you teach me yoga....

so we got of the train around 930pm. like a swarm of bumblebees, we are accosted by dozens of rickshaw touts-the most hardcore ones i have ever encountered (and i've been to agra). unfortunately, jaipur is one of the most touristy places in india and that fact has ruined it completely. i hate rajasthan for this. you can't walk anywhere without a circle of touts/beggers/hawkers around you at all times. and after being so sick and hard trip from the get go, this has not been the camel riding, elephant loving, palace trip i had dreamed of.

so these assholes won't take NO for an answer, "prepay, prepay," we are trying to find the legitimate window to pre-pay, because we already have done our homework. this is the one time i am actually glad not to be a man here, because they swarmed jeff, not me. women are invisible here. unless you are not wearing your dupata (scarf over boobs-i made the mistake of not having one last week in bombay and believe me, i was not invisible-well, my boobs weren't anyhow).
we plunged ourselves sweating right into the government tourist office, panting-"pre-paid windows are where?" "sir, do you have a reservation at your hotel?" "no" "well, you should try one of my hotels" he precedes to try to sell us one of his, nowhere near where we want to stay. "no. we want to stay by the park" "very well. call them and ask if they have a room" we call, they have one, and tell us to wait right there while they send someone to get us for free. thank you. there may be a god after all. but probably not.
within a half a minute, a dude appears (ali)with a paddle with the name "madhuvan"our hotel on it. we scamper after him, ditching the pile of dirty shoeless rickshaw peddlers, into a pristine old white ambassador taxi. on the way, he begins to tout us-"i give tours of jaipur. it is my tour, the jaipur i know, but you can have me for 12 hours and we go many places." me, in my delight and good instinctive "feeling" i have for mr. ali, without much thought ,cause he gives us that "if you do not decide now, i will be busy already"line of bull, says "yes!" because mr. ali is a kind of savior to me at this point. you have NO idea what it's like to land from a train into jaipur. we stay in a gorgeous mini marble palace with a flower garden and amazing hospitality. now there might be a god.

we rise in the morning, drag my bum to the yoga mat and squeak out a weak half primary, but it helps and VOILA! ali is waiting ready to take us on our tour!

first we visit jaipur city palace. this cool old palace still houses relatives of the maharaja and has a bunch of courtyards and buildings from 18th century. there's a palace of the winds for the ladies to watch the street, and a maharani palace which was the queen's apartment. it has amazing ceiling frescos and collections of old weapons-including the dagger that turns into scissors upon impaling the victim and opens inside and disembowls-handy! as well as the largest pieces of silver according to the guiness book of world records-in the world. these giant silver pots were used to carry sacred ganges water.

next, we went to the observitory called jantar mantar. it was created by jai singh in the early 1700s and contains the worlds largest sundial and 13 massive stone instruments for calculating movement of celestial bodies, positions of constellations, calculates hindu calandar, and all 12 zodiac positions. wish we had a guide for that one cause it kind of made me speechless.

then ali took us to the grave of the maharajas. we decided to get a guide this time, and at light speed, he spoke SO fast and ran SO far ahead of us, i did not even know what was going on. apparently he was anxious to get his rupees and get back to his newspaper. the only thing i got out of it was one of the graves had an old king who was over 7 feet tall and over 500 pounds. he ate over 100 chapatis for breakfast each day. and tiny dirty sneezing begger kids by our side the entire time sneezing diseases everywhere, "chocolate? chewing gum? one rupee?" i am trying to get away from him because i don't want tuburculosis or typoid, thank you. i know this all sounds terribly cold to you, but if you spend enough time here, believe me, you would feel the same way.

the next place was outside of jaipur, called the amber fort. it was built at the end of the 1500s during war. you can walk, take a jeep, or an elephant up. we opted to walk, because the elephants are severly abused like all animals here and we did not want to contribute. first you walk through a pool, than a courtyard and then a bunch of winding steps dotted with touts, beggers and hawkers. there's a kali temple that a goat has been sacraficed at daily since 16th century (i guess outlawed in 1980 finally). there are mind blowing frescos, mirrored ceilings, and breath taking views of the city. i liked this one the best.

after having lunch-which almost killed me because i fasted 4 days and ate what he said was "mild" veg biryani and dhal fry, mr ali forced us into yet another textile shop, which really sucked. had to sit through the whole carpet lecture, silks, pashmina, etc etc...me almost pooping my pants from curry, AND they insist on wrapping me in a sari! f....NO NO NO. thank god i got my way, bought a couple pashminas, and darted back into mr. nice ali's taxi.

on the way to the hotel, we stopped for bottles of water. jeff went out to get them. when he left, mr. ali turns to me and says "have you ever been with an indian man before? because you can call me when your husband leaves and meet me here. you teach me yoga, i give you nice body massage. we have lots of fun together."

um.....i'm sure you know the rest of this story. i bought my ticket back to bombay. i'm leaving tomorrow-friday-at 730am.

back to a city you can disappear into, a city that does not tout and hawk you to death unless you want that, a city with at least SOME respect.

rajasthan. it's not at all what i expected.