Speaking of not so great pictures...

The sun was behind this monkey so I couldn't get a great shot, but I happened to be taking a picture of it when that huge bird -- I'm assuming it's a kite as there were a lot of those around Jaipur -- swooped into the frame.

With better light and a longer lens it would have been an amazing picture, but in photography as in life sometimes we get what we get.

Sunday bird blogging

This white-throated kingfisher at Keoladeo National Park was way back in the underbrush, so this is a terrible photograph, but those colors demand to be shared anyway.

We stopped at Chand Baori on our way back from the bird sanctuary, so logically this is actually the next batch of pictures to sort through. But I'll probably save most of the bird pictures for later in the year when I'm stuck photographing the same old robins and blue jays in New York, and do the rest of my Indian trip instead.

Plus I have to go into the office today, which sucks on so many levels, so I won't have time to work on photos.

Chand Baori carvings and reliefs

More of the architecture close up

Plus parrots.

The good seats

The stairs surround the well on three sides; the fourth wall is this temple.

The small chambers on either side of the pillars were the royal lounges, so they could enjoy the cool air without having to mix with the riffraff.

The steps

Chand Baori is more than 100 feet deep and has 3500 steps. It was built in the 9th century, which is astounding to me -- I can't believe I'd never heard of it before I went there. (I knew vaguely about stepwells because I'd seen some photo essays on them.) 

Even with the aid (presumably) of elephants, it's an amazing feat of engineering. After more than a thousand years, the stones are all still perfectly symmetrical.

Stepwells

There were once more than 3000 stepwells in Northern India. The silty soil doesn't hold water, so they provided a way to store the water from the annual monsoons. People gathered to get drinking water, to bathe, and also to find some refuge from the heat of the summer -- in the largest stepwells, like this one, Chand Baori, east of Jaipur, the temperature down by the water would be much cooler than up at ground level.

Of course, once you'd carried a few pails of water up all those steps, you weren't likely to feel all that refreshed.

Saturday reflections

One of the giant silver urns in the City Palace in Jaipur.

Kesar Kyari Bagh

This garden, in the lake below the Amber Fort, was originally built to grow saffron for the maharajahs.

More monkeys

More fun than a balcony of monkeys

I'd seen a few monkeys by the City Palace downtown, but they clearly loved the Amber Fort. They stayed high up on the walls and balconies and seemed to mostly ignore the tourists. Almost as if they owned the place.

Practical decoration

These screens are each carved from a single piece of marble. They provided both privacy for the inhabitants of the palace, and ventilation during the hot summer months.

And I love how that window in the center appears to be a painting hung on the wall.