoking with burning incense and offerings. Devotees (mainly women) also present offerings at little shrines to various deities, then sit lotus-like and clasp the hands in prayer. Men and children are less in evidence, presumably at work or school.

Female bathing pool above the lower temples

Four pools are fed by a natural spring. The first is for floating candle offerings. From here, steps lead up to a large stone-lined bathing pool. Hundreds of women crowd onto the terrace, all in their brightest saris. Some tip water over each other from copper bowls, others drop the upper halves of their saris (and their modesty) to duck right under the greenish water. A solitary white man is caught up in their midst, but no-one seems to mind.

I continue up the narrow steps, pass a smaller pool for male ablutions, skirt round a deep offerings pool (where monkeys are feasting on donated peanuts and the "big cheese" priest is holding forth with a megaphone) and come out by two more small temples. From here a slippery pathway leads steeply to the hilltop and one final smaller whitewashed temple. Its ancient golden image of Suriya the sun god faces east to catch the sun’s first rays, and I light my last incense stick and gaze out across Jaipur city below. The “frontside” path looks very steep; definitely "too much walking". I’m glad I chose the “backside” after all.
 

Holy Cow ! (true)

Back at the bottom path, our trusty driver spots as and takes us to the auto, parked nearby. From here to the Hawa Mahal, the pink icon of pink Jaipur. This is the tall narrow building with multiple layers of little windows from which the ladies of the court could watch life in the street below. It, too, is swarming with people, but this time they are tourists. We return to the hotel, from where I make a third and final sally to Raisa Plaza. I buy a (cheap) 'phone from mobile-man Dev. He pulls a tab on the phone's pouch to show how smoothly it emerges from its sheath. His guru eyes seem to say "buy this and all shall be well." 

Hawa Mahal, pink icon of the pink city

Dinner and a tuk-tuk to the station for the 20.10 twice-weekly Amritsar Express. We are in the only AC3 coach, the best class available on this train. This arrangement has berths lengthways down one side of the carriage and sets of 6 crosswise berths. I like my upper lengthways berth, head towards engine. No danger of being catapulted onto the floor (as happened to me in a French train crash in 1967). My only anxiety is the chrome handle shaped like a thin pinecone that hangs mid-berth, just where I might accidentally grab it during the night. The sign warns "To stop train, pull chain. Penalty for use without reasonable and sufficient cause up to Rs.1000 and or imprisonment up to one year." This could be a longer holiday than I planned (and expensive while the lawyers define "reasonable and sufficient".)