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Published: October 25th 2017
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Avery pale man rents us a bike Our first morning in Jaipur and I don’t manage to wake up in time for the yoga at 6.30am, there’s a surprise. Today we are hiring a moped and with the help of google India we mange to find a man who will rent us a bike. The place is by the Ajameri gate at the entrance to the pink city and is very “local”. We soon realise after the transaction has been made that he is not really meant to be renting motorbikes to foreigners, he says ‘Please sir if you get stopped please tell them the bike belongs to a friend’. He gives Shenton two helmets and as one of them is only a half helmet that does not have a chin strap Shenton asks for a better quality one for me, his wife. He proceeds to give us another one which is sellotape up at the front. Shenton’s helmet turned out to be the best one he had, Shenton then gives me his helmet. Hey ho! They are both so big that they can swivel around on our heads. We will not be going fast on this thing anyway as the roads are chock a block with a
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A couple of hours pool side tumultuous amount of various types of traffic..
Next job of the day is to get some washing done. Again Google India is taking us via the magic of the blue dot to a laundry place called wisshwash. I thought india would be similar to other places we have visited, for example in the Far East, where laundry places are found everywhere, alongside massage parlours. This proves to be one small but significant way that India is different to a world traveller. We have to drive about 8km to try and find this place, wisshwash We arrive at the blue dot location and we see men outside a shop with big tin vats of what looks like water and white muslin within the vats, they are moving whatever is inside the vats, with very large spoons. Two of them pick up the sack of cloth from one of the pots and wring out the water. They constrict the contents more and more using the muslin cloth, more and more water flows from the cloth due to their unreserved efforts. Shenton shouts over to them “WISHY-WASHY!’ As all the shops signs are in Hindi we have no idea whether
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Which way do I hit this thing? where we are is the right place, apart from observation, as there is no sign of english anywhere indicating business or address anywhere. Shenton tries again "Wish wasshy, anyone? I tell him the name is wisshwash, but still no recognition from the men. Its then that I take a closer look at what they are doing and realise they are not washing cloths but making paneer!. Maybe this is where we get the name cheese cloth from.
We eventually find a man who speaks English and he says the laundry place is over the road in amongst the market place. We park up the bike and try to find it, if it wasn't for bad luck, at this point, we would't have any luck at all. We decide to stop for lunch and we find a juice bar that also does some great food and has wifi. Google India informs us that the laundry is only 59 meters away, but also that its closed today, we then believe we are probably going to drive another 10km to find another laundry place we had written down, curtesy of the internet. This would prove a proverbial ball ache as its on
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Good shot old man. what what!! the other side of town. Perhaps we have a chance that wisshwash is open? It is a Sunday and many Indians do take the day off, so let us find out? We then find the place! Tucked amongst the shops and street food vendors , it is up two flights of stairs and we find out more importantly that it is open. We leave our washing with a lady who says she will deliver it back to our hotel all for 50 rupees a kilo! A result for us and also fun exploring off the beaten track.
Back to the hotel we spend a couple of hours cooling off by the pool and playing a bit of croquet on the lawn. We don’t know the rules but Shenton is much better than I am and all we need is a G&T to transport us back in time to the British Raj.
Then once the day has cooled down we are back out on the bike and we head out to explore the pink city and the Amber fort by night so we can see them both with the light playing upon their history. First
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The king resigns his Raj the driving, this I must mention as the traffic here is on a level that seems almost indescribable, with people not taking any notice of direction of traffic or right of way its just honk your horn and go for it. The hawkers are on us as soon as we get off the bike trying to get us to buy their wares or take a guided tour of the pink city soon to be renamed honk city. Inside the gates the poverty is very much in your face as people are living in the street, with rubbish piled up upon rubbish. We believe the monkeys have a better life than those we see living on the street, the monkeys roam everywhere and we watch them entering their very own palace form up high, the Hawa Mahal “the wind palace”, this really should be called the monkey palace. We stop for a quick drink at the tattoo cafe opposite the wind palace and after chatting with the owner I am very tempted to have another tattoo, shame we don’t have more time in Jaipur, we will have to return.
As the sun sets we head out to the Amber fort
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Anyone for chess at the Taj Jal Mahal Palace and this is where the driving gets really tricky as everyone has their lights on full beam and many overtake on the open road at speed, sounding their horns and flashing their lights. We stop at the ‘English Wine Shop’, this seems to be the generic name given to any store selling alcohol, which are few and far between. We buy some beers and a bottle of wine, i go to the shop next door and buy two skirts as they are so cheap here (not like Delhi) We end up sitting on the wall overlooking the river opposite the Amber Fort to watch the light show, while sharing a bottle of beer. Wild boar trot pass us and we sit there laughing at ourselves, as we really are just going with the flow!
We get back to the entrance to the hotel and as we pull up outside there is some sort of carnival with elephants, camels, horsemen, fireworks and people, all are dancing and playing music, slowly moving along the road towards the city. We believe it will be the last final explosion of light and fun of Diwali for us here in Jaipur, and
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Directing traffic at the gate India. We are grateful to have witnessed this final act of this amazing festival of light just before the night ends. We return to our hotel room.
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AMIT MALHOTRA
non-member comment
Are you sure ?????
Are you sure this is a Diwali procession?? This one looks like a wedding procession. In this picture I can see the groom sitting on a horse with his face behind a "curtain" of flowers. This is a typical wedding procession heading towards either brides home or the wedding venue. You should have joined the procession and attended the wedding. The people in the uniform are on hire, so is the elephant, the horse , the music band etc etc.