India Day 2

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India DAY 2 23 February 2008

JAIPUR


Well folks, I told you to be patient with updates to this travel blog. Now you get the pleasure of sitting back and reading about our second day in India.
After writing extensively about our first day in India, I have re-evaluated how I will write the rest of this journal. If I haven’t put you to sleep by now, you can sigh a bit of relief knowing that the rest should flow a little quicker.

We commence the journey right after an early breakfast at the hotel. Our driver, Sachin, greets us and whisks us down the road to Jaipur. As we travel, we witness all of the modernization efforts as India prepares to host the Common Wealth Games in 2010. There is evidence of massive shopping malls, hotels and other structures rising out of the ground as they modernize the New Delhi side of the city. As we proceed down the highway, we notice the extensive highway construction project underway.

As the city becomes far behind us, we begin to notice the scattering of little villages and begin to see new sights. All of the trucks on the highway have signs painted on them that state “horn please” or “please blow horn”. I ask Sachin what this means. He honks his horn as he passes a big rig and replies “so other drivers know you are passing them”. Wow, what a concept, but it sure makes for a lot of un-necessary racket. We see people on foot dodging cars as they cross the highway. Yes, I did say highway and the road were loaded with vehicles. This was a sight to see. We begin to see new forms of transportation. We see camels and cows pulling carts loaded with a variety of cargo. These share the road with bicycles, rickshaws, trucks, busses and cars so this adds to the excitement of driving to Jaipur.

The drive to Jaipur is 260 kms (161 miles). Two hours into this five hour drive, I ask Sachin to make a toilet stop. He says we will stop at a “clean restroom” in a while. Yep, you guessed it. We stopped at a roadside resort that specialized in selling beads and trinkets to tourists. Lynne and I escaped this tourist trap with only two bottles of soda. When I went to pay for the sodas, the guy had the nerve to try to charge me a “service charge”. I told him I wasn’t going to pay him a service charge for selling me a soda—that was his freaking job.

We continue down the road and pass some lush farmland and even spot a few farms that have groves of date palm trees. There are wide open ranges of yellow flowers. I learn that these are mustard blossoms. As we pass the tiny villages, mainly at cross roads, I can’t help to notice the level of poverty and people doing what they need to do to survive. These little villages reminded both of us of the villages we experienced in Kenya last year. Cows, pigs, cats, dogs and a variety of other animals were roaming the streets as they scurried to pick through the piles of trash on the sides of the roads. People had set up shacks to sell a variety of goods along the side of the road. Traffic going through some of these villages was absolutely insane. I would some up driving in India as nothing more than controlled chaos however: nothing like the insanity of driving in Kuwait. Somehow, these folks knew instinctively how to navigate through this type of traffic. Sachin tells us that you need three things to drive in India; “good brakes, good horn, and good luck’. We all get a good chuckle out of this and it soon becomes our mantra for the trip.


As we near the city of Jaipur, we approach a mountain pass and are now sharing the road with elephants. These elephants are on their way home after spending the day hauling tourist up the mountain to the Amber Fort.


We drive through the heart of Jaipur and the illustrious, walled “Pink City”. In 1876, the ruler, Ram Singh II, ordered the entire city to be painted pink to welcome the Prince of Wales. The city still maintains this color, but evidence of other colors exists throughout the city. After navigating through the congested streets of the Pink City, we check into the hotel. There seems to be a little confusion about who our guide will be for the next leg of the trip.

Let me pause for a moment to educate you on how tours are set up in India. You contract with a primary tour company. As you travel to different cities, they sub-contract with local tour operators who are “experts” in the local area and are licensed for that specific area.

After settling this great debate, we meet our guide and proceed to the Jantar Mantra. Our tour guide would be a guy named Mishra. Now here is a worthwhile tidbit of information. If you travel to Jaipur and get this guy as a tour guide, contact the company and get another guide. On the way to Jantar Mantra, Mishra says that he will take us to a place where they craft gems. We enter this place and see a group of guys sitting behind hand powered grinding wheels. I marvel at how they precisely grind these stones to a perfect cut. I stop to take pictures, but realize that I have interrupted the routine from the “sales guy” who soon escorts us into the showroom. He follows us around trying to get us to buy some of the jewelry and gets a little pushy. At this point, I tell him we are not interested and we head out the door to our first real destination.

Jantar Mantra is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments (observatory). The site has 14 different geometric devices (instruments) for tracking stars in their orbits, determining the angle of declination of planets, predicting eclipses, and most importantly measuring time. First glance at all of these stone and marble structures looks like someone had a structure design contest and these were the losing entries. But, upon closer examination, I learn that these are all some really powerful scientific instruments. We find the largest sundial in the world which is accurate to within 2 seconds. This is an amazing structure. The most impressive feature of this site was the three structures required to calculate lunar eclipse. They use a combination of shadows (readings) from all three of these structures to calculate precisely when a lunar eclipses will occur and where it will be visible. Although this site is primarily a tourist destination today, some astronomy and astrology students still use these devices in their studies.

