Namaste, everyone! This week, let me take you to Jaipur, where we’ll watch a Bollywood movie at the Raj Mandir cinema, visit Galta-Ji, and admire the amazing architecture of the City Palace.
India is one of my favorite countries. I don’t mind coming back because of these four things: food, culture, architecture, and hospitality. Oh, don’t get me started with its garlic butter naan and butter masala chicken… 🤤😍🤤
After arriving in Jaipur, my One Life Adventures group tour checked in at our lovely accommodation, Suryaa Villa. It’s a boutique heritage haveli, so the exterior and interior designs were exotic 📸
Aand… my room was super big!!! Since I was the only solo female traveller, I got a room for my own without paying for a single supplement #lucky #blessed
I put my luggage and took some photos for my blog. Gosh, so many beautiful spots at this haveli! Luckily I stayed two nights there, hehe!
Afterward, we went to Raj Mandir, the World’s 3rd Best Cinema to buy movie tickets. Since the movie started in the afternoon, we had a long lunch before returning to the cinema.
After lunch, we played kites for a while to kill time. Afterward, we went to Lassiwala, a very popular lassi shop in Jaipur.
Although it was winter, the sun shone very bright in the afternoon. Remember to wear your sunglasses and apply sunscreen, guys!
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Watching Dunki at Raj Mandir Jaipur, the World’s 3rd Best Cinema
What’s better than watching a Bollywood movie that starred Shah Rukh Khan in India? It got even better because I watched it at Raj Mandir, the World’s 3rd Best Cinema!!! 🤩🤩🤩
Initially, Raj Mandir was an opera house but then turned into a cinema. The building was vintage, clean, and cold. It was such an experience to watch a movie with opera style like this:
Since Raj Mandir was an opera house, the cinema only played one movie because there was only one big hall.
When I was in Jaipur, Dunki was a newly released movie that was highly praised. Dunki aka ‘Donkey Route’, tells a story about four friends who dreamed of moving to London for a better life.
After they failed the English conversation interview and one of their friends committed suicide, they resorted to using a ‘donkey route’ aka an illegal route to cross the borders to fulfill his dream.
The 3-hour movie was very touching, intense, yet sometimes funny. Since the movie was very long, we had a break for 15 minutes after the first half.
The most intense part was when the four friends faced life-threatening danger. All the sacrifices, tears, sweat, and love… Yes, it wouldn’t be Bollywood if there was no touching love story!
Me and some of my friends shed tears when we watched Dunki… We could really feel their loss, sadness, fear, and heartbreak. Kudos to the actors and director, Rajkumar Hirani!
Surprisingly, when researching this movie for this blog post, I found that the intensity in Dunki was… based on real-life events.
It turned out that the illegal migration techniques in the movie were used by many Indians to go abroad in real life.
My prayer goes to those who lost their lives… may they rest in peace 🙏🙏🙏
Before dinner at the hotel, my friends signed up for a Zumba class from the hotel. I really wanted to join but my budget for this India trip was tight… So I just watched and took their photos, hehe!
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Visitting Galtaji aka Monkey Palace in Jaipur, India
Rise and shine! On the second day in Jaipur, we visitted Galta-Ji (Monkey Temple) and the City Palace (optional tour).
Since the colour of my dress matched the beautiful gate, I took this photo:
Galta-Ji is a Hindu pilgrimage. In this area, you will see a lot of wild monkeys roaming around, especially at the entrance. That’s how it earned its nickname, the Monkey Temple or the Hanuman Temple.
The first thing I saw after entering was Zanana Kund, a large pool or water tank, as the locals called it. Zanana Kund is one of the seven water tanks in Galta-Ji.
The water that filled the tanks came from a natural spring located high on a hill and flew downwards, filling up each tank.
The locals believe the water in the tanks is holy as there’s Saint Galav lives at the temple on the hilltop. So, they often bathe in the water tanks as it is considered auspicious.
When I was there, nobody bathe at Zanana Kund. But as I walked further up, I saw some people bathe in smaller water tanks.
Afterward, we headed to the City Palace of Jaipur. Yesterday evening, we only view the palace from the outside and snapped two group photos.
Did you know? It was difficult to get good photos in front of the iconic building because that view was located beside a main road.
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We had to cross the road to a narrow pedestrian street, and then the one who took our photo had to bend down very low to get all of us in the photo.
If you’ve been to the Petronas Twin Tower and have taken photos with the towers, that’s how low you have to bend down to get nice Jaipur City Palace photos!
Another problem was that the main road was very busy. So if you want to get a perfect photo, maybe you can use an app to erase the bus or people, or come very early in the morning 😄
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Admiring the Exotic Architecture of Jaipur City Palace
Alright, finally we reached the last destination of the Jaipur tour: the City Palace! The group tour had to take two jeeps to go to the royal residence.
Many people were visitting the City Palace, hence our jeeps were stuck in the traffic jam. Since the distance to the entrance wasn’t too far, we decided to walk.
Anuj took us to explore the place and gave us some information. It was interesting to hear the story while looking at the site, rather than depending on Google and trying to guess which area which.
That’s why I like to join group tours or have a tour guide when travelling. Besides taking photos, I also want to know the history behind it.
Alright, that’s the end of our Jaipur adventure! I hope you like our short trip to Raj Mandir, the World’s 3rd Best Cinema, Galta-Ji or Monkey Temple, and the City Palace.
Thank you for reading my blog and don’t forget to use my discount code if you plan to visit India (or Japan, Thailand, etc), hehe… Have a wonderful week ahead! 🌸🌸🌸
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Click below and enter my discount code:
CLARA15
Click “Add Promo Code / Voucher” and enter CLARA15 when you checkout at onelifeadventures.com
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