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Published: January 21st 2016
The taxi to the station in Delhi proved to be the first challenge. Even though Rajesh had told the driver where we were going (and it was a station, after all, not some random house!), he was asking passing taxis and tuk-tuks how to get there at the first junction we came to which did not bode well! This continued the whole trip and though H's magic gadget showed that he was initially going the right way, later he took a wrong turn and we eventually ended up at the other side of the tracks from where the main station entrance is. He and everyone around were insistent we had to get out there but it was not a nice place to walk around with all our stuff and involved walking up huge numbers of stairs to walk across the bridge over the tracks to get to the station. We told him we wanted to go to the main entrance and refused to get out. He set off in completely the wrong direction and we only got back on track when H started directing him but we ended up with probably a 2km diversion. And then he wanted us to pay
the full fare...! Seat61 had said that you just needed to find the departures board to identify the platform - ha-ha! No sign of a departures board or of anything at all in English in fact. We walked onto the first platform and finally spotted a sign for the first class waiting room.....no, not quite like East Coast but at least seats away from the chaos. We had an hour or so to wait but nothing around indicated which platform the train went from and the announcements could not be heard in the waiting room. We asked the guy on the door of the waiting room and he told us platform 3. Of course, we're beginning to learn that you never believe that first answer you get and I stood outside for a while until they announced it from platform 2. We still had to climb all the stairs to get across the bridge and we were in the very end carriage of a very long train - the only one that was not double decker but we had the posh 'executive seats' so I was quite looking forward to it. Of course it's all relative.....while spacious and reclining they
were particularly uncomfortable and very old. But it could have been much worse I'm sure! There was a constant stream of boys in 'Meals on Wheels' shirts offering food and drinks which at first we thought were part of the package as everyone seemed to be having them but we suddenly discovered we had to pay - you can imagine that would be a shock on Virgin but this turned out to be less than £2 for a snack and a meal.
We arrived into Jaipur around 10.30pm and fended off the touts to find the guy that the hotel had sent to pick us up. We noticed that Janu's car had something in Spanish written in the back window so we had a chat with him in Spanish which led onto him explaining that he is going to be a TV star in the UK shortly as he had been the guide for a group of 'celebs' making a 3 part documentary called the The Real Marigold Hotel. He showed us photos and videos of him with the various stars (Wayne Sleep and Jan Leeming amongst others you will know!) and told us how he worked for lots
of the embassies and had travelled all over Europe at the invitation of various embassy staff. This was all obviously leading onto him trying to sell us some tours but he was perfectly happy to leave us to think about it the following day. What he'd also told us was that the stars and BBC crew had stayed at the Haveli (old mansion house) that we were staying in so we got some of the same stories from the owners the following morning. If you're interested, The Real Marigold Hotel starts on Tue 26 Jan at 9pm on BBC2.
We were staying in a room up on the roof with the roof terrace outside which involved a hike up 3 flights of steep winding stairs. The owner, Amer, (en ex-brigadier in the army) showed us up there then left us for the night and we crashed out. We were woken with a fright by Bollywood style music thumping out from somewhere very nearby at 6.30am the next morning. We assumed that this was something to do with the Kite Festival which was one of the reasons we had tried to be in Jaipur on that day. Ear plugs failed
to dampen the noise so we lay there in a stupor for a while before getting up. We walked out of our room into a sea of kites across the sky as far as the eye could see with music pumping from rooftops for miles around. It was quite a spectacle, particularly with the fort on the hill opposite watching over the city. The kites are only small home-made paper squares but do have patterns on and have extremely long strings attached that are coated with powdered glass. For those of you that have read the Kite Runner, it's the same principle in that they battle to cut each others kites down and kids in the street chase after them. We spent much of the morning on the terrace watching the kites and trying to fly some ourself with the assistance of some local boys that the owners had invited up. It's a lot harder than it looks and we were pretty pathetic!
Finally we decided we should leave the comfort of the Haveli and face the real world outside the door in the old city - cows and pigs snuffling in rubbish, motorbikes and tuk-tuks haring around and
people everywhere. We walked a while through some of the bazaars and finally got to a restaurant the owners had recommended for some lunch. From there we walked out of one of the gates to the old city and down to the main city museum, also known as the Albert Hall because he put down the original foundation stone, though at a time when they had not decided what they were going to build there! It's an amazing buliding with a fascinating collection of miniature artworks, sculptures, textiles, jewellry and other traditional items. It was in the museum that we were first asked by Indians if they could have their photo taken with us. We were happy to oblige but thought it strange that they did not even want to know our names so we did start to try to engage them in conversation.