Next we are off to the City Palace. This is actually a series of elaborate buildings constructed by Mahara Sawi Jai Sign. We tour through the numerous museums within the compound. The most spectacular of these was the weapons museum. It had a very impressive collection of weaponry dating back to the 15th century. I was most impressed with the daggers that doubled as a single shot gun. I could go into extensive detail about the contents of these museums, but I will spare you.

After departing the City Palace, our local tour guide says he will now take us to see a demonstration on textile stamping and carpet weaving. At first I say this is cool, but then the reality sets in and I realize that this will be another one of these tourist traps. We pull in and we start with the textile stamping demonstration. I was most impressed with the techniques of how they hand stamp fabric to create some really nice designs using dyes created from natural products. From there we move on to the carpet weaving demonstration. There is a guy sitting down making a hand-woven rug. He calls me over and commences to teach me how to thread the yarn through the loom, tie it off and cut it. This was too cool. From there they cart us off to the textile shop. We elude any pressure to purchase anything so they cart us off to the carpet shop. We enter a private room and are invited to have a seat. A team of folks begin rolling out some really nice carpets. I finally tell the guy that we are not interested in buying any carpet and he whisks us back to the vehicle.

Our guide then tries to take us to what he called the “bazaar”. This was nothing more than a strip mall lined with tourist traps. As we pull into the parking lot, I inform Mishra that we have no desire to stop and purchase anything. He persists that we can get some good deals on merchandise in these stores. I insist that we do not need to stop. He seems a little agitated that we have not purchased anything yet, thus not getting any commission from these vendors.

We head back to the hotel and drop our guide off. We discuss dinner plans with our driver and agree to meet in one hour to go to the Indiana Restaurant. While Lynne and I are getting ready for dinner, I hear loud music. Horns and drums could be heard from the streets. I quickly grab the camera and head down to the street. I am absolutely amazed with what I see. I find myself in the middle of a wedding procession with a marching band, people dancing and guys carrying portable chandeliers. I jump right into the spirit and begin shooting photos. The folks see me and start hamming it up of the camera. I follow them along for a while and they try to pull me in to dance with them. WOW what a sight. I head back to the hotel and link up with Lynne and Sachin.

We arrive at the Indiana Restaurant. It has a very nice outdoor courtyard and we decide to eat outside. The restaurant was opened by a former tour guide to cater specifically to western tourist. During dinner, Rajistani dancers begin there dance routine and pull people from their tables to dance with them. Naturally, if you dance with them, they expect a tip. I pass on the dancing, but get a few photos. Dinner was great. I had traditional Indian fare and Lynne opts for the continental dish of fried chicken.

We close out the day by heading back to the hotel. We settle in for a good night’s sleep. Around midnight, we are awoken by a loud racket. I sounds like someone is throwing pipes against a wall. After a few minutes of this, I get dressed and go down to the reception desk. There is a lady there from the UK who is there to complain about the noise as well. I listen to the noise and it appears to be coming from the property next to the hotel. I tell the folks at the reception to stop the racket and they tell me they will try. They say it will end in 5 minutes. I head back to the room. 5 minutes later I am on the phone with the reception desk and tell them the noise must stop now. They say sorry sir. I then tell them that if they do not get the noise stopped immediately, I will inform our tour company never to use that hotel again. In about 3 minutes the noise stops and we slip off to a deep sleep.

Well, there you have it. Day two comes to a close. Look for our update on Day 3 as we continue our trip in Jaipur, India.

Check it out. I was able to keep this entry down to under 2,000 words.

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Photos

Rajistani Dancer
She was one of the dancers at the Indiana Restaurant

Horn Please
All you need to drive in India is 3 things. "Good Brakes, Good Horn and Good Luck.

Elephant Walk
Sharing the road with elephants in Jaipur, India

Busy Side Road
Typical busy side road in Jaipur, India

Need more cowbells
Sharing the roads with cows in Jaipur

World Record Sundial
Largest sundial in the world undergoing renovation at Jantar Mantra, Jaipur, India

Rajistani Guards
Posing with Rajistani Guards at the City Palace Jaipur, India. Hey Joan, check out the stylish fanny pack.

Carpet Bagger
John Learns how to weave carpet

Wedding Crasher
John finds himself in the midst of a wedding procession

Beauty
Lynne models a scarf at the textile shop

Comments

[Alan and Denise Carroll]

WOW
Wow! Sounds like ya'll had a blast! Can't wait for the world tour. Hope all is well.