Elephants Garden :

Stopped over at Jaipur to see Hawa Mahal -- the palace of the Winds --with much terraces lined tightly and bay windows beautifully viewed. The hotel where I stayed in Jaipur was so impressive for me , and made me feel the atmosphere of long history and was run peacefully by an old man with an imposing presence who looked like being over 90 and had white hair, white beard. As the hotel locates behind a clump of trees, so it is difficult to be seen from the outside. A guest at the hotel enters through the poor gate viewing the white building far away and walks to the porch through the vast garden like a public square where enormous bo trees rise to the sky. In former days elephants were said to have been walking around the garden. The ancient slave rooms lined crumbling at the right side of the building and the cabins for employed relatives stood in the back garden where many children were running about then. The hotel is told that in ancient times it was the only one gorgeous hotel of European design in this district at that time and it was applied to the accommodation for the British families followed by slaves spending their long vacation at the colonial India. Furthermore, the nobles staying there were said to hold a party nearly every night to drive away their gloom and boredom forgetting hotness in a great hall built in wellhole style where the tiles on the floor are peeled off. The names of lords seem to be written in an old visitors' book which is so big and thick as to be carried in one's arms. The ceiling of my lodging room was also so high as to be looked up throwing my head back and the thick marble pillar stood in the middle of the large room as a coat hanger. The bath-room equipped with a big bathtub in which one of four supporting legs was lacked was also so wide as the bed-room. I felt the rate for my stay at the hotel, 500 yen, a little bit high because I had been used to inexpensive travels. ¡¡£°£°¡¿£±£°¡¿£²£·

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