It was nice having a driver for a few days I suppose, it made things easy, but it can make for a bit of a sterile experience; you emerge from an air-conditioned car, see the sights, return to the car and off you drive. I know we've both been enjoying our moments of freedom when we explore places in foot and have the whole crazy mixed experience.
The pink city is certainly a crazy, mixed experience. The streets are laid out in long Bazaars and for the most part, the pink colour exists in strips along the main routes.
One thing we saw here was piles and piles of dried chillies sold by street vendors. We also ate a very cheap lunch at a tiny restaurant and I had the daahl fry, which was brilliant.
There is a tower called the Iswari Minar Swarg Suli or Isar Lat, which was built by a Raja of Jaipur in the 18th century to celebrate a military victory. It's hard to find because you have to go down a backstreet to find it, but it is worth the climb. The views of Jaipur are amazing.
It was on the way out that we encountered one of the weirdest street touts we've come across. A man came up to us and said, 'Excuse me, could you please answer a question for me, why is it that westerners don't like to speak to Indian people'.
We politely suggested that it was probably because everyone seemed to want to sell us something.
Then he said, 'Is it because of my colour?'
We assured him not, but he kept up the same line of questioning and we began to think something was odd and walked away. We did wonder what was up but also thought the man had a point until, three minutes later, a completely different man came up to us, 'Excuse me, could you please answer a question for me, why is it that Western people . . .'
This was the point at which we properly smelt a rat and we quickly made ourselves scarce. Later I asked the owner of our guesthouse what this was all about. His theory was that they wanted to rip off/seduce western women and so the street touts had come up with this little performance. Who knows.
Later in the afternoon we went to Jaipur's Albert Hall, which is a mouldering pile of Anglo-Indian pomp. It has an interesting collection, especially of textiles, but the most amazing thing about it is what an unaltered example of a 19th century museum it is. You almost feel, walking through, looking at the wooden-framed glass cases, that nothing has changed since it was built in the 1870s. Some very excited teenage girls wanted a photo with us!
I think today's biggest adventure, however, was our first experience of the Indian railway. Oh my! Forget Auckland's public transport woes! This was incredible and chaotic, although it seemed to operate very efficiently in its own way.
We spent the evening back at the lovely Vinayak Guest house in Jaipur. The people there are very kind and let us hang out at their rooftop restaurant until we left. Once we reached the station we were relieved about this.
At about 10.30pm we walked to the railway station.
An Indian railway station at night is not a quiet place. The first thing you notice on approaching is the number of people sleeping. Some in the garden out front, others on the station porch, some on the floor. Many seemed to be quite poor people who had just wrapped themselves in a sheet and slept wherever they could find a place.
We soon found out that our train was leaving from platform four and so there we went. It turned out to be another excellent example of heirarchical Indian society at work. There are no seats on the platforms, so you just sit where you can. For a third or second class non ac seat you wait on a very crowded platform. For sleeper or ac 2 or 3 you wait somewhere far less crowded with an obviously more middle-class clientele.
L and I found a place to sit, but it wasn't long before we realised that we were the object of much curiosity. There were a number of men and few women - as In most public places here - and we felt quite uncomfortable quite quickly. Never mind. I suppose we are quite interesting to people here; two fair-skinned women travelling without male company and so obviously from a different place and culture. We haven't seen many women here. If you tried to gage the male to female population ratio by looking at the city streets in most places we've been in, you might guess than maybe 10% of the population was female. Not many women are about during the day and in public places. The train station is the same; men, men, men. Families, women travelling with husbands and more men.
If you are at all squeamish don't look at the tracks. They were rat-infested and these huge, fat indolent things picked amongst the rubbish like they had all the time in the world and were the rulers of creation. I saw one with a body as long as my forearm.
When the train pulls up the poor souls in 3rd or 2nd class (non-airconditioned) make a desperate rush for the doors. They pack them in! For those us in 2 or 3 AC life is more sedate. In 2 AC there are beths of bunks two high and with a maximum of four people to a compartment. You are given India railway branded sheets and towels and a chance to make up your bed in relative calm and peace. In 3AC srrangements are similar but bunks are three high.
Now, you musn't imagine a plush European train here with velvet upholstery and everything as clean as sterile can make it. The berths are brown vinal and the toilet is a metallic squat device through which one can see the railway tracks moving (which I'm sure pleases the rats). If it sounds a bit basic, so what? It's comfortable enough and we were travelling in style compared to the people stuffed into overflowing carriages in the non-ac classes.
Our only mishap was to go to the wrong bunks and have to move to a different part of the train very late.
And now we are in Jaisalmer! I wanted to come here because the guide book described it as something out of Arabian nights, and it is!!!! I love the place. But more on that tomorrow.
And so, to bed.
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