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Published: July 10th 2005
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Hawa Mahal
The Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds) made famous in the "Far Pavilions". After a few days in Mumbai, we headed out to Jaipur. Originally we had planned to head south to Aurangabad, to see the world famous Ellora and Ajanta caves - but unfortunately there were no tickets available on the trains, and we didn't want to hang around until there was availability - so regretfully we had to skip on this!! Next time I guess - but a word of warning to future travellers - book your tickets at least 3 days before you want to travel!!
Let's talk about trains for a bit. The train system in India is actually really impressive. Frequent trains run all over the country, at very reasonable rates. You've got the very basic sleeper class, which is basically a bench, and unlimited people can pile on, stand over you, or even (if you're lucky) sit on you! And of course there's no air conditioning.
But if you're a tourist, there is absolutely no reason not to pay a bit more and go in the air conditioned sleeper carriages - these are really comfortable, and quite safe as well. Although they do provide hooks in the wall for you to padlock your luggage to... 😊
inside Hawa Mahal
the inside of the Hawa Mahal. Purchasing tickets can be a bit of a pain. In spite of being such a technologically advanced country, you can't purchase tickets online. So you have to go to the railway office. The first time we went to one, we were rather dismayed at the size of the slow-moving queue!! But - they have a special queue for tourists and freedom fighters, whatever they are!! So that was really helpful.
Another interesting point - if you're a woman in India, you don't have to queue up!! Women are allowed to walk straight up to the counter and they get served next. So if you're travelling with women, it's a good idea to get them to go buy the tickets. Although they won't be popular with anybody in the queue... 😊
So - back to our story. Since we couldn't go to Aurangabad, we headed off to Jaipur. The plan was to spend a few days there, then head to Jodhpur, then Udaipur, followed by Agra, Varanasi and Delhi.
After catching our nice train, we arrived at the train station, fought our way through all the taxi touts, and found the driver that our hotel had sent
Staring at the Hawa Mahal
These people were staring at us, so we took a pic of them. to pick us up. It is well worth organising this with your hotel, as otherwise you have to fight the touts, and you also risk getting mugged if you get the wrong taxi driver... 😞
Our hotel was absoultely stunning!! Certainly the best we'd stayed in since the Sheraton in Mexico City. (for those who are planning to go there - it was called Madhuban and is in the LP). Had a great pool, georgeous rooms, antique furniture, air conditioning, and a shower that actually worked great and even had a shower curtain!! (you'd be surprised at what can excite us when you're on the road).
Unfortunately, the heat outside was even WORSE than Mumbai. We headed out to visit a few places. They were only a few hundred metres apart, but we were absoultely exhausted just walking through the place!! It was so hot, we didn't even take that many photos 'coz we didn't want to stop to take the camera out!! Did see some cool palaces and stuff though, although you'll have to take our word for it since we don't have the pics to show you!!
It was after this rather unpleasant day that
Some random palace
It is on a lake, but in the dry season, the lake dries up (duh) and thus not as spectacular. But if you want to find rotting fish, a great place to come. we had the TALK. The heat was just killing us, and we were really not enjoying this part of the adventure at all... and thus, we decided that we were going to bail on India!! Shock horror... so much for being intrepid travellers and all!! Basically, we chopped out the rest of Rajasthan (Jodhpur, Udaipur), and also Varanasi, and settled for going straight to Agra, seeing the Taj Mahal, and then going to Delhi. We also decided that we were going to spoil ourselves in Delhi and stay at the Intercontinental.
So we spent a whole day making the necessary changes for this to work. Since we were now flying out of India earlier, we had to move ALL of our remaining flights forward. Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as calling our airlines, since there were at least 3 involved in the combination of remaining flights we had left.
So now we had a whole 3 days more in Jaipur, and basically there wasn't that much to see in it, so we relaxed heaps and took things really really slow!! Our day basicalyl consisted or renting a tuk-tuk for the day, going to a site, going to lunch,
Amber Fort
High up in the mountains, you can see a several forts near Jaipur. going back to rest in the hotel, then going out again to another site, then dinner, then back to the hotel. Eating was the major focus here, and we pretty much ate at every restaurant recommended in the lonely planet. 'Copper Chimney' was definitely one of the better ones for those of you who may be planning to head there.
We also managed to do some shopping! Jaipur is THE place to shop in Northern India, and we were determined to get some Punjabi outfits for Catherine. Shopping here is a fun experience - you walk into a store, they sit you down, ply you with drinks, and proceed to unfold nearly half the store's garments while you just take a look... and then you leave purchasing nothing and feeling guilty!! But we got to have lots of chats about cricket - Indians are avid fans and they were very knowledgeable about our teams, and its woes against the English.
Unfortunately there is a downside to going shopping in Jaipur as a tourist. Our tuk-tuk driver, who we had been renting for the last 3 days, started trying to get us to go to the 'best' stores where
Elephants at Amber Fort
For some reason, people bathe their elephants here... I guess that's so that the tourists will have clean elephants to ride on. we could get 'truly Indian' stuff. This translates to him getting a commission on whatever we purchased. Because we did like him, we did try one place, but found the prices so outrageous we left without purchasing anything. But after him repeatedly pestering us to try to visit his stores, and then getting sulky when we refused him, we finally got to the point where we decided it was easier to just pay him for the day and end the relationship. I was quite upset about this because up till that point we had been getting along great, but now I understand that this was because he was hoping to earn decent commissions out of us shopping at his stores... Makes it really hard to trust people who are being nice to you when you have an experience like this, but I guess that's part of the travelling experience!!
Nonetheless, we really did enjoy Jaipur. Even in the ridiculous climate, if you take things slow, drive everywhere and minimise walking, you can actually have a good time. However, I would suggest that it would be better to not go in June !!
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