On way to Jaipur in minibus so v difficult to write. 6 hour journey through fascinating rural India dodging colourfully decorated traffic, blasting horns, narrowly missing people crossing the motorway rather nonchalantly! There are camels pulling heavy loads, cows strolling about the side; people carrying huge bundles; selling poppadoms as large as trays beautifully arranged like blossoming flowers; packs of monkeys being fed, people peeing, or just sitting, herds of goats shepherded alongside us, life is lived on the roadside. Further away women like colourful flowers gathering the harvest in the shimmering dry heat, tying it into neat patterns across the fields. What is so different here is that people use their hands so much more more than we do, always preoccupied with some mundane task or other in a way that we would never see in public in Britain any more. Bright Hindu temples suddenly pop into the dusty landscape – yellow, pink, orange.
Have done no sketching as yet, I’ve brought the wrong equipment- thinking India would be full of colour I brought florescent pens instead of watercolour but as yet it’s all grey and thick with grime.
Arrived. The hotel in Jaipur is very beautiful, gardens and covered verandas with wicker furniture, almost colonial. I have an air conditioned room with balcony.
And Jaipur is a delight – it IS pink! The architecture is a mix of Hindu and Moghul, the city walls and entrances as they’ve been for centuries. And the main streets are teeming with shops and monkeys and people and traffic and potholes.
Tomorrow the Amber Fort.
Drawing of the hotel is ?