Jaipur, Rajasthan – ‘The Pink City’

We set our alarms for 5.30am and left our hotel in the dark to catch the 7.15am train to Jaipur. There were a few stalls open on the platform but most of the stall holders were still asleep by their coffee pots covered in cardboard and blankets.

Women were carrying their huge cases on their heads even though there were wheels on their cases. They were huge too, that can’t be good for their neck and spine surely.

We settled in our seats and watched the world go by from the train window. We saw colourfully dressed women in saris pumping water from a well, carrying the copper coloured pots on their head across the fields. We saw cow dung having been dried for their fires and piled outside of their houses. The cows, pigs and goats share their living space and the children play around them. There were piles of rubbish around their homes. They obviously just throw everything over the wall which is crazy with the children and animals walking over it. Suddenly we saw rows of men all crouched down with their trousers around their knees facing the tracks, their backs to the wall having a poo on top of the rubbish! A bit further down a pig was doing the same (minus the trousers) It was the first early morning train we had caught so this was a new sight to experience!

Later on as we were slowly chugging past a little town, I could see the road running parallel to the tracks and then suddenly there was a well dressed man with his back (bottom) to the train mid poo! Anyone walking along the road could see him too! As we continued down the track I couldn’t help but wonder whether he had any toilet paper with him. (Chuckle)

As we made our way to Jaipur we noticed a difference, the landscape was arid and there were hills. There were camels pulling the carts not just Ox or bullocks as they call them. One thing I forgot to say about Delhi and Agra was that there were horses pulling carts. We hadn’t seen many horses in Asia, except for on the island village in Mandalay and a few by the market in Kampot.

We also saw lots of kilns which were obviously baking bricks by the look of the fields all around which had row after row of them stacked up, presumably drying.

‘Chaotic’

The only thing we have read about that seems to be true is the chaos. We have come across that amount of traffic before, especially in Vietnam but they are good at ‘driving en masse’ so to speak. In Vietnam they know how to react to people crossing the road. Here in India they have no idea, I don’t think they even care. I have twice nearly been knocked over. The motorbikes are the worst. Everyone just beeps their horn as if to say “I am coming through so it’s your responsibility to get out of the way, if I hit you it’s your fault.” There seems to be a pecking order….The bigger the vehicle the louder they beep and just keep going no matter what. The order is lorry, coach, bus, motorbikes, auto-rickshaw, rickshaw and people. The cows have right of way no matter whether they are on the road or pavement. We watched as a couple of cows walked across a busy wide road in the same way we would, they slowly walked out in to the fast traffic stopped in the middle to climb over and cut through the central railings and then after a short wait walked out across the traffic flow to the other side! With all of the cows, goats, horses, dogs and their poo in the streets it’s what I imagine Medieval England was like.

Whenever we took a ride in an auto-rickshaw it always reminded me of the dodgems at the funfair. I got a black eye whilst in a dodgem car as a child and never liked them after that; I don’t like them now, especially as it’s not in an enclosed area but out on the dangerous roads! The concept is similar though, go in any direction you like and if you bump something it doesn’t matter. The cars were totally covered in dents. Some of the Thai versions, Tuk Tuks, had long flexible poles out the back with a little flag on the top. It meant they looked even more like dodgem cars from my childhood.

‘Flamboyant’

Well yes we have seen men riding around on colourfully decorated horses with their hooves painted with orange dye with ornate blankets on their back. They decorate and paint the elephants too, in a way I couldn’t help but think was the work of a child with chalks drawing on a black board. As I said to Glen when we saw them in the Amber Fort. “How disrespectful to draw on them like that” Maybe I am coming across as a little travel weary and cynical, but we did expect more from India.

‘Smells’

Everyone said “enjoy the smells and sights of India”. We expected the smells to be different than we have experienced so far though.

