The train ride during the day was uncomfortable at best after a night of broken sleep on the sleeper berth ( see photo) . The shout of “Chai..chai ….CHAI “ from the tea sellers at every given opportunity hadn’t helped + weird gangs of transvestite train dwellers that clapped their hand loudly at people who didn’t give them money, didn’t make for a peaceful nights sleep…..creepy!. There was an English couple in the berths next to me to talk to and plenty of Indian kids wanted to practice their English so managed to pass the time. Finally got into town at 7.30pm. Managed to find a cheap room in the banipark area of the city after looking at a few different options with my tout provided rickshaw driver. The room was pretty dirty but had an en-suite bathroom and a TV. Ordered a curry through room service for about 80p and spent the evening watching bollywood movies and cricket highlights.
Next morning awoke at 10am to the sound of heavy rain to find the room in darkness, turned out the my window only lead onto a large ventilation shaft, oh well you win some you lose some. Not long after turning on the lights there was a power cut that left me in total darkness again. Got my stuff together using the light of my mobile and went to reception to see what was occurring.
The rain was heavy…chucking it down, after trying to wait it out for an hour to no avail decided to walk towards the old city to do some soggy sight seeing. Jaipur is the capital of the state of Rajasthan . A busy, bustling Indian city, the entire walled old city area was painted pink in the 18 hundreds giving the nickname of “the pink city”. After a few minutes of walking in the rain along streets that looked like the final day of Glastonbury 2007, a car pulled up. Got chatting to the Indian driver who had lived in England. He offered me a lift to the old city gates, seemed honest enough so I jumped in. Turned out I had been going in the wrong direction and the old city was way further away than it looked on the map. So it was good fortune to get a lift from a well meaning stranger, and something that happens very rarely in the UK. Got dropped just down the road from the walls of the old city….it was still raining hard..
Within 2 minutes of walking through the gates I was invited for chai by a very pushy dude who said he just wanted to practice his English.. Went for a tea and then there was an invite for dinner to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid…I politely declined this, was probably a genuine offer but I wanted to explore the city on my own terms during the day without having to accommodate for any one else.
I walked towards the city palace and got chatting to an older guy called Shankar who was a musician. He invited me to his house for chai and a chillum. Seemed like a trustworthy guy so went along and had a good chat about music of all kinds, listened to him playing the flute and then went to the local Hindu temple to hear some devotional music. I loved India classical and religious music and the music in the Govind temple was awesome. Later on did some more exploring of the city and had more Chai with Shankar ( by this point I got the impression he was angling towards me marrying his 16 year old daughter, I made it pretty clear I was planning to stay single for the time being ) .Later I went with him to a Hindu offering ceremony where I was handed 51 rupees by the priest ( a bit awkward but I took the money so as not to offend, usually you get asked to pay money a these kinds of things and often priests will scam tourists by doing a puja or blessing and then asking for extortionate rates of money for the service. For good Karma I would disperse the 51 rupees over the next couple of days to the needy round the city ) .
Got totally lost on the way back home later that evening but eventually managed to find my hotel by blind luck after a 2 hour walk marathon through mud containing good knows how many germs and chemicals, ah well at least it had stopped raining…. The sight and smells of the city, both good and bad, had been and assault on my senses. Crashed out early, it had been a long but fulfilling day.
Next day went back to Shankar’s place and was introduced to his “student” who worked in The Jewel import/export business ( hmm suspicious….was well aware of how travellers have been ripped of by Indian jewellers, saw it first hand on my last trip here…)
Was then offered a free ride on a motorcycle to see the Hanuman ( monkey God ) temple on the far side of town. In India there is usually some kind of catch for any offer but I decided to accept the ride on good faith and see what happened after.
The dude who was driving me there was nice enough and the motorcycle ride through the backstreet of the town at pace was good fun. The temple itself was on a hill overlooking the city and the view from the top was incredible…..When your inside the city amongst the dirt and traffic its hard to see what the attraction of Jaipur is, ..but viewed from above in context of its setting ( a dry lake bed surrounded by mountains) it has a magical quality…..
After touring the temple complex and drinking more chai…I asked about going to the hill fort on the other side of town was told I needed to go back to town to talk to the boss and then we could get a car up to the fort. Had the impression I was going to end up in a jewellery store and I wasn’t wrong….20 minutes later I found myself sat opposite Mr Shankar’s “student” in a small office at the back of a jewel merchants.
Being aware that I was going to be made a proposal of some kind, (e.g. getting jewels sent to me to avoid export tax, buying travellers cheques for money laundering etc) I decided to move first, and casually brought up in conversation over tea that last time I was in India one of my friends had been ripped off by jewellers, also mentioned I had worked in Finance and said I wasn’t interested in getting involved in exporting as it was too much hassle…..the guy seemed to get the impression I knew what the meeting was really going to lead to and after tea I was told I could hire my own rickshaw to get to the fort, the offer of free transport having now been subtly revoked. Was happy enough with this and thanked them for providing me with a free ride to the temple….with a bit of foresight had managed to work the situation to my advantage and get a free tour……..
The walk to the fort was cool, through winding backstreets then up a steep zigzagging path to the top of the hill. Ended up with an entourage of local kids following me up Rockey style, eventually they started to get really annoying though, managed to lose them at the fort gates….another impressive view of the city was to be seen from inside, stayed until sunset and then hitched a ride back into town on a motorcycle with some more well meaning locals. Spent the rest of the evening wandering the town and eating curry.
The next afternoon got a deluxe bus to Ajmer on the way to the last 2 days of the famous Pushkar camel festival.
Jaipur was a good experience and a lesson that, despite finding yourself in the odd jewellery shop now and then, its good to engage with the locals in order to see the Indian culture first hand. Think two days there was enough though the busy streets were starting to do my head in like in Cairo…hopefully Pushkar would offer something different.
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