A jot jaded in Jaipur

The train journey to Jaipur began with a typical sea of unashamed staring, however in this case perhaps more murderous than ever, and we even received some offensive shoving and wafting on our passage through the heaving train. One portly man, with enchanting eyes and an unsavoury approach to seating legs akimbo given the risque dhoti man skirt he was donning, who had been glaring with unnerving fervour turned out to be most altruistic and offered me board above the leather bench seating to save my legs. In the flipping crippling luggage compartments! Cue 3 and a half hours of agonising jostling on the unforgiving metal bars cramped into a foot squared of space. Jack wasn't doing much better squeezed onto the bench intended for 3 beside at least 5 other people. I quickly became a bit of a transient celebrity and was showered with beedy cigarettes, seasoned nuts with lime and onion and biscuits passed up by eager hands from below. When we arrived in Jaipur, the famous city of pink nestled in the majestic centrality of Rajasthan along a line of formideable historical habitations such as blue-hued Jodhpur and the sandy giant fort of Jaisalmer in the desert, we were expecting more sedate surroundings splashed with small, crumbling cubby holes and perhaps a dusty old castle in the distance. And so we were slightly taken

Inconspicuous invaders in the train station

 aback by the vastness of the city, its haughty hum of the traffic and the screeching of brakes with the familiar clash of horns- all sounds we'd grown more than accustomed to this month, but having more recently transited tranquilly through an archaic backdated cluster of litte towns we'd almost blissfully forgotten the characteristic clamour of denser dwellings. We began a search for a cosy little hide away to offer respite from the enormous city we suddenly found rising dizzily around us. The Lonely Planet hotel recommendation was a little soulless, too neat and clean for our seasoned tastes.  

We appealed to our rickshaw driver for advice, but his first suggestion was unfortunately a little far from the center and a bit pricey. Although the colonial era style was intriguing. If not a little too dappled with exotic, endandgered animal hide. But like Goldilocks and the three bears, or Jo & Jack and the three havelis, the third and final attempt was a real winner. Our driver's recommendations had improved impressively alongside our fumbled attempts to convey the rustic, authentic nature of our aspirations captured masterfully within simple adjectives that bridged the language barrier such as 'maharaja', 'colourful' and 'drapes'. Well done Mr. Driver! Nestled in a quiet little side street near the old town centre, we found a towering mock-style heritage haveli with ornate alcoves around our balcony door and period wooden furniture to match the early 20th century decadence. It was a small price to pay that Jack kept drastically misjudging the corner to our patio table bashing his shoulder tortuously against the stone recesses that hemmed the door.

We climbed two flights of wide winding stairs excitedly to arrive on a beautiful, deserted rooftop terrace with little canvas canopies enclosing sofa snugs around pretty marble tables. We ordered a beer and slipped into more Kingfisher sponsored drunkness, watching an traditional local puppet show with raucous rounds of knee-slapping adoration and applause before enthusiastically quizzing the two gypsy guys who commandeered the stage with their bewildering display of rudimentary puppetering, which steadily progressed to us being hideously ripped off but delighted with a giant puppet of our own in the shape of an elegant Maharani queen who reveals an alterego Maharaja from under her skirt on the flip side. 

In the morning, we ventured into town to stroll through the markets, and check out the local trades. We began jocosely delving whole-heartedly into shops to try

on various amusing articles of worn leather chapals, oestentacious turban headgear and loud sunglasses. However, this gregariousness only served to find us beset on all sides by baying propreitors. We quickly began to adapt to the harsh environment and developed evasive techniques such as a myriad of foreign exclamations of confusion, basic guttural sounds denoting a complete lack of comprehension, or my personal favourite: a feigned yet commited allusion to a total inability to speak, like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. The only establishment that got my undivided attention and a fair share of my rupees, was the infamous MG Sweet Shoppe and their glimmering and vast array of deliciously alluring lumps and chunks of sugary goodness. I generally try and force feed these to Jack on a daily basis, vibrantly promoting their various ingredients and consequential virtues despite his perennial and unfaltering dislike. On this occasion though, he capitulated and sunk his teeth into a rose petal variety, but it all culminated with his disdain unfortunately intact.

