India Days 8-10: Jaipur

Our first day in Jaipur was full of frustrations and lessons learned. Despite two trips to the railway ticket office, a trip to a travel agent, a failed search for the tourism information center, and more than a few hours on the Internet at the hotel-mostly zoomtra.com and indianrailways.com, we ended up with just one train ticket. In all my previous travels I have never had trouble getting a bus or train ticket when planning five to seven days in advance. This is because in rich countries they run empty buses and trains due to subsidies; and places like Thailand and Vietnam have so many tourists they are always running buses. So, I have never put much thought to planning more than a week or so in advance. But unfortunately, my brain has been trained to the Chinese system of buying tickets. China, like India, has a massive rail system serving over a billion people. But in China you can only buy tickets 10 days in advance. In India you can buy them 90 days in advance. So, there were no tickets and by dinner, we had achieved next to nothing.

Worry not, we made the best of the evening and went to see the uber-hyped movie My Name is Khan, starring the biggest Bollywood star of them all Shah Rukh Khan-or SRK, as he is known locally. The theater was packed, as it was only the second night it was out-and the assigned seating was necessary to avoid a stampede (a likely possibility in India). Oddly, our helpful hotel manager insisted that his buddy that worked at the theater reserve tickets for us-so we just showed up and asked for Amir. Sketchy: yes. Did it work: yes. MNIK (Indians have a thing for English acronyms) was not a normal Bollywood film, as it had no battle scenes or big dance numbers. It was instead a rather serious movie that featured a man with Asperger’s syndrome in a Hindu-Muslim romance set within the situation of Muslims in the U.S. after 9/11. As you can tell from that, it was true to Bollywood style in that it pulled no stops to be an emotional rollercoaster. I’d recommend it not to get a sense of Bollywood films-but because-due to huge amounts of English, it’s super easy to follow and SRK delivers a solid performance.

Our second day in Jaipur was much less stressful; we got the travel plans figured out by just taking the most efficient route and buying plane tickets. We visited the old city, which gives Jaipur its name as the Pink City. We wandered among the pink and peach buildings while admiring the myriad bangles and saris, which were incredibly exquisite and colorful, respectively. The Hawa Mahal-a gorgeous palace that was formerly a harem-features a magnificent façade that is right in the middle of the old city, inconspicuous among the bangle shops and paan stands. The façade served as a screen for the emperor’s ladies to watch the city while remaining unseen (to be modest concubines, irony anyone?) Danthemanstan and I got separated in the palace’s maze-like assorment of rooms and halls. While walking alone, I was approached by a few groups of schoolchildren visiting, so we took the requisite pictures. An English teacher from Kashmir also approached me, who insisted that I visit it on my trip to India; he didn’t seem to think that travel restrictions and permits mattered. Later, on the street, we ran into the same group of students, who pointed at us and referred to Danthemanstan as “friend of Ken” which I think is a great moniker.

We enjoyed a delectable dinner in the old town. I had mouth watering grilled and marinated paneer. As we scanned the hotel, it was obvious that the restaurant was one of only three or four recommended by the guidebook in the old city-and its top choice. Every table that had a foreigner sitting at it (including ours) also had a Lonely Planet sitting on the table or on the chair. People like us might be adventurous to visit India, but God forbid we eat at an untested restaurant. We were more than happy to spend our third night at the Hotel Jaipur City, which turned out to be the best hotel we stayed at in India-despite the sketchy initial arrangements. Along with free breakfast, it featured Ashwain, an incredibly helpful manager that seemed to single-handedly run the hotel 24 hours a day.

The Jantar Mantar observatory was the penultimate site we saw in Jaipur. Founded by an old king fond of astronomy. I thought the audio tour which featured a father-daughter instructive chat theme was awesomely cliché, Danthemanstan was less impressed. But the huge instruments were fun to learn about. And, be jealous, I have now visited the world’s largest sundial. Our last stop was the Jaipur City Palace, a very interesting former royal palace that serves as a museum of Mughal empire exploits. The sword collection was impressive-it had a lot of the awesome curved swords that I remember seeing in Aladdin as a kid. It also had the largest pieces of silver in the world-two giant pots. So, just to keep score, that's world's largest sundial and pieces of silver in one day. Boom. We passed the rest of the day walking around the old city, taking the five hour train to Jodhpur (no jumping on this time), and another walking pick up to get to our hotel in Jodhpur.
(image source: http://www.naachgaana.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/161220095510011.jpg)