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Published: January 21st 2012
Jaipur
Our fleeting textile printing demonstrationOn our first day in Jaipur we set out with high hopes of checking out a good number of the Pink City's interesting sights, and decided to try the Lonely Planet's walking tour. Unfortunately we didn't get very far with this as we were impeded every few steps by rickshaw drivers who couldn't comprehend the concept of a walking tour and by people shouting "Indian?" at Cel every few steps. As you can imagine this was very frustrating! After 30 minutes of it we were getting pretty fed up and started giving fairly blunt answers, mostly "no thank you", and then ignoring further questions. To our dismay, however, one of the rickshaw drivers took offence to our new tactic and started an argument with us saying we were racist and didn't like Indians, and that we couldn't treat him like an animal just because he was a rickshaw driver. We were completely taken aback by his comments and ended up in a fully fledged shouting match with him in the street. We were then even more taken aback when he suggested going for a cup of chai to work through our differences. Completely confused by the situation we agreed to this
Jaipur
Jal Mahal the Water Palace. The Royal pleasure palace used for duck shooting parties and 30 minutes later we were on our way again.
On our second attempt we almost made it to the gate of the old city, but before we could reach it, we were intercepted by a bangle store owner who advised us not to visit the City Palace as the entrance fee was very high and wasn't worth the money. He told us to instead visit the Water Palace which was free to see and much more beautiful. He also advised us not to buy anything in the old city as the prices were hiked up for the tourists. He informed us that there was a widows' cooperative textiles factory near the Water Palace where we could see a textile printing demonstration and if we bought anything there the money would go directly to the widows. He said the only problem was that English speaking rickshaw drivers wouldn't take us to the factory as they wouldn't receive any commission for taking us there. To help us, he asked a rickshaw driver in Hindi to take us there and even arranged for the fare to be on the meter, a first for us in India. We thanked him and he
Jaipur
The City Palace's seven storey high Chandra Mahal said not to worry but to stop in to his bangle shop to buy something when we came back.
After arriving at the factory to find no women working there, let alone any widows, and seeing the fleeting printing demonstration, we were ushered upstairs to the shop floor. There we were sat down and shown every example of the factory's work, from bedsheets to table clothes and pashminas, all in a very rehearsed fashion. All the while we were there rickshaws were turning up and dropping off pairs of equally gullible tourists to this "unheard of, fair-trade" textiles factory!
It was clear that we had been conned and by this time it was nearing the end of the day and we hadn't made it to any of the sights we had intended to see! We did see the Water Palace at sunset which was beautiful, but it didn't make up for the frustrations of the day. We headed home to tell our tale of woe to other travellers and consoled ourselves with some Baskin Robbins ice cream.
The next day we started afresh but abandoned the walking tour instead taking rickshaws between the sights with minimal hassle
Jaipur
One of two world record breaking 4,000 litre silver urns used by the Maharaja to carry enough holy water from the Ganges to drink during his trip to England in 1901. and confusion, and had a much more pleasant and successful day. We finally saw the City Palace, as well as Jantar Mantar, Maharaja Jai Singh's observatory with its giant sundial accurate to 3 seconds and the stunning Hawa Mahal "Palace of Winds". We then headed to the Monkey Temple for sunset, so called because of the hosts of pink bottomed macaque monkeys you have to manoeuvre around to get to it. A young local boy did offer his services as guide and protector to defend us from the monkeys, telling us that a British girl had been bitten the previous day but conscious of being ripped off/conned again we declined. A decision Cel regretted as we snuck past the vicious looking primates on our way to the temple. Unfortunately the sunset wasn't worth our treacherous journey as the sun quickly faded into the thick fog smothering the city.
From Jaipur we headed to Ranthambore to track tigers in the national park. We set out on our early morning safari with much anticipation but this dissipated after driving around in circles and patiently sitting and waiting for animal distress calls that didn't materialise. Unfortunately, all we saw were some spotted
Jaipur
The peacock gate representing Autumn in the inner courtyard of the City Palace dear, and some tiger tracks, the actual tigers eluded us. The morning was such a let down, that Cel slept through most of it and missed nothing. This probably won't come as a surprise to those that know her well and are familiar with her tendency to fall asleep in any moving vehicle especially after an early morning start!
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chris
non-member comment
All your travels are making me so jealous, but i have to remind you that I did manage to see the tigers in Ranthambone national park, bout on the down side it was 50 degrees the day i was there!!