From there we headed home to go back onto the terrace where the kite flying and music was still in full flow. As dusk began to fall lanterns floated up into the sky and fireworks started all over the city. It was stunning and went on and on though slightly disturbing at times as large
ones were sent from nearby rooftops or huge bangs came from the street below. Some of the lanterns couldn't quite take off and drifted onto buildings with their naked flames looking like they were going to cause mayhem, we didn't see any problems though I'm sure there must have been some people hurt that night!
The next couple of days we visited most of the main sights in the area. The first we went out of Jaipur to see 3 forts built by various Maharajahs. The main one is Amber fort in the town of Amber which was the capital of Rajasthan before Jaipur. It's an amazing late 16th century place with winding corridors, rooms and huge courtyards going off in all directions that were all used for different very specific things. There were a couple of times we thought we were completely lost and we lost each other for a while at one point! The other 2 forts, Jaigarh and Nahargarh are more recent and in different designs but just as easy to get lost in! Nahargarh was the one that looked down onto our Haveli and gave great views across the city. After lunch on the way
back into town we went to see the water palace, which looks as if it is floating on a lake, and the Maharajahs and Maharanis cremation areas where a new memorial was built for the cremation of each king or queen. We got back to discover that the kite festival was still going strong as this year there was some confusion over the date because the timing of the event in the Hindu calendar actually happens after sunset on 14th meaning that 15th is the true day of the festival but resulting in both days having celebrations. The fireworks that night were even bigger than the night before if that's possible.
We got going quite early the following day because the first place we were going to was said to be claustrophobic when busy. The Hawa Mahal is a bizarre building built to allow the ladies of the court to look straight out onto the busy bazaar below but without being seen. It is 5 stories high and a path winds up towers at either end of the building leading to separate floors each with many tiny windows. From there we went to the city palace which has a
great museum of textiles and royal costumes. We particularly liked the coat that belonged to the king who was over 2m tall, 1.2m wide and weighed 250kg! One courtyard has 4 beautiful gates representing the 4 seasons Spring - Green Gate, Summer - Lotus Gate, Autumn - Peacock Gate and Winter - Rose Gate. From there to the observatory - a large outdoor area with huge architectural astronomical instruments designed by one of the Maharajahs in the early 18th century. These tell the time, the place in the sky of various celestial objects, size of objects and so much more. Not only are these instruments incredibly clever, they are works of art in themselves and if you didn't know, you might think you'd walked into a modern sculpture park. From there we treated ourselves to late lunch in a lovely cafe in the new town that the Haveli owner's family own and H did some shopping in their attached clothes shop! Then home to crash out!
We spent much of our final day doing some planning for the rest of the trip though did trail through more of the chaos to get some lunch and then faced another tuk-tuk
transaction to try to find another museum we'd read good things about. As ever, the driver had no idea where we were going so we stopped and started and went round in circles. The museum is in a house in a residential area and is a collection of folk art, manuscripts, coins, stamps, sculptures and so much more, built up by one man who died a few years ago. There are thousands of items in the collection and it sounded like a rather less well organised Pitt Rivers type museum. When we arrived there was a man who shouted for someone to come to the ticket office so that a very old lady shuffled down the corridor and took our money. They pointed us through the door and told us to wait there - the ticket said the price included guide so we assumed this meant that a guide was coming. There was an Indian man already waiting there so we joined him reading some of the newspaper cuttings about the museum.
To cut a long story short, we ended up being gradually pushed into different rooms where they followed us round turning lights on and off, occasionally pointing
to things and saying 'old coins' or something in Hindi. Every time we asked about a guide they said 5 minutes/10 minutes. We got the impression the guide was having lunch. After an hour and 4 rooms the old lady just waved us away. It was such a pity as it's clearly an amazing collection and deserves proper display but we were obviously not going to get any explanations that day!
In the evening we braved the tuk-tuks again to go back to the Hawa Mahal for some traditional Rajasthani dance and music and then on to a restaurant in the new city on a roof top of a hotel. This was the first place we had travelled to that they had almost managed to find without asking anyone and we had a lovely meal, albeit a bit chilly (wrapped in a blanket and sitting by a fire!). The tuk-tuk back was even more impressive as he took us right to our door without having to ask anyone - at last!
That was our last night in the Haveli but we hope we've managed to record the BBC series to see more about it when we get home.
We understand you've finally had snow - hope not too disruptive?
Lots of love
Sarah + Hugh
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Mike Chip
non-member comment
Kites
Hi Sarah and Hugh. Must have been great to see the kites. We really enjoyed the liveliness of Jaipur 30 years ago - we should have been back!