When we got of the train at Jaipur, we were stepping into the 'real' India- Jaipur had definitely not been cleaned up for the Commonwealth Games. We had very detailed instructions about how to find our driver so that we would not end up with a tuk tuk driver that would try to cheat us and take us to the wrong hotel. Find our driver we did and he became our mother for the next few days. Sethi would give us very detailed instructions whenever we got to the next site. He would tell us exactly how much we should pay to get in, not to buy anything in the site because it was all crap, and not to talk to strangers. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, but it was amusing to listen to him mother hen us.
Jaipur was one of the seats of the maharanas (aka maharajahs) and we spent our time in Jaipur going from fort to palace to temple, repeat. The maharanas were influenced by the Mughals and left behind equally beautiful ruins. One of our favorites was the Amber Fort- floral paintings and carvings everywhere and one room full of mirror tiles.
A few times as we were going through the sites, a guard would decide to become our impromptu tour guide and tell us stories while rushing us along or walking us into closed areas to see special things- all for (you guessed it) a tip. After the first couple, we took to putting the kibosh on any offers for additional information.
Our first evening in Jaipur, we wanted to kick back and relax so we went to see a Bollywood film. Jaipur has a beautiful art deco theater which is quite famous in India and made for a great place to watch the film- Dabangg. The film was one of the most popular ones in India and indeed proved to very entertaining. There were no subtitles, so we had no idea what the jokes were that everyone was laughing at, but the storyline was simple enough that we got the gist of the plot, and enjoyed the dancing and very emphatic acting. We plan to Netflix the movie when we get home so we can figure out what actually happened...
It was in Jaipur that a very special event took place- Kristen turned 30! We decided to celebrate by going to the City Palace in the morning and for ayurvedic massages in the afternoon. Our very sweet hotel owner who was as much a father to us as Sethi was a mother, even bought Kristen a box full of sweets so we could have something sweet to celebrate with.
We also had a very tasty dinner at a place that also had traditional dancing and live music.
The day after Kristen's birthday, we went to Ranthambore National Park, which is known for its tigers. Kristen had a dream the night before that we saw a bunch of tigers on the trip. While this is actually impossible because tigers are shy and solitary creatures, we took it as an auspicious sign. It was quite a haul to get there- it's about 180 kilometers (approx. 110 miles) away, but it took us 5 hours to get there on roads that occasionally seemed like off road driving, or perhaps an amusement park. Our driver got a good tip that day. It was also a bit of an adventure to get into the park, but that's another 'not for web publication' story (If you invite us over to dinner we can tell you about it).
True to Kristen's dream, within 15 minutes of being in the park, we saw a huge male tiger! He appeared one other time shortly afterwards when we were there. He was so beautiful! It was also interesting to watch the other animals react to him being around- they definitely weren't excited about it and made sure their friends knew not to come around, via some emphatic honking noises. We were very lucky to see the tiger, since we had only had time for one safari trip. Some people spend days in the park and never see one. One of the things that Mike really wanted to do on the trip was see a tiger in the wild. Wish granted!
Then, it was time to leave Jaipur, but not after a quick stop to the Lassiwallah. His sweet lassis are so good that later in the trip, when Kristen would have a lassi and Mike would ask how it was, she would say, "It's not Lassiwallah." It was life changing.
We hadn't yet had enough of the Rajas, so we took an overnight train to Udaipur. The train was 3 hours late leaving Jaipur so in that time Mike taught himself to read Hindi by comparing the English spelling of towns to the Hindi spelling on the timetable. If you ask Mike about it, he will be modest and say he was still missing 20% of the letters.
We were going to be arriving in Udaipur at 3:00am, so we wanted to be nice and let the hotel know that we were going to be very late so they could sleep in a bit before picking us up from the station. They were grateful for the call, and all seemed well. However, somehow we miraculously arrived only 1 hour late to Udaipur at 4am. Fortunately, we didn't miss our stop (it was the last stop for the train) and the station master was nice enough to let us use his cell phone to call the driver to pick us up.
We had a great time at our hotel in Udaipur- it was a small guesthouse in a village just outside of the town run by a British man and his adopted Nepalese family and Indian staff. They really made us a part of the family. We learned how to cook some Indian food, pounded out some roti bread (kind of like making a tortilla) and chatted over meals. They also took us to celebrate the Navratri festival in the village where we learned to dance Dandiya - a dance done with sticks going in a circle. It look some crucial technical assistance half way around the circle, but by the end we got the hang of it!
Prakesh, another member of the wonderful staff there, took us the next day on a hike around the nearby villages, where we saw some pretty scenery, learned a little bit of Hindi, and chatted about the way of life in rural Rajasthan. It can be quite a hard life -- it's common for people to take the bus into town every morning to do a variety of tough jobs, like construction work, which might pay 2 bucks a day. Hearing stories like this, and knowing from experience that the difference between our position and theirs was simple dumb luck, gave us a renewed appreciation for how good we have it in the U.S. We ended our hike at a Hindu temple, relaxing by a "temple tank" (pool of sacred water) in the shade of a large tree, with Prakesh teaching Mike how to count to 100 in Hindi as a group of kids peered over our shoulders.
Udaipur is called the "Venice of the East" and was quite beautiful. There were palaces along and in the lake. It made a beautiful scene for sunset.
We left Udaipur in style- the guesthouse owner had a friend who was an assistant commissioner in the Udaipur police over for dinner, and he offered to take us to the train station. It was our first time to have an armed escort to go anywhere.
Having developed a fondness for maharana architecture and grateful for the tranquility of Udaipur, we were ready to see the mother of all Indian monuments- the Taj Majal. That would require a trip back to Mughal territory.
Some of the wonderful people at Mountain Ridge guesthouse.
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