Awesome Food, Fashion, and Animals of Jaipur, India

Want dancingly bright colors on food and clothes, awe-inspiring mustaches, and CAMELS? Don’t miss the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan, India! It was a mega-highlight our teacher tour of India in December, and these photos demonstrate why.

In the first photo, how can you resist a moist emerald-green mystery dessert coated in silver foil and advertised with that irresistibly curly Indian script that looks like my hair on a windy day? Then the second photo: MUSTACHE. Epic mustache. There are many such facial hair specimens in Jaipur, and it makes an eye happy.

Then there are Jaipur’s luscious indoor and outdoor clothing markets. I bought all my sparkly Indian skirts in those stalls (after intense and passionate haggling) and my husband Colin purchased custom-made suits fit for a king for a fraction of the price. Below you can see the top-end fashion practice of hand-stamping patterns on cloth.

But enough of clothes… Let’s get to the animals! Though New Delhi has outlawed the famous Indian practice of cows wandering the city, Jaipur most certainly has not. In the span of ten minutes you can ogle goats, camels, elephants, cows, and pigs striding through the street, as comfortable as can be. “Tra la la!” sings this goat, below, as he frolics with the endless pigeons of Jaipur.

And who can forget CAMELS? Camels, sweet camels, make my Boston vision cavort with glee. There are more camel photos coming in subsequent articles, but here’s a sweet, small taste of Jaipur camel action until then:

Camels… Just hanging out with the cars in Jaipur, like, “What’s up? I’m a camel!” But meanwhile in the background (behind all the animals), India has more gorgeous buildings than it knows what to do with. Here’s one of my favorites in Jaipur: the Palace of Winds.

As in hectic Old Delhi, Jaipur has its share of mystifying and intriguing street food. I’d love help identifying the specimen below. Is it tomatoes with green beans with… dried grains? Clearly I need expert food identification intervention. Help!

It must be noted that even the TRUCKS in India add to the rainbow zeal. Can you imagine a burly trucker in Texas rocking out the vehicular decoration, below?

To close out this Jaipur post, allow my pregnant self to bring it all back to food: Sparkly, shockingly-colored, sweet and sticky food. Does it make you hungry, baby? Well, if green and silver candy doesn’t do it for you, click on these photos from a chocolate tour in Boston to see the funny similarity between the strawberry-shaped confection in India and one across the world in Massachusetts!

So does Jaipur seem like your scene so far? If you’ve been there already, what did you think? Do share!