Jaipur - pt 1

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We were greeted at Jaipur station immediately by a young guy offering an autorickshaw. I instinctively said no as we'd read about the rip off touts but when he agreed to take us to the hotel we wanted to stay we agreed. His mate greeted us outside and we all got in to their pink seated rickshaw. They mentioned they also do tours and suggested they could show us the city. This wasn't unexpected since everyone with transport here happens to be an expert tour guide. Anyway we agreed and it turned out to be a good decision. They acted as guides for our 2 and a half days in jaipur and asked us to just pay them how much we felt, so we didn't pay them anything, bargain. Lol jk, we paid them what we thought was fair and they seemed fine with it. After checking out a couple of hotels (one was full, another too expensive) we chose one and bartered to 1000 rupees per night. after a quick shower, Iqbal and Muslim Ali picked us up in their pimped up rickshaw and we headed through the busy streets blasting out bollywood hits. They took us through the old pink city which was very dirty and busy with big crowds and people selling stuff everywhere. We went to a temple with lots of monkeys which was mainly good for it's views of the city and we bought some nuts to feed them. There were also some boys who 'helped' you as you walk up basically doing fuck all to try and get sum money, showing us their scars from where monkeys had bitten 
them. On the way down I gave them my change, obviously they wanted more so I also gave them a 2 euro coin and they kept following but eventually got bored. I'm not sure they could do much with it as another boy tried to get us to change his 50 euro cent coin which some other annoyed foreigner probably gave him. We went back to the rickshaw where our guides were chatting up some Korean girls. Their situation was pretty confusing for us. Iqbal seemed to have a girlfriend from France who he met here and Muslim had a girl in Manchester but we never discovered how he met her. As we later discovered they both had wives and kids and were probably 23. But not sure whether to take this literally as they seem to call their nephews or cousins kids etc 'their children' too. After meeting them for 5 mins I was already their brother and Hayley their Babi (brothers girlfriend). We went to a fabric shop in the moghul town which seems to be a Muslim part, like our guides were. I'm sure they have deals with comission as seems to be the way. We had some chai and I had an Indian cigarette which was really strong but nice as a one off. Hayley bought a pashmina after the hard sell, not saying she wouldn't otherwise but they do really go for it. The bloke was pretty funny and obviously knew what he was doing.  We also saw the water temple which looked pretty spectacular at night. We then went back to the hotel for dinner. I noticed a lot more beggars here, maybe because it's more touristy but we had a lot of women carrying babies and a boy dancing while we waited in traffic while his sister played the drums. It's pretty awkward when you don't have change and one woman later at the Amber fort was ridiculously persistent. So you'd hope in your hotel you'd get some peace but oh no. A bloke came up to us in the restaurant and said he was an artist and that would we like to see his puppet show. We managed to decline but we could still see and here as he performed. I know a major part of coming to India is to experience culture, but that puppet show was just shit and I probably couldve knocked something better up in 5 minutes. Again it wouldve been fine if there wasnt the loudest, spine tingling squeaking noises, supposedly the camels speaking to each other probably planning how to escape and throw themselves off the roof. Also a women sang and played the drums who was way worse than any of the bad ones on x factor, knocking out some frere Jacque and macarena. I had a thaili to eat which was a selection of curry style dips with bread. Awesome. Hayley had some stuff which was apparently rough. We were woken about half six by banging Indian style dance music from the building opposite. We had been told the previous day that today was makar sankranti. Basically a day when everyone plays music and flys kites and we were told we would get to do both later. When we asked what it was for iqbal said 'in india if we want a party we make a festival'. We think that this is a festival just for jaipur although it is apparently spreading. We were picked up early by Muslim who took us to some cool temples which were in a bustling neighbourhood full of animals and the now usual sights of people washing etc and whizzing round on various things. We had the temples basically to ourselves and then came out to get Muslim who was chatting to someone at a stall. They seem to always know people everywhere we go which is impressive for a city of 3 million.  When they're both there, one will jump out every so often and we'll pick them up half an hour later somewhere else with some sort of goods like tobacco or socks. We next went for breakfast in a place which looked like crap from the outside but was nice enough inside. They don't seem to do shopfront presentation here. I don't think I wouldve even known it was a proper restaurant but it's the same for everywhere. The little temples, fabric and jewellery shops could easily be peoples houses or workshops until you get inside and all the effort seems to have been made on making this look good. Anyway we had dosa masala which is a crispy pancake with potato stuff and dips, tasty! We then got taken to another carpet shop and jewellery shop. The jewellery place the guy had lived in England and could probably tell we weren't interested in buying. The fabric shop gave another very persistent sell and Hayley bought a bag for about 2 quid which wasn't quite the 150 quid tailor made suit the guy had in mind. I know it's cheap for a tailor made suit but I don't want a tailor made suit right now, thanks. We then went up the tallest tower in the city and had a brief tour from a Gandhi lookalike who shook my hand as he joked about me being his former ruler. Next up it was festival time. We went to a barbershop slash kite shop but apparently the quality wasn't right. At the next shop Muslim bought about 10 kites and a reel with miles of string/wire. A guy outside talked to us about cricket and asked us to have a picture with him (on our camera) and gave me his address to send the photo. I naively presumed he'd give me an email but shouldve realised that considering where I was he was writing his full postal address. After saying hi to some excitable kids we headed for our guides local neighbourhood. We went to Muslims house straight to the roof top. I don't know how these houses rank in India. To us they'd be considered unliveable, with parts open to the elements and make shift roofs from scrap metal but they certainly weren't slums. It reminded me a bit of Aladdin. We were introduced to Muslims brother and possibly real son and had our first experience of flying these kites. Everwhere you looked (which was the case all over the city) kites filled the sky. The rooftops were filled with young people playing loud music and flying kites. We went on to meet countless people asking our names and where we're from either friends of Muslim or just people shouting to come and join them other rooftops. We were taken to about 5 different rooftops, did some more kite flying and some half arsed dancing. We got the hang of the kites, the aim seemed to be to use your kite to cut the string of other peoples, greeted by cheers from whoever won. I didn't realise you could even get kites to go so high and sometimes you'd end up cutting someones who you couldn't even see as their roof was so far away. We were warned that the wire could be dangerous as the kite tugged hard and Muslims brother kept showing us his cut. The newspaper pushed under our door confirmed this the next day that 100s had gone to hospital with lacerations (and also through falling from rooftops). We then went to iqbals still meeting new people all the time. There were lots of kids there who were obsessed with playing games which was ok for a bit but went on for a while. I felt like mother thereasa. We then went down and ate some food on iqbals bed, cooked by his possibly wife, at least that's what he called her. Hayley then got a fairly impressive henna tatoo from one of the girls who was probably about 10 while I was generally manhandled by about five 4 year olds wanting to slap my hands or pretend to cut my head off, all with big smiles on their faces. We then got a lift back after a hectic day which had been fun but tiring. Felt like I got to see a non tourist side of India which was good. I was quite surprised, although I don't know why, at how un- westernised it was. They have pepsi and the young people have jeans but most of the clothes are still Indian and all the music and films they watch are. One kid played me some akon on his phone saying 'English music, my friend, dance' but when I said akon he didn't seem to know who he was.

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Photos

Our guides
Us posing with Iqbal and Muslim

Rooftop View
The view from Muslim's rooftop - one of many

Kite maker
Man sorting our kites for us

Sitting in the guest of honour's chair
I had to put this up because it's such an awkward photo

Rooftop Karaoke
Entertainment for the whole neighbourhood