Jaipur - In Sickness and in Health

The ride to Jaipur was long and still relatively industrious in terms of scenery along the way. It was almost dark when we reached the Gurdwara in Jaipur, only to find we were refused for what we suspected as being foreigners. By this point Tevon's machine, having had become more and more difficult to start throughout the day, then failed completely. If you ever find yourself in Delhi (or Varanasi for that case) and want the name of a mechanic to avoid we can advise you! In Varanasi also for that matter! Tevon had made accommodation arrangements through Couch Surfing and his kind hearted, amiable couch (Sanjay) had offered to come and meet him to direct him to his house. Sanjay arrived in his little red Suzuki car, and offered all of us couch space for the night. Grateful we wouldn't have to try and navigate our way around the city in the dark trying to find somewhere reasonable to stay we followed, as Adam and Chris pushed Tevon along with their feet as they rode. Sanjay and his wife Anu made us feel extremely welcome - we even had our own room! Sanjay has a silver and precious/semi-precious stone jewellery business, and was soon showing us some of their samples :) Tired from the long ride we slept like logs, only to be woken by the call to prayer at around 4:30am. Adam's groaned comment was, to quote: "They can't be serious!" Oh yes, most serious. And on droned the call to Allah, occasionally drowning out the pain of the howling of the street dogs. We were shown some of the city that afternoon and took a visit to Sanjay's showroom near to the railway station to look at some of his jewellery designs. We learnt that he has several franchises around the world thanks to his coach surfing connections.

We transferred that evening to new accommodation in a 'flat' above a clothes shop, owned by Sanjay's family and what used to be his office in the next suburb over. The flat was more of a squat especially once we had spread mattresses around, and unloaded our bags. Adam disappeared temporarily to organise a gift for Lana to be exclusively handmade through Sanjay's business. It turned out to be a beautiful silver ring with eight stones, including one diamond, set perfectly around a Ruby. Lana was pretty happy to say the least. The squat was not the most comfortable place to stay but it was cheap and we had it all to ourselves which was nice. With a glass wall between two rooms, this was good for excluding the mosquitos. Sanjay's departing words were, "oh yes, I forgot to tell you there are dance classes starting at 8am in the morning". No problem, who needs a lie-in anyhow?

Immediately in the morning Adam, with the rest of us trailing behind, headed to the mechanic recommended by Sanjay. Meeting Dilip from Shakti Motors, and several hours later, established that it was necessary to organise an engine rebuild. If anyone reading this has or is looking for a professional, trustworthy and reliable Royal Enfield mechanic in India (very hard to come by we should add) Dilip from Shakti in Jaipur is your man, and even taking a detour to get there would be worth your while!

The work was expected to take 3-4 days so we had time to see some of the sights of this amazing pink city and the surrounding Forts. The old part of the city is surrounded by a pink stone wall, and many of the old buildings inside along the manic streets are made from the same stone and glow warm pink shades in the late afternoon sun. Amber Fort stands 10Km out of town. We managed to score a cheap rickshaw ride all the way there and were impressed by the miniature China Wall scenario stretching for miles over the tops of the surrounding hillsides all around. The Fort was nice, built in sand coloured stone and had some nice marble inlay and hand painted decorations on the arches of the palace inside. There was also a new 5-star restaurant, decked out with gilded chairs and plush red and purple velvets, within the fort. A basic vegetable Thali cost 850 Rupees - almost equivalent to an average income-earner's monthly wage! On our way up, we met Chris and Tevon who had ridden up on their bikes. After finally shaking off a puppet-doll seller who had been plaguing us for some time, we headed back to Jaipur - the long way round, finally finding ourselves hopelessly lost, and with the help of a rickshaw driver and his mobile phone, made contact with good natured Sanjay who came to our rescue...again.

We went for a couple of beers in a bar for Tevon's 18th birthday on the 5th of January. The majority of us fighting upset stomach's, it was only a quiet night. The bar, part of a hotel, was evidently only meant for male patrons, as Lana had to be escorted up two flights of stairs and into somebody's hotel room (while they waited outside) to use the bathroom. On the way out, to avoid the fuss, she opted just to take on the urinal in the men's bathroom!

The following day a few of us headed out to Jaigarh Fort built in 1726 houses the world's largest cannon. Its cannon ball weighed 50kg and was shot a distance of 35km...Impressive perhaps, but it was only ever fired once, because it made such a crater...maybe they thought it was just going to roll across the hills or something. Lana missed this beautiful fort visit having spent the best part of 3 days sleeping, (entertained by the knocking sounds of Backstreet Boys and Shakira dance routines from the boys upstairs)..By this time (in a state of hypochondria) was suspecting that she had developed Malaria! Tevon's Canadian friends Megan and Hayley arrived and joined us in the squat for one evening. We pigged out on fruit from the fresh fruit market opposite, and found ourselves down on the street at a little stall selling the best Masala Dosai outside of Southern India.

On our 6th day we made for our escape. Still with some tweaking bike issues, we said goodbye to Tevon, Megan and Hayley and managed to get away around lunchtime. Destination Pushkar, just Northwest of Ajmer. A small camel come tourist hippy town, also known as the last resting place for Mahatma Gandhi as his ashes were spread in the recently renamed Gandhi Ghat, in the large lake in the centre of town.