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Published: February 6th 2007
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Jan 26, 2007 Part 4
In the late afternoon, we decided to take a stroll up and down the equivalent of Main Street Jaipur. To reach the shopping district, we had to exit through a large gateway structure. Inside the gateway was the electrical hub for something. Maybe the Palace? Maybe the shops nearby? Maybe homes? Since a picture is worth 1000 words, I had to show you the state of electricity in India. Now you can understand why the electricity goes out 20 - 30 times a day! It’s a wonder people aren’t electrocuted on a regular basis. I don’t these are Schneider Electric products!
Another interesting site as we were walking toward the shops, was the first public toilet. Notice that it is nothing more that a wall with a small divider between stalls. There is a little trough that they pee into. Needless to say, this toilet is only used by the men, and I can tell you I saw a few of them using it too. They just walked up to it, unzipped, and took a leak. No stage fright for these Indian men. The area surrounding it stunk to high heaven, but on the
Public Toilet
The little brick structure in the back of the photo. upside at least they were using the damn thing and not letting go wherever the mood struck them!
The streets are lined with small shops not much wider than 15 feet. It seems that each shop specializes in something, whether it is fabric, clothes, shoes, trinkets, dishes, tires, motorcycle parts, jewelry, fruit, grains, spices, etc. It also seems as if similar shops were grouped together in blocks, so household wares were sold in the same block, and fabric / clothing stores were grouped in another block.
Some vendors didn’t have shops so they just displayed their products curb side, like the grain vendor in this picture. I didn’t get a photograph of it, but he had a large old scale like the blindfolded lady justice sculpture holds in the US. He used it to weigh the grain and determine the price.
Unfortunately I didn’t get anymore pictures of the market. As you’ll read below, I was too overwhelmed and frankly intimidated and sometimes downright scared to worry about carrying my camera and snapping photos.
The shop keepers spot the Westerns coming up the street blocks away and by the time you reach their shop they are
all lathered up trying to get you to come into their shop. White people = Westerners = Money. You’re absolutely inundated with men (no women shop keepers) begging you to just come into their shop and look. They insist they have exactly what you want (although you haven’t spoken a word to them) and that their wares are of the highest quality. They insist they aren’t trying to sell you anything (RIGHT!), they just want you to see their product so they can educate you on their craft. It goes without saying that each guy promises that he has the highest quality and lowest price.
And let me tell you, these guys are relentless. The will grab a hand full of fabrics or trinkets and follow you up the street asking you to take it over and over and over and over again. With each step further away from their store, the price they are offering drops. They don’t seem to understand what, ‘No thank you. I’m not buying anything,’ means. Michele knows the Hindi word for ‘shut up.’ It’s ‘chup’ which sounds like chew with a P on the end. She would eventually tell them, ‘Chup! Chup!’ Instead of being offended they would just laugh, amused she knew the word and would usually leave us alone then.
Here’s where things got interesting… and a bit unsettling for me.
We stopped at a corner to get our bearings, when this man approached us and offered to show us gold and silver jewelry at lower prices. He said his shop was just off the main street. At first we said, no, but then Michele agreed and off we went following this man down the smaller side streets to his shop.
The streets got more narrow and if it is possible, more filthy. I was watching my step very closely because I was afraid to step in piles of shit or puddles of Lord knows what - not to mention I didn’t want to twist my ankle and fall down in the filth! But at one point I looked up to see where we were going, and there were several monkeys swinging through the electrical lines draped over the streets. I wish I could’ve gotten a picture, but I didn’t want to dig my camera out of my bag.
When we reached his shop, we entered a dirt floored room, climbed some narrow stairs and emerged in a very small room but it was quite well lit and very clean. Michele immediately recognized it as a shop she had visited the last time she was in Jaipur. The man behind the counter looked up and recognized Michele. Michele having been there before relieved some of my now extreme anxiety. The shop sold jewelry and semi-precious stones on long stands for resale. There was a German couple in the shop. They were buying stone and silver to take back to Germany so she could start her own jewlery business.
Michele was looking for something in particular and this shop didn’t have it. But of course, our ‘back street shopping guide’ knew another shop that would have it. And so he continued to take us through the back winding streets. Again my anxiety level is growing by the minute, but each time we enter a shop it is clean and quite nice. Michele never found what she was looking for, but we both bought earrings in a shop that you could’ve found in a Western mall, it was the nicest of the shops we visited.
It was getting dark so we insisted that we couldn’t shop any longer and our guide led us back to the main street where we made our way back to the parking lot where our driver was waiting for us. The man ended up being very kind and very respectful, but I can tell you that I won’t make another back street excursion like that again. Too much risk for me and I told Michele so. She insisted that she wouldn’t take the risk if she was alone, but she’s simply more adventurous than I. It was a shopping experience I’ll never forget, but not one I’m looking to repeat anytime soon.
And yet the fun had just begun! Read on…
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Liz
non-member comment
Picture of Michelle Please
Your journal is excellent. As I have said before, you were a writer in your previous life. If or when you retire, your second career should be in writing. I need a picture of Michelle. By March you will love surprises and won't mind when I burp and Tom leaves the door open...Ha Ha Ha.