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Published: January 13th 2007
The Hawa Mahal
In photos this place looks cool, but surounded by children, it gets more difficult to take a picture. Well, we got up at the horrible hour of 5am and stumbled out of our hotel in order to catch a taxi to Ajmer, and from there catch a local bus to Jaipur.
The taxi driver, in an ambassador (of course, what else in India?), certainly got our blood flowing early in the morning, overtaking buses on the right as he climbed the mountain and as the road turned. The bus was not the crowded Indian bus I had expected, but I'm sure the early hour had something to do with that. Having found a hotel after our arrival in Jaipur, we set off in search of breakfast, looking specifically for pancakes, of course not thinking to check the hotel. We didn't find anywhere, but instead found a coffee house. It was so run down (paint peeling, all in light green, lots of arches, waiters in white) that it was almost chic.
Most of the day was spent wandering the shops - frankly not as good as Pushkar. Jaipur didn't have the same cool vibe as the last place. (Yes, while I haven't been here long, Sam and Chris have, and expressed the same opinion). We planned to have
Inside the City Palace
They love the bright colours here an early night playing cards and doing a spot of trivia (it being a tueday) but instead we got a message from Lara (a work friend, for those that don't know) and ended up going out with her and her brother.
They had met a couple of Indians when spending an extraordinary amount on silks and jewelry, no wonder the locals wanted to take them out. We ended up at a bar a little bit out of town, drinking Kingfisher and doing a Nyghilla, after having almost been killed when our rickshaw driver decided to make a right hand turn in front of a bus. Even Sammy and Chris, the veterans of Indian traffic were a little fearful. We all reacted with manly calm of course.
The following day we went to the Amber Fort, outside Jaipur. Full of tourists, the fort was interesting as a great deal of it was open. Lots of winding passageways and stairways leading down into the gloom. It would be a great place for a couple of small children to spend hours in - almost as much fun for a bunch of twentysomethings.
Heading up to the fort were a great
The Coffee Shop
Settle had three coffees here. He then hit the wall at three many elephants, colourfully made up and often carrying the kind of tourists that would like to pay 500 rupees for the dubious achievement of having riden one. It looked to me that they were quite mistreated - I read in the Lonely Planet (the bible around here) that they have no pool to bathe in, apparently terrible for the creatures. Moreover, the mahouts would hit them in order to get them going. India is not the place for the animal lover, methinks.
In the evening we headed over to the house/factory of the Indians we had been out with the previous night, had dinner and watched a Bollywood film. The food was nothing to write home about, while the Bollywood film was so cliched that it was funny - although I doubt for the same reasons the director intended. Every westerner in the film was blond, while the director made liberal use of close-ups and montages. Funny indeed.
A little tipsy from another round of Kingfishers, we headed to the hotel and waited until 2am to catch the train to Jodhpur. We weren't unhappy to leave Jaipur.
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lyn (Chris's mum)
non-member comment
wooaa
looks amazing Tristan love the photos, excellent commentary and good to hear more of all that you are up to thanks !