We headed for the astoundingly unimpressive palace of Jaipur at great cost despite the fact they were setting up shambolically for some sort of event. The place was strewn with ladders, tools and wires, and a hoard of insensate workmen who stared stoically back at punters looking to circumvent their obstruction, having parted with a painful 300 rupees for

the injustice. There was however, a seriously formideable amoury, far more gruesome, extensive and inventive than any we'd seen, and two enormous silver urns wrought from 14,000 completely beaten unsouldered coins said to hold 4,000 liters which were transported all the way to English soil by the pious Hindu Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II filled with drops from the river Ganges to acompany hi, to King Edward VII's coronation so that he may not need to consume English water. Having seen the state of ghe Ganges first hand, this seems somewhat rich. Other than that, Jaipur palace was pretty disappointing. Our next stop conversely, was thankfully an utter marvel. The Jantar Mantar is one of 5 observatories built by avid star-gazer Raja Jai Singh II between 1727 and 1734 to provide a large expanse of lofty instruments for both he and his keen cosmological pupils to conduct investigations and map the stars whilst scrupulously studying astrology. We opted to employ a guide to articulate each instrument, and acquired some flash looking smooth operator with a vat of gel dripping down from his slick hair in the swealtering heat, peering out behind giant shiny sunglasses who whizzed us round on the borderline of disinterested. We however found the whole thing completely enchanting and pryed with a few extra questions to get our money worth. After this, we took a wander into the park nearby, stopping at a serious score of street vendors for our extensive lunch of sweet and sour filled puri balls, vegetable burgers and more MG sweets, for me. 

To remedy a tiring day of wandering lost along the unforgiving streets having completely misjudged the grandueur of the old city, we hopped in a taxi and headed up into the hills to the small fort we could see atop a cliff cresting Jairpur to the North. We arrived in the nick of time as the winding 8km journey was far longer than we'd expected, and rushed in as the last visitors of the day to look out over the walls of the perculiar fort which had been rennovated fairly substandardly in what looked like recent history, its painted walls displaying attempts at the antiquated Indian style art but looking more like cartoons. The views however were astounding, and we quickly found our way to a very welcome licesnsed West facing outdoor restaurant to enjoy a beer and some pakoda as guests to the sinking sun. The light was magnificent, casting and orange and pink glow over the darkening city.

Trials and tribulations of the day were ameliorated, shrinking with the light and as the sun

hit the horizon and the call to prayer rung out over the expanse, as the sheer strength of the sounds drifting up was suddenly brought into focus. Hovering hundreds of feet up high, I guess we hadn't expected to sense any of the city's soundscape intimately, but gazing out over the vast sea of lights that were flickering on in the night, we realised the city was as large as London, and producing a proportional din. After the serene sunset, we bumbled arm in arm down a stony 2km winding pathway snaking the side of the mountain back into the city, much easier than the 8km drive and a serious saviour as there was not a rickshaw in sight at the entrance to the fort under cover of darkness.

The following day we headed out at 5:30, destined for Monkey Temple to the East to see the sunrise. We finally arrived after our driver (brother of the haveli Manager, and as such vastly more expensive it turned out) had picked us up 15 minutes late, stopped twice in an attempt to fill his rickshaw with petrol angrily finding all the stations shut before getting lost heading in the wrong direction down a dual-carriage way for 10 minutes. But we found this more amusing than anything, being far in advance of the rising sun still, and began the walk up a steep and stony path to the crest of two meeting mountains. The scene was animated by the awakening of those who lived there; goat herders, mothers of many and groups of jocular early morning local laughing yoga enthusiasts who would erupt into violent laughter at the top of their lungs into the crisp, misty air. Rounding a corner onto the

