Jaipur, part two.

The only downside to our hostel was that it was quite out of town, rickshaws there were pretty pricey so we had to get a bus into the city centre – much cheaper but much more confusing! There was a big group of us from the hostel all heading the same way though so we stuck together! The buses were very crowded and busy, but everyone was friendly and the men were always very keen to give up their seats for us!

Our first tourist stop was the Hawa Mahal, a small but beautiful palace in the city centre:

While we were there we bumped into a German girl named Susan, who had been staying in the same hostel as us in Agra. We decided to stick together for the rest of the afternoon. We went exploring around the city, going down lots of back streets where we got to sample a lot of different Indian snacks and sweets. It was much better out of the touristy area because none of the shop-keepers pestered you to “only look” at their wares. The locals were curious about us, but they were friendly and didn’t harass us. They were very keen to let us taste the different things they were selling and didn’t try to charge us to take photos of them, although one shopkeeper allowed us to take a photo only on the condition that he could take one of us on his phone. They stocked their food in big piles either on the ground or in sacks, and served it by hand – I am certain that no one in India has been on a food hygiene course! You just kind of get used to it though, and learn to push all thoughts of germs to the back of your mind. Besides most of the street food we bought was fried in a serious amount of oil so I convinced myself that would kill off anything gross!

 

We had heard that Jaipur’s Amber Fort is at its most beautiful at sunset, so Rob and I said goodbye to Susan and caught another local bus there in the late afternoon. A golden palace built high on a hill overlooking a lake, it really was beautiful.

From the outside the Fort stands strong and imposing, yet inside you are impressed more by the intricate but grand decorative architecture, artwork and gardens. I was charmed most by the Hall of Mirrors, with its glittering walls and ceilings covered in mirror mosaics.

But for some of the Indian tourists there, it seemed like the main attraction was not the beautiful Fort, but us! I feel like I can understand what it’s like to be a celebrity now because so many of them wanted to take photos with us! It was funny, they would all approach me saying something along the lines of “Excuse me Mam, one photo please.” Then we’d always have to take about 10 photos so they could each get an individual one that they liked! We also spoke to a very sweet little girl who was keen to practice her English on us, she was very good!

While we were there we also learned just how much the street sellers try to rip the tourists off, it is amazing how much they will lower their prices if you’re not really interested in what they’re selling. One guy was extremely persistent and followed us all the way up the hill begging us to buy paintings from him, he started off trying to sell us 10 paintings for $20 but in the end gave us 4 for 100 rupees – about $2! So there’s a tip for anyone going to India, pretend that you’re not at all interested in what they’re selling you and you’ll get it a lot cheaper!

While we were there we also saw an Indian puppet show and a real life snake charmer! (I like the way the snake charmer wears his turban over his hoodie.) But more excitingly we saw elephants! There was the option for an elephant ride up the hill, but we had heard that the elephants weren’t treated that well so we decided to give that a miss, they did however walk right past us, close enough to touch! They are really beautiful creatures.

A wonderful day was slightly ruined by our journey home. We attempted to get the bus back, which was a bit of a mistake. I think the driver took one look at us and thought that could rip us off, he lied and told us that he was going to Kathipura – our stop – and then dropped us off in completely the wrong place and tried to charge us 100 rupees! We refused and gave him 10 for both of us, which was the correct fare. Luckily for us two really nice Indian men helped us get a good deal on a rickshaw and explained to him in Hindi where we wanted to go. Unfortunately he then got lost. It was night time at this point, and getting very cold; I’m not gonna lie I was starting to panic! Being lost at night in a city you don’t know is a very stressful situation to be in! It was when he had stopped to ask for directions for the millionth time that we eventually saw our hostel down the road, we jumped out very quickly!

After that we began our Christmas celebrations at the hostel – more on that in my next post!

Day One in Jaipur

Another fun train journey took us to Jaipur. I use the word “fun” very sarcastically. It was very early in the morning again and it was absolutely freezing! The train was really, really drafty and we were completely unprepared for that, I only had one thin hoodie with me and that really wasn’t enough. We were only on the train for five hours, but when you are that cold that is such a long time, I felt like it was never going to end! It wasn’t a sleeper train this time, but we did go for the cheapest option again – it was very crowded and very noisy. It’s funny, Indian people don’t seem to have any fear at all when it comes to trains; they don’t care which side of the train they get off from, they’ll just jump down on to the tracks, walk over them and climb up on to the platform on the other side.

