The Lone Ranger
on Jen's Indian Adventure (India), 24/Aug/2010 15:06, 34 days ago
I’m just back from a week travelling to Jaipur andVaranasion my own. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. I’m used to travelling with company, but to be honest I enjoyed being able to decide my own routine and being able to be completely selfish for a bit.I flew to Jaipur on Sunday 15thAugust (Indian Independence Day), which included a 5 hour lay-over inDelhiairport. I know 5 hours sounds quite long, but I enjoyed the solitude in a busy airport, minding my own business and ensuring Costa Coffee’s profit for the day.I finally arrived to Japiur on Sunday evening, just as a heavy down-pour ended, to the Umaid Bhawan hotel, a traditional Rajastani house. Beautifully decorated I fell into a four poster, double bed, after having a shower with hot water (life’s little luxuries that volunteers don’t have).I was up bright and early on Monday morning to visit theCityPalaceand take some time walking around the oldPinkCity. I’m afraid to say that the Palace was like any other old house (Rajasthan Tourism forgive me) but it was. I didn’t get to see the house pictured on the tour guides. Even though I showed my Indian residency papers to the ticket office I fell for the ‘if you pay the tourist price it’s overall better value’ line as it included an audio guide and a entry ticket to another tourist attraction. Unfortunately I wasn’t impressed by the display of old clothes, armoury and chess sets, but others may be.I later went across the road to the observatory which this year has been declared a World Heritage Site. This time I decided to stick to my guns and only pay the Indian entrance rate, and was nicely impressed (Rs 20 compared to Rs 150). In this case a lot of the explanations were in Hindi but I got enough out of it for me. A certain astro-physicist (L that’s you) I know would have been far more impressed. But it was impressive to see what could be created in the 1800’s.I spent a lot of time walking around the Jaipur bazaars admiring all the silk items, carved wood and blue pottery. Jaipur is well known for it’s availability of well-priced silver and gold so some Christmas shopping was done while I was there. I didn’t like being constantly shouted at by the shop keepers ‘Mam come into my shop, just looking…’. Jaipur shop keepers have a lot to learn if they want Europeans to spend more money intheir city. The positive side of this is I got to see quite a bit of the city as I chose to walk around it instead of paying the crazy prices auto drivers were quoting for short rides. If I had been a regular tourist I may have been saying ‘oh that’s so cheap compared to Euro’ and happily paytheir rates. But I’m an Indian resident and it really made me mad that they would quote such ridiculous rates. In once case I was quoted Rs 200 for a Rs 30 journey.On my last evening in Jaipur I got to experience my first proper monsoon shower. The heavens opened for less than an hour on Wednesday evening, but due to lack of drainage in the city the water rose to over 27 cms in some areas. At the time I was in an auto which eventually gave in to the rain and so I had to give in too. I rolled up my trouser legs and walked through the flooded streets back to my hotel. Rolled up trouser legs or not by the time I got to my hotel I was soaked. But considering the serious lack of rains here this year it was good to see some. Unfortunately I read on a news website the next morning that a Jaipur resident had fallen into a drain the city authorities had opened to alleviate the rains and has since died.Would I recommend Jaipur as a place for tourists? It depends on what you want to see, but for me it wasn’t really worth the trip. The only saving grace was the smile on the face of the porter / housekeeping assistant that I met in the hotel each day. When I found out it was he who spotlessly cleaned my room every day I left him a ‘thank you’ tip (my friend F is now thanking the heavens that someone recognises back of house staff). Thankfully my luck was about to change with my visit toVaranasi