Jaipur (1 night)

My journey from Agra was actually fairly comfortable. I was travelling by train in AC Chair Car. I think the name gives most of the description you need, but I will add that the chairs were large and soft. Unfortunately, my 'window' seat placed me between windows and the one in front of me was broken, so no view for me.

When I arrived in Jaipur I met the two English travellers that had shared a rickshaw with me to the station in Agra and we set out on foot to find some accomodation. After fighting through the barrage of rickshaw touts at the station we stopped for food and then headed toward the city centre. I had my eye on a hotel mentioned in my lonely planet and they just tagged along. After 30 minutes walking with packs along busy and dusty city streets we failed to find the place and reluctantly took a rickshaw back to a guesthouse we had passed on the way.

After two days of early morning train journeys and little sleep, I was shattered. I tried for a nap, but after 20 min I was awoken by someone who had knocked on the wrong door, just my bloomin luck! However, feeling a bit more alive, I set out to explore the 'Pink City' inside the city walls.

It was a long trek through the outer, more modern, city to the gate and when I made it I stopped for a bite to eat. I was then standing by a couple of Indian guys who struck up a conversation. They suggested we go for a chai to chat more. I was a little suspicious, but figured I could go for chai and then leave if things got awkward. They introduced me to an older man, who had an art studio. He wanted me to come and see his work. The studio was just around the corner and I said I would take a look, but that I was not interested in buying anything. Looking back, I dont know why I bothered, all the signs of a scam were there, but I am so more susceptible to this sort of thing when I am tired. Once I sat down in the studio we chatted about family and India, but I was feeling uncomfortable and sure enough the conversation started to come back to the studio and the guy told me he taught art to handicapped children. If I didnt want to buy anything then maybe I would like to make a donation?

I left, politely, but quickly. Nearly everyday in India you meet someone trying to get at your money. These young men had seemed totally genuine and friendly and interested in me and my background, but in the end they turned out to be as rotten as the rest. It left me with a bitter taste and I started to wonder how I could ever trust the local people. I want to meet genuinly friendly Indians, and I am sure they are numerous, but I am forced to be rude to people who say hello to me, to ignore their questions, and walk on by, because when I do trust them, they try to cheat me or to sell me something.

I tried to relax and enjoy the rest of my day at least. I spent the next hour or two walking around the old city, which is mainly lots and lots of little shops selling everything from pans, to spices. It was the spice shops in particular that grabbed my attention. There were great sacks of vibrant coloured powders, gratings of interesting roots, hugs bags of dried red chillis, and then shelves of little bottles of things I can only imagine. The smell wafting out was wonderful.

Later I walked all the way back to the guesthouse, around 1 hour, and then met the English couple coming the other way for food. Though exhausted, I decided to go with them. We found a nice looking place, but it was opening in an hours time, so we headed up to a rooftop bar nearby. It was quite a strange little place and we had it to ourselves. When we headed down for the food later, we found it to be well overpriced and thought we would try the little local style places across the road. Amazingly these places handed us menus with the same vastly exagerated prices assuming that we tourists were stupid enough to pay them. Maybe some are, but I was cross that yet more people are trying to rip me off.

Eventually, after asking a couple of other travellers, we found a place with normal prices, but the wait was ridiculously long and the food average. I had been looking forward to visiting Jaipur, not because it was the first place in the Rajasthan State that I would come to, not because it was the famous old 'pink city', but because there is a really good India Pale Ale with the same name! Silly as it sounds, I had been excited. After my wholly unsatisfactory experience, however, I vowed to leave Jaipur the next day.