When Glen reads reviews before booking hotels online he has to read between the lines and ignore what are sometimes excellent reviews which have obviously been written by the owners or staff. Ignore others also who have given a hotel a bad review because they were grumpy as their train was late etc. However what you don’t expect is for writers of travel books to let’s say fabricate the truth or at least embellish it. Perhaps as Glen says they are Gilding the Lily or the Lotus flower. (Smile). Perhaps I am being too harsh, but it’s also what they are not saying is the problem, like the smells! The smells here are not the exotic spices and pungent curries they lead us to believe but the over whelming smell of piss! Sorry there is no other way to accurately describe it. Jaipur – the Pink Shitty I mean City! We had high hopes for Jaipur but like I said it stinks! Every few steps and around every corner there is a man piddling! Perhaps we should not have explored the back alley ways on foot. Even Glen thought it did and his sense of smell is hopeless. It was worse than Delhi and Agra. It’s dull too, the women dress brightly even the ones living in huts in the fields like I said but there are not enough women about. Maybe if we had gone on a tour or got a rickshaw door to door everywhere as apposed to wandering around the side streets like we did we wouldn’t have seen or smelled it. The men were peeing in alley ways, up walls, in gutters, by a tree, by a car, everywhere and anywhere without a moments notice. You have to avoid the vehicles, the animals, the peeing men and gobbing men, women and children. Again spitting doesn’t describe it, gobbing is the only word for it. It’s a full time job walking around India, you have to have your wits about you at every step; which is difficult when you are looking for the flamboyance and vibrancy as you walk along. (Wink)

We came across an area down one little alley which had many cows stood around. There was a huge bird stood on the back of one of them bent over with its beak pecking the cows bottom! Glen said it was like the cleaning stations we see when diving whereby fish wait around for the cleaner shrimps and cleaner wrasse to clean their mouths and gills. These cattle were stood around in one area seemingly waiting for a bottom clean! (chuckle) All the while kids were playing in the street, sliding down the shiny metal slope from their door next to goats droppings. They seemed happy enough with their lot. I couldn’t figure out how they could live around the dirt and squalor. The narrow areas between each building were full of rubbish and water and animal droppings and men piddled up them and it must be so full of germs but everyone seemed to just ignore it. We could only imagine how it would smell in the coming months when the temperature there reaches 40+ degrees.

There are even more men with orange hair here, some completely orange and greased down so it looked like a Lego figure’s hair. We have investigated this since seeing them in Delhi and Agra and apparently Hindu men are not allowed to dye their grey hair the same colour as their natural colour. They all dye it with Henna which looks orange. There was a piece in the free newspaper that was pushed under the door of our hotel about how women are speaking out and saying that they do not find it attractive and so the practice is dieing out. (excuse the pun)

As I type this I can hear a guy outside gobbing. Morning, noon and night, it never stops…… oh and they clear their nose into the gutter as you walk by. I have thought on many occasions, since arriving in India, that if I wanted to see that I could have stayed at home and watched a football match.

One day when I was tired of stall holders in the bazaar coming out and talking to me I started speaking gobbledy-gook as we walked past so they didn’t speak to us. They start off by thinking we are French so I pretend I don’t know what they are saying and then they try English but we ignore them again. As we were walking along deep in conversation one man came from his stall and leant towards us staring. Glen said he is trying to understand which language we are speaking so he could say hello and start his sales pitch! I know I am sounding irritable but we have had a laugh too. Some of the guys speed talk as we go by to say as much as possible to try to get us in their shop. They say indian silk, very good price and Glen says “yes indian silk from the Nylon worm” (chuckle) some loose interest half way through their pitch and mumble quietly towards the end (chuckle) others have sales Tourettes they blurt out “foot massage” or “Pashmina” without even looking at us, it’s just a reaction to someone walking by them.

We took an auto-rickshaw to the City Palace as a treat and the driver pointed to the many people asleep on the pavements everywhere and said “the poor people” he looked pretty poor himself but the shoeless people we have seen just laying everywhere on the floor in India have been pitiful. The children too, who are so dirty and their once colourful frilly dresses and clothes are so black with ground in dirt of the kind we have never seen before not even in Phnom Penh. Their long black hair matted and dirty but they look happy enough so I guess they get to eat at least even though the do not wash. We actually saw men soaping themselves down and washing in fountains in the park. There were places that said “toilets and baths” but I imagine you had to pay a fee to use them whereas the fountains were free.