We have one more attraction planned in Jaipur and that is Albert Hall Museum which is to the south of all other attractions. Initially we planned to visit it the next day however our driver recommends today as he wants to take another route the next day and to the museum we go. For this we have to pass through the snarled traffic in the downtown area, which is nice actually as we can enjoy the buildings and take photos along the way.
In fact the route takes us past the Palace of the Winds and along the route we walked the day prior, quite a different experience to pass it while in the safety of the car.
There are some beautiful buildings along the way trying to keep the theme of pink buildings and sometimes failing in our opinion. But architecturally they can be quite distinct and we enjoy the short jaunt through the southern area of Jaipur.
The museum entrance is literally mobbed when we arrive with multiple school groups that we have to wait to pass before being able to enter. Outside the main entrance is a large plaza which can be accessed for free and seems to be used for photos, this is unexpectedly a really popular location.
Albert Hall is the oldest museum in Rajasthan and serves as the state museum. It was opened as a museum in 1887 and has an eclectic collection and is unexpectedly very popular with lots of locals visiting and very few tourists, a difference from other touristy locations we visited.
Right inside is a collection of beautiful carpets and we take a few photos, without flash of course. Suddenly a guard shouts, “no photos”, there is no sign anywhere and other people do take photos so we are shocked and stop photographing in the room while trying to avoid the guard going forward. We assume it is related to the carpets or the guard just had a bad day because no other guard seems to care throughout the museum.
The building is quite special even though it has an European feel from an architectural standpoint. The decorations and embellishments are more Indian though so it is a nice mix.
The section that we enjoy most is the pottery section. There are many exhibits focused on major pottery centers in India with various types and colors and we can get an idea of the breath of pottery types in the country.
We do our best not to get lost or distracted but it is difficult as the building is symmetrical so visual cues do not help and has paths that are cordoned off so we cannot go directly from here to there and if we lose track we can easily assume we are in a different area. There are also lots and lots of visitors and passing through the masses of people can also be quite disorienting.
There are some nice reliefs taken from temples and palaces with good descriptions in English, allowing us to better understand what is represented and the history behind each artifact.
Slowly we make our way our way to the weapon section which has artifacts from medieval to modern times including many ornamental shields. We assume that the practical shields were destroyed in the many wars that were fought and only the ornamental ones remained :).
This is likely also the most popular section in the museum, behind the mummy of course, with people pressed side by side to see the exhibits.
There are also sections that are less popular. For example for whatever reason the top floor that has old parchments has no visitors.
The most popular by far exhibit is the lonely mummy in the museum. Even our driver knew about it and told us to see it. We have seen mummies before in many museums but this gives us an idea on how rare they might be in countries that didn’t have the opportunity to loot the Egyptian pyramids like many European powers did.
There are also more eclectic exhibits like one showing yoga poses and another one head covering types across the country and then suddenly we are at the exit and it is time to leave.
We make our way around the museum to the parking lot surprised that we were able to visit the museum, we stayed one hour inside but it when we arrived it was less than half hour to close. We notice that they do not let any new people in but it seems that they let people to finish visiting not throwing them out like many European and North American museums do.
We are really tired when we arrive at the hotel, we have visited lots of places today. So we really debate on whether to take a unique opportunity that presented itself. The hotel owner offers to take us on foot to the close by important Hindu temple at 8PM. Our feet scream no but really is there was there any doubt that we wil take him up on his offer? So at 8:30PM we walk through the park at night towards the temple. We are surprised at the traffic through the park, most people likely go or return from the temple.
The park looks impressive on the map but is still under repair, with the fountains not working and paths being rebuilt. According to the hotel owner, this is ongoing for decades so not a good chance it will get fixed soon. And then we are on the temple grounds and we start with Satsang Hall that our guide tells us is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world’s widest concrete building. And for certain it is a really wide one, we cannot enter it but we can guestimate from outside.
The temple itself was the Raj’s palace temple but now it is cut off from the private garden of the palace so people can visit at any time. The palace, the one that we visited the day prior, is visible only through a window and there are guards patrolling the area behind the window.
Even this late at night the Govind Dev Ji temple is full of people walking in circles around the central altar. The hotel owner explains that the movement is simply so there is a flow of people entering and exiting and not necessarily a ritual as we initially assumed. The temple is dedicated to Govind Dev (Krishna) and his consort Radha. The deities of the temple were brought from Vrindavan by Raja Sawai Jai Singh II, the founder of Jaipur and is considered to be one of the most sacred and significant temple for devotees. And then we return to the hotel and fall in the bed and do not awake till the next day, now it is time to see the tigers, hopefully.