declivity dowm he other side revealed a sharp skyline of majestic mountains. Their tips shrouded in dense cloud to the edge of a sunken cluster of small temples and snaking stairways which lead to deep and mystical stony pools. But no monkeys. We wandered around, soaking up the strange solitary atmosphere, and fending off the vehement attempts of the lone holy man wafting us expectantly towards his favourite shrine, muttering mainly of course about donations and bushkars. Having satisfied our curiosity checking out the sporadically strewn temple, we were heading back for the stony path and decided to scale daringly the large ridge to our right which seemed to be overlooking a sharp drop some hundred feet down into the valley in which monkey temple was mystically nestled. After some hairy clambering, we found ourselves high atop the quiet movements below, elevated above large masking condensation clouds which were scattering the growing light mysteriously. We sat and quietly watched the ghostly sun rising through the mists enjoying our perspective. Not long after, a terrifying rabble erupted behind emmited by hundreds of monkeys plunging down through the mountain undergrowth from where we'd come early that morning. It was a disquietening sight accompanied by a symphony of fearful screeches. We sheepishly descended the sanctuary of our peak and ventured through the stone pool beleagured with babbling monkeys, males throwing their weight around for all to see, mothers clutching their babies alert to all goings on, and boisterous juvenilles bounding around playfully. We sat amidst the madness for several minutes, occasionally offering a danging foot as aparatus to facilitate swinging or scrambling up or down the wall. To our recurrent fright and delight.

Mastering the mountains

When we were back with our rickshaw man after the wonderful sunrise exploration, we headed for the Amber fort about 11 km outside of Jaipur. The enormous construction peeked out from behind thick cloud as we grew closer, marvelling at its size higher still in the mountains. A train of enormous decorated elephants carried visitors up on their cushioned backs, whose legs we dodged skillfully to arrive at the entrance. We looked around for several hours, taking shots on Jack's ancient Nikon film camera he'd inherrited judging aperature, ISO, F stops and other whimsical settings. After a coffee we headed back via a glorious water temple plonked out in the middle of a huge lake behind the city and implored our driver drop us at the zoo rather than our hotel as we still had several hours before our train to Delhi. 

The incriminating Pal Mahal photo

Thus ensued a fierce altercatiom as our imperious guide, who had openly refused to allow us to stop where we desired on the lake for a view of the Pal Mahal ensuring us he had a much better position (which turned out to be centre of tens of tourists and tacky plastic toys and souvenirs for sale), was now decreeing in a haughty manner that we were breaking contract with our sudden request to divert from our initial end point. It seemed irrelevant that this journey was a good 2-3km shorter than our initial route and our attempts at conveying this went unheeded. It was around this time our patience wore as thin as the down trodden fraying fabric of our tattered shoes and even the indomitable Jack was stirred into battle. Our driver called in a friend who happened to be passing by for moral support in the dispute, and we hashed it out for 10 to 15 minutes trying to helpfully enforce the idea that the customer is always right, an ethos we were sorely missing. After much turmoil, we pulled up beside the zoo and endeavoured to engage in a final knowing handshake with the driver sharing a not unfriendly glare of ultimate mutual acknowledgement and respect but with a prevailing antithectical stance, With the touts in the shops, the ticket holders at the landmarks, the laborourers in the palace, the drivers of the rickshaws, we have found an unassilable indifference to the customary reverence of the customer and the value of comsumer rights that we enjoy so unknowingly back home. With everything becoming a minor battle, you have to constantly remind yourself of the difference in culture so as to prevent events from having the feeling of a aggrivating person affront. Having warded off that innate presumption, most people seem to be like unassuming water coconuts and are found to have a soft interior beyond the tough exterior husk. So we left our driver without an overall sense of ingratitude and headed, via the diabolical zoo we left within 10 minutes, to the train station to depart for Delhi.