THE PINK CITY: Jaipur

Day One

As mentioned in the previous post, I had an early train. I made it without a hitch this time: no speeding through the early morning traffic or sprinting to my platform. This particular morning was very pleasant and relaxed, and I found myself on my platform before the train had even come in to the station, which is how I typically like to do things here in India. I chatted with some nice Canadian professors before napping and eating my "Meals on Wheels" breakfast.

Jaipur came into view around noon, and I set about trying to find a place to stay. I thought I had reserved a room at a hotel, but it turns out I had only done that in my mind, so I allowed my rickshaw driver to take me to one of his places. People advise against it, but I liked the guy and didn't know Jaipur very well, so I let him drive me around.

But let me back up a little to the moment that I first met my rickshaw driver. He was one of those persistent ones that was around from the minute I got off the train, asking if I needed his services. I am immediately put off by that kind of in-your-face business, and so I shrugged him off and went to try and find a more secluded area where I could pull out my journal and check the name of my hotel. I set my backpack down and looked up. Standing about three feet from me, there he was. I narrowed my eyes and continued my search. I felt him come a little closer and hear, "Madame, you need taxi?" I looked up from my journal and sighed loudly. "Eik minute, ok?" I snapped, using what little Hindi I knew to let him know that I wasn't just a clueless tourist. He smiled broadly at my attempt at his language and chuckled. "Ok ok, eik minute," he agreed, and moved away again. 

When I finally found the name of the hotel, I found him still waiting and I accepted his taxi service. I hefted my backpack onto my back and we walked away from the train station and toward the mess of auto-rickshaws in the parking lot. The first thing I noticed about the rickshaws in Jaipur were the fact that many of them were totally tricked out: bright colors, decals, flower garlands. My driver led me to his rickshaw. At first glance, it was clear that this was one of the flashiest ones: the inside was lined with red velvet, the seat was embroidered with a floral design, and there were huge speakers installed behind the passenger seat. "Welcome to my Indian Ferrari," he said, and he held out his hand for my bag.

The place I ended up staying, Sajjan Niwas, was a nice, if slightly earnest, "heritage" haveli (mansion) in a quiet area away from the busy Old City section of Jaipur. With a little help from my driver, I managed to bargain for free wi-fi on the condition that I didn't tell the other guests I wasn't paying for it. (If you ever go to Jaipur and stay at this place, don't tell the guy I told you.) It was a nice place with a rooftop restaurant, but it seemed like it was trying a little too hard to be evocatively "Indian". After a couple hours of unpacking and napping, I set out to explore a bit of the city.

My biggest accomplishment of that day, aside from buying my first Indian bus ticket, was seeing an awesome 360 view of Jaipur from the Minar. I can't remember what it's called (FIND THE NAME), but it's the tallest thing in Japiur, and the city stretches out from it in all directions. You can see the whole of the Old City, the newer sections of the city sprawling out around it, and the fort up on the ridge in the distance. It was a beautiful way to first see the city, and for only 20 rupees, it was worth the climb. The spiral staircase up to the top reminded me of a family vacation to Italy, during which my brother and I made our parents climb up just about every dome we saw.

Day Two

My hotel room turned out to be right next to some sort of important 24-hour meeting place for what I presumed to be hotel workers. They had a lot of important business to conduct, late into the night, outside my door. So, after a night of fitful sleep, I prepared to explore the Pink City. Here are the highlights:

City Palace. A beautiful series of courtyards, throne rooms, and fancy gates, with lots of cool paintings and a remarkable textile exhibit. My favorite parts of this site included the largest silver jugs in the world (they are just about as tall as I am and accompanied a Maharaja to London filled with river water from the Ganges); four intricately decorated gates that artistically represent the four Indian seasons: monsoon, winter, spring, and summer; the outfit of one of the Maharajas of Jaipur who supposedly weighed over 500 pounds (his pants were hilarious).

Gettin' the audio guide. I am quite the Smart Girl.

It doesn't look very big, but it's only an inch shorter than I am.

Jantar Mantar. The catchy title captures the whimsical nature of this astrological garden, a collection of weird-looking instruments that measure various things of astrological importance. I didn't get the audio guide for this one, and I am kicking myself now for it, because I feel that I missed out on a lot of cool information. Even without the guide, though, I felt like I was walking through a sculpture garden at an art museum. Marble and metal were incorporated to create endlessly interesting angles and curves, and everything--literally everything--had metric lines on it.

Hey! I found my sign!

Hawa Mahal. I had seen this from the outside the day before and told myself I wasn't going to go, but I managed to finagle a student discount composite ticket for 5 different sites, so I went to check it out. I'm really glad I did, because it was beautiful! Hawa Mahal means "Palace of the Winds", which sounds really fancy, and it was constructed so that the ladies of the palace could look out over the workings of the city without being seen. Apparently, it was a bad thing for women to be seen. (I'm just not going to get into that right now.) Regardless of how I feel about the reason behind the building, the architecture itself is a gorgeous 5 stories of stone screen work and stained glass. The whole complex is pretty open, so you can explore these cool little courtyards and arched hallways. I felt like I was sneaking around and discovering things that no one had found before, so needless to say I had a great time.

Those birds are alive and not part of the sculpture.

Albert Hall Museum. Another site included in the composite ticket, this museum is a beautiful building that I visited at precisely the wrong time. Every school group in Jaipur visited Albert Hall at the same time I did, and they were not a quiet bunch. Even though I was mildly interested in the exhibits, particularly the pottery, textiles, and musical instruments, I found myself almost running through the museum in an attempt to get away from the crowds of yelling students. Outside, though it was less packed, it was more obnoxious, because all of those students wanted to take a picture with me. I made the mistake of siting on a bench and trying to journal, and found myself surrounded by about 15 or 20 people trying to make some memories with the white girl. At first, I was totally annoyed and tried to wave them off, but in the end it was so ridiculous that I laughed and did silly poses with them. That situation was a prime example of how humor got me through India when I thought I was going to go crazy.

Day Three

With a head cold and a lot of blogging to do (what up, Smart Girls!), I decided to stay in on my third day in Jaipur. This was the first of my "do nothing" days, and I have learned to love them. Initially, I was a little ashamed to sleep in and relax: there's so much to experience and so many historical buildings to wander through and I'M GOING TO MISS EVERYTHING IF I DON'T DO IT TODAY. But I realized that that was a stupid mindset because it sets me up for failure right from the start. Health first. Sightseeing second. It seems like that would be a "duh" statement, but it's surprisingly difficult to rationalize when you're on the road and you only have so much time. 

So another big lesson that I've come to realize on this trip is that, no matter how many trips you take, or how many days you spend in a particular city or state or country, you will always be missing something. There's always something that someone did last year that's a total "can't-miss", and there's always that one monument or that restaurant or that national park. It's literally impossible to see everything. Initially, that thought sounds very defeatist, but if you look closer, you realize that's kind of the beauty of it. If it were actually possible to see everything in the world, if the number of wonderful sights and experiences the world has to offer could fit on a finite list, wouldn't travel lose some of its appeal? People keep going out because there's always something new, something that's changed. Trips are planned based on the mind-blowing experiences of friends and strangers and articles found in magazines. Wanderlust is so beautiful because it can never really be satiated. And, on the flip side of all this change, that historical monument that's been standing for several thousand years will probably last quite a bit longer, so you can always come back.

So, after a day of minimal effort, I made my way to Pushkar!