This will be my first significant solo trip for nearly 40 years!

Republic Day in Jaipur

Wednesday 26 January

First the trip from my suburb into the city centre, with a rather personable rickshaw driver who showed me his notebook of references and letters of appreciation from tourists of various nationalities. (He made me read all the French ones, since I lived in France). Jaipur has a population of 2.5 million and it *feels* like a big city, curiously more so than Delhi did. Apart from a fair bit of modern multi-storey blocks, there seemed to be street after street of busy bazaars. For some people Jaipur is a shopper's paradise, but given that I'm never much good at shopping (as opposed to spending!), I have found shopping in India a bit of a strain. I hardly dare browse or look because the slightest glance at a stall and the stall holder is calling out "Hallo. Come here. Just look. Don't need to buy. Very cheap".

We entered through the old city gates into the Pink City proper. This is an extraordinary place, planned in the eighteenth century on an organised grid system, unlike the usual higgledy piggledy mess of alleyways I've seen in other cities here.

It is a city dominated by the influence of its remarkable founder, the Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II, who appears to have been a real renaissance man: apart from his interest in art, architecture and planning, he was a passionate astronomer and astrologer.

The grid system is apparently based on rules set out in ancient architecture texts, using a complex mathematical pattern, diving the city into twelve squares for the signs of the zodiac. Some of the buildings are made of red sandstone, others were given a similar red wash in 1857. The colour made me think instantly of Toulouse.

Comparisons with this city were even greater once I entered the palace. It is still occupied by the current maharajah, but the public bits are a series of elegant courtyards, with pavilions and halls, very similar to the classical lines of European architecture a century later, though of course with an unmistakable profusion of oriental splendour and ostentation.

There were, for example, two huge silver urns, apparently the largest silver objects in the world. These were used by the maharajah of the time to take the water of the Ganges to London, where he went for the coronation of Edward VII. He didnt trust the water of London...

There is not much evidence that the descendants of Jai Singh II shared his scholarship and taste. I think the basis of the incredible collection I saw in the palace museum was formed in his reign. There were Persian carpets, fantastic miniature paintings and what I am sure must be an exceptional collection of ancient manuscripts, in Arabic and Sanskrit as well as Hindi.

Elsewhere in the palace there were some nice details, such as a magnificent peacock doorway. But overall, despite the pleasing propertions and evident good taste of JS, I was a little disappointed by the palace, finding it lacked the charm of some of the others I have seen.

I was then surprised at myself, given my total lack of interest in all things scientific. I was quite excited by Jai Singh's observatory, which stands next to the palace. This is one of several he constructed in Jaipur and Delhi, but perhaps the biggest. He sent scholars all over the world to learn what was already known about astronomy and astrology and he himself translated treatises from Arabic and Sanskrit. He constructed all sorts of astronomical instruments, to measure the time and seasons and identify stars and planets. In order to increase their accuracy he experimented with constructing exceptionally large instruments and building them in stone rather than metal. The observatory has the appearance of a modern open air sculpture park, with extraordinary structures, the highest rising to 27 metres. I climbed this (and have a photo to prove it.)

I was flagging by now, and took a cycle rickshaw to the famous Hawa Mahal. This amazing five-storey building with over 500 screened windows was intended so that the women could watch street life while remaining in purdah. It is indeed a most incredible building, but sadly tatty. I risked my life in the traffic trying to get a photo of it (god knows how the professional photos were taken - they must have closed the street for these). I was ushered up a dark, narrow stair by a man who said there was a better view above. I'm not paying anything, I said. No problem he replied. We climbed several storeys and - he was right. The catch, of course was I was surrounded by rooftop gem shops. But I managed to extricate myself without coughing up a rupee.

To find the entrance I passed through particularly colourful and chaotic bazaars, clearly intended for Indians rather than tourists. Great fun, though I didnt like to photo too much - it felt intrusive. How nice it would be to be transparent.

I took another cycle rickshaw to a restaurant recommended in Guide Routard (bless the French) and entered a distinctly seedy looking hotel, to find there was a lift to take me to the rooftop restaurant. Opting for the terrace outside, I never saw the inside of the restaurant, and was the only customer. I was served by a young man coming from way up in the mountains on the norther borders of India. He had come to Jaipur in search of work and would have loved to talk more to me, as he said English was the key to a career in the hotel trade.

I then decided it was time to return and collapse in the hotel. Had a bit of a skirmish with the rickshaw, who clearly did not know where the hotel was, so we took the long route home, and then when we got here, or near here, we had a bit of an argument about what price I had agreed. I walked away sticking to my guns. I felt a bit low afterwards, because the difference was about 5-10p.

Had a very civilised cup of chai in the hotel garden, another Englishman sitting at another table, back turned to me, doing the same thing. And here I am now, in a cybernet shop across the road from the hotel, attempting to keep this diary up to date.

Then I was joined by a young (funny how I keep using this word, but the world seems sometimes to be divided between the 20-somethings and the 60-somethings) French woman, to whom I had said bon jour that morning. She had come to ask my advice about trips to game parks. No luck, I said, as I had decided to give them all a miss.

It turned out that she and her boyfriend were finding India a bit much to cope with and were wanting to seek respite from the noise, dirt, sales pressures, squalor and non-stop sight of so much poverty of the cities. Like the other couples I had met in the hotel- and me - they had moved up budget for a bit of peace. I suggested that they should do what I have decided to do - take an extra day in each place and attempt to do less each day, deliberately building in time to do nothing but sit and reflect. I suggested they might like to share a car with me to Amber tomorrow, but I think they are probably set on their game park trip.

I've just had a most entertaining ten minutes. I am surrounded by young, rather modern looking Indians. One of them called out as he passed me, "It's not Independence Day today, correct that to Republic Day" . He had clearly been reading over my shoulder. So I made the correction as instructed and asked him about Republic Day. He said I should have been in Delhi to see the most amazing spectacles of the year, complete with planes decorating the sky with the map of India.

I asked him what Republic Day meant to him. He said, apart from it being a special day because it was his father's birthday, it was a day to be proud to be Indian. I said that was interesting, as I did not feel particularly proud to be British, particularly when I thought of what our governments had done or were doing now. Ah, he said, being proud of India had nothing to do with what the government might be doing, or the corruption involved, it was proud of being Indian.

Another of the men handed me some of his popcorn and we talked about the difference between Indian and British attitudes to the family. The first young man said that for them, the family was the first priority and the country the second. Parents were the most important people in the world, as you had come from them. Caring for them was central to their lives. He contrasted this with what he, rightly, sees as the indivualistic culture of the West. I think he was also suggesting that western values would not be the same when they came to India as elsewhere, because of the strength of family feeling.