Rajasthani Ramble 3 – Jaipur

---

We arrived in Jaipur early in the morning again, and were planning to stay the day, but hadn’t fully read our guidebook, including the section “Near or Around Jaipur”. Thankfully we noticed it later and realized there was a lot to see here. We did, however, break Tony’s Rule Number 1 for travel: find a place to stay first before you do anything else. This omission had some repercussions later, but didn’t deter us from enjoying all the city’s sights.



Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan and known as the Pink City after Maharaja Jai Singh II ordered all buildings be painted pink, is India’s first planned city. Being from Chicago, I did initially revel in the fact that the city was planned as a grid, but lacking street signs, coupled with Indians’ inability to read maps (an inability they themselves readily admit to, unlike the Sri Lankans who also cannot read maps but haphazardly point to areas on them, leading me and Klaudia to many lost adventures), the planning turned out to be no help to us. Nevertheless, we cheerfully wandered the streets and ate some good street food while killing time before the museums opened.



The first stop we happened upon during our wandering was Hawa Mahal, built in 1799 as an extension of the City Palace to house royal women. It was constructed in such a way to allow these royal ladies to view the events of the city without being seen. Now orientated, we then purposely walked over to the City Palace, an impressive structure with several large courtyards and gardens – a small city in its own right, its interior decked out in pink like the rest of the city. Before we entered, I couldn’t resist taking a picture with some snake charmers, fully knowing that it would cost me. They placed their vibrantly colored hats on my head, played flamboyant music, and allowed me to pet their cobra. I pulled out 50 rupees, at which one of them scoffed and replied the pictures Klaudia took cost 500 rupees. I returned his derision and told him they’d get 50, which was more than sufficient; if they didn’t like it, I added, they could call the police. I’ve found this to be an effective way in dealing with disagreements about money: it shuts everyone up immediately.



Deeper into the palace stands the Chandra Mahal courtyard, which, in turn, contains the Diwan-I-Khas audience hall that also acts as a museum housing two large silver urns with a capacity of 4000 liters - according to our guidebook, these urns are in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest silver vessels in the world. While I contemplated the use of a 4000-liter urn, a dance presentation began in the center of the audience hall with minstrels and what I thought to be a female dancer. As I watched the dancer, not quite certain if she was attractive or not, I noticed her movements were a bit masculine. Klaudia then confirmed for me that this was indeed a man. I don’t know if the dance was in jest or if it symbolized something (perhaps somewhat Shakespearian) but I found it entertaining.



Once our visit of the palace concluded, we proceeded to Janta Mantar across the street. Janta Mantar is probably an astronomer’s delight, consisting of several grandiose astronomical geometric devices to measure various celestial movements of the Earth, sun and stars. It was built around the third decade of the 18^th century. I honestly found it fascinating that someone took the time to build a gigantic sun dial, but unfortunately could not follow the complex astronomy.



We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to Amber Fort in the town of Amer, a few kilometers from Jaipur. He told us a bit about the fort on our way there: built in the late 16^th century by Raja Man Singh, it was expanded upon over 150 years by his successors into this now formidable structure, housing various gardens and courtyards. Our driver waited as we walked up the long pathway to the fort. The views from the towers of the lake and surrounding hills were striking. Towards the end of visit, there is a subterranean “secret” passageway that leads to Jaigarh Fort, located above Amber Fort, providing some more great views. Jaigarh was built in 1726 by Jai Singh II as an additional protective fortress. The fort boasts the largest cannon on wheels, called Jaivana.



We returned to the road where we’d left our driver, an hour or so later than our agreed-upon time. As we drove back to Jaipur, he began to tell us about a shop that did this or the other.



“No shopping,” I quickly interrupted him.



“But they make the best…”



“No, that is not interesting for us,” I again interrupted.



“Then what is interesting for you?”



“..Everything except shopping…”



“But it is the best embroidery…”

“It can be the best anything, I won’t buy it and we’re not interested. If you don’t like it, call the police,” I said, then turned to Klaudia and smiled as he shut up: even when it wasn’t relevant, the police comment worked. He began to pout; I smiled some more as I thought about the Indian male a bit – they are really annoying. In North Africa, when you say “no”, they become angered and irritated, sometimes irate; in India, they pout like little children. I wanted to take our driver over my knee and spank him as I thought about the other ways Indian males are annoying. First, they do not listen at all; they simply don’t hear you once they’ve concluded an opinion. I remembered the hellish bus ride (as was common for me at this point because some pretty interesting things happen on the bus) to Udaipur, during which an Indian man turned to me and asked me if my AC was working. I told him it was, and he proceeded to get up and walk over to the ticket attendant to tell him to turn on the AC. In the meantime, I inspected my AC valve and noticed that you could turn it counterclockwise to block the air. I reached over to his and noticed that this was the case with his valve. When he returned to his seat, I politely said, “Sir, it’s a valve, you just need to…”



“Yes, yes, thank you. I know, I’ve already told the driver to turn the air on,” he said matter-of-factly. His English was fairly good.