Of course there were several rickshaw and taxi drivers waiting outside the station to pounce on tourists, we were caught by two very friendly and flirtatious young men, one was the driver and the other was his wing-man, who was better at English and whose job seemed to be charming us in to going with them! It did work though, they took us to our hostel and then managed to persuade us to use them again later. On the road that day I saw auto-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, bikes, motorbikes, buses, coaches, cars, vans, horse and cart, oxen and cart, cow and cart, camel and cart, man and cart, and… an elephant! Indian roads really are crazy; there are no organised lanes, just traffic weaving in and out of each other, trying to get through as quickly as they can by squeezing through gaps they should never attempt, drivers never seem to look when they’re getting on to roundabouts and they are continually cutting each other up very dangerously. The horn is used far more frequently than the brakes, each beep seems to say “I’m ploughing through, whether you like it or not, get out of the way or be mown down!” You get used to that pretty quickly though, it becomes normal, however our driver on that day was particularly terrifying! We had so many near misses in that rickshaw and nearly ran over about ten people,  why wait in traffic when you can just drive down the wrong side of the road?!

Here is a picture I took of a road, although it is much calmer than usual:

We did, however, get to our first stop in one piece – the monkey temple! We were slightly apprehensive about this at first, having heard lots of stories about monkey attacks, but we were reassured that these were all red-faced monkeys, the nice kind apparently, and that they were all very tame. Despite this there were some cheeky kids at the bottom of the hill (the temple being at the top) wanting us to pay them 100 rupees to be our “protectors” and walk up the path with us – not a chance! The monkeys did prove to be quite friendly, we bought peanuts which they came and took from our hands!

We did have one scary moment, when I accidentally scared a baby monkey by offering it a nut, it’s mother was not very pleased with me! I ran away from that one pretty quickly. Another scary moment came when we rounded the corner to see what seemed like hundreds of monkeys coming towards us, but it turned out they were just being herded by this guy:

The view from the top was very pretty, we got there in time to see the sun going down over the city.

On our way back we visited the floating palace, which really was very beautiful. We were told that they are planning to turn it in to a restaurant and our driver advised us that if we wanted to go on a romantic date, we should go there.

Of course after that we had to be taken on a detour to the shops that our driver got commission for, but we did visit one that I really liked, it sold goods from a factory that employed widows and poverty-stricken people who could not find work anywhere else. Indian shops are very good at hospitality; they welcome you in, offer you drinks and tell you that they wan’t you to feel at home there, no pressure to buy anything – although of course there is, they’ve just learned to be a bit more subtle about it.

I think possibly the best bit about that day came on the way home though… we got to drive a rickshaw! Our driver took us on to a quieter side street and let me jump in the front next to him, I think that maybe this was an excuse for him to put his arm around me, he had been flirting with both of us throughout the day although when it came to Rob’s turn he got no way near as close, but he was young and vaguely attractive so it wasn’t too creepy… and he was letting me drive his rickshaw so I allowed it! It was very exciting, and not something that tourists usually get to do so it was pretty special. Our friend Faith, who I think has been coming to India for about 30 years, was very impressed when we told her – it’s a big deal!

Our hostel in Jaipur was so much fun, there was such a friendly atmosphere there! It was great to meet and chat to people from all over the world – Americans, Australians, Germans, Brits, Chileans, Swedes – the most interesting were probably two American girls who had been working in Kurdistan with the Peace Corps for two years! They hated it. But they were really nice and I learned a lot from talking to them. The hostel was run by a really friendly Indian family, the boss being a lady who told us to call her Aunty, she enjoyed mothering all the backpackers and she thought I was cute so she loved me! She also thought my name was “Merry”, which she thought was brilliant because my name meant happy – a lot of Indians made that  mistake actually, whenever I introduced myself to anyone they would always say, “Oh Mary, Merry Christmas!” I gave up trying to correct them in the end.