“No, no,” I tried again, “you can turn it on by…”



“Yes, yes, the driver will turn it on.”



Fine - burn for all I care. Actually, I hope you melt, you stubborn yak… Obviously, the air never “turned on” for him and he ended up changing seats, never discerning that it was just a valve.



Second, because the Indian male doesn’t listen, he doesn’t ever know what it is you’re truly asking, especially when seeking directions to a place. You can ask and ask and repeat and repeat… he’ll probably end up giving you wrong directions. I’ve found it’s much easier to talk to women, and make it Tony’s Travel Rule #2 to ask women for directions. The women in India are sweet, with nice polite smiles, and seem to know what it is you’re asking simply because they listen.



“Sightseeing is interesting to us. Can you take us to Tiger Fort?” I asked; however, I knew what the answer would be from the pouting child – he gave some excuse we didn’t comprehend. We were tired anyway and figured we’d visit the next day before catching the bus to Delhi.



He deposited us near the City Palace, from where we took a bus to the train station to pick up our luggage: as mentioned earlier, we were only figuring on spending the day. We then headed into town again and, as we couldn’t find the bus station, stopped at some travel agencies to purchase a bus ticket to Delhi for the next day. However, after several tries, no one would sell us a ticket. We couldn’t understand why and received only head bobbles to our questioning. Finally, a young tuk-tuk driver, seeing us arguing about what to do, shouted: “Halo! Where are you going?!”



“Ugh…” we sighed petulantly.



We told him our predicament and he, of course, knew someone that would sell us a ticket; for 10 rupees, he would take us there. We went along for the ride to a travel agent who was reminiscent of the pirate I’d met in Mumbai. He sold us a ticket after Klaudia and I debated about what time to leave. We looked at our young driver and asked him if he knew a hotel. Our guidebook, and others, continuously warns of hotel touts, but, honestly, as we never book our hotels before arriving at a place, I have nothing against them: sometimes their recommendations are better, at even lower prices; and if they get a commission out of it, good for them. Also – very importantly - at the outset, we usually negotiate a deal with the driver wherein, if we don’t like the hotel, we don’t pay him (actually, it’s good practice to negotiate every single service you purchase up front, whatever it may be, even picture taking). They’re usually ok with this; for the most part, it runs very smoothly and we’d been happy with our track record of finding places to stay with this method. And if there is ever any disagreement, I tell them to call the cops.



Of course, as is true with anything in India, sometimes your patience will tested; this happened to be one of those times, leading to Klaudia’s emotional India outburst. We drove from hotel, to hotel, to hotel. We gave our driver and another accomplice we’d picked up at the first hotel one more chance. “For 600 rupees”, the accomplice promised, “you will have a room in this hotel.”



We arrived and Klaudia entered the hotel with the accomplice to inspect the room while I waited with our bags.



“This is good guesthouse,” our driver informatively told me. I nodded. A few seconds passed when I heard Klaudia screaming. Her angry gait was brisk as she exited the guesthouse, the accomplice and hotel owner following quickly behind. She stopped mid-stride the way angry women sometimes do and turned around to ream the both of them:



“You told us 600 rupees! The room is 1800! We agreed to the price and standard before we entered the tuk-tuk and this is the 4^th hotel, stop wasting our time! Stop lying! When you lie, you only waste everybody’s time! And I will not let you waste my time anymore!” She turned again towards the tuk-tuk; I could visibly see the veins in her head as her cheeks reddened; there was fire in her eyes. The hotel owner uttered perhaps a syllable before Klaudia interrupted him: “You’re all liars! We are traveling for 3 weeks and everybody in India is like that, same scenario each time. All you know how to do is cheat tourists! India is dirt and cheating! You will never develop. With this mentality you will always be a poor 3^rd world country…That’s it, I have had enough!!”



“True, true!” I yelled in agreement.



“Take the bags out,” Klaudia scornfully said to me.



“What did I do?”



“Oh, my God! Not now!”



As ordered, I exited the tuk-tuk and began to remove our bags. The hotel owner walked up to me and apologetically said that he didn’t know what the driver and his friend had promised us, but he had a room on the first floor that was usually 800 rupees – he’d give it to us for 600. I turned to Klaudia, who furiously shook her head no: “I’m not staying here! Why didn’t you show me that room first?! Instead you showed me the one for 1800!”



“Sorry,” I said to the hotel owner.



“We always show the more expensive one first… Ok, 500 rupees,” he said harmoniously.



“What do you say?” I asked Klaudia: we were both aware of the up-sell at this point. She vacillated a moment, then agreed. It was a pretty nice room… After a hot shower that worked, we discussed how we could use Klaudia’s anger as a negotiating technique in the future.



After a good night’s sleep, we visited Nahargarh Fort, or Tiger Fort as it is otherwise known, with no incident and some breathtaking views of Jaipur. We then headed for Delhi.

---