A fantastic day in Jaipur. Today I had a tour of the sights with a local guide. I was so thankful that I hired the driver and had the guided tour, because walking the streets here alone as a white person is so horrible, it would have ruined my vacation. The hawkers are so aggressive – for example, one hawker took my photo at one of the monuments, and cried out to me “look for me, Johnny, at the parking lot!” (all the Indian photo guys claimed their name was John, Johnny, or Tony). In the parking lot, to my distress, he met me with a packet of photos of myself that he had had printed glossies made of. He kept thrusting them at me, despite my thousand “no thank yous”, and reducing his price by a hundred rupees every few steps. When I got into the car, he managed to throw the packet of photos into the car with me THREE TIMES, and each time I had to somehow give them back to him because he was chasing the car and banging on the windows. It really took some serious focus on “serenity now!!!” to keep saying “no thank you” instead of starting a knock-down fistfight with this guy or at least having him arrested for assault and battery. The worst part of it was that there were hundreds of hawkers like Johnny, everywhere. I think if they asked tourists to make a contribution to a welfare fund for India so that these people could be subsidized by the government to go perform some actual useful service, everyone would gladly contribute.
The guide and driver really didn’t do much to dissuade these people, but at least I could use them as a physical barrier to hide behind. The first thing I did was ride an elephant up into Amber Fort. I wished I hadn’t read Lonely Planet, since the book insinuates that these elephants are treated poorly and riding them is like supporting the circus. Well, I enjoyed my elephant ride, and I think if the elephants have to wear a feather and walk up and down a hill every day to be useful, that is probably better than being poached into extinction for ivory. The ride was really fun and relaxing. Even though you were being chased by an army of hawkers and beggars, you were too high up for them to reach you, and there was an element of enjoyment to that, aside from the whole calming, swaying-up-the-hill, looking out over a view of a magical Arabian city element.
The fort itself was incredible. I have to say, a lot of what the guide said was strangely redundant and uninformative, i.e. “The name of the fort is the Amber Fort. A-M-B-E-R. Amber Fort. In the town of Amber. In Hindi, Aamer, in English, Amber. For the color Amber. Amber for the color of the fort…” But it was lulling in a singsongy way and I liked it, it kept me company. He also had a cutesy way of saying some things that made me wonder if he was doing it on purpose, for example, he repeatedly said “queenses”, saying it about a hundred times, in every sentence, almost like he was daring me to correct him (which I didn’t, because I was getting the giggles from it). For example, “this ramp design is for the wheelchair of the queenses. The queenses do not need wheelchairs because they cannot walk, no, the queenses can walk. The wheelchair is for special occasions, when the queenses wear their dresses and jewelry which weighs 21 kilos, then the queenses cannot walk and must be carried in the wheelchair. The queenses are carried by eunuchs, one for the push, and one for the pulling.”
The tour of the fort really impressed upon me that the Indian men have been, historically speaking, jealous people. Basically, once these queens were married, they get closed into a little private apartment with slits for windows and heavy curtains blocking them from ever being seen by anyone except the raja. He had 12 wives all in separate little apartments set into a square, and he could travel between their rooms through a series of tunnel-like hallways, but they were not allowed to visit with or talk to each other, or know where the raja was at any time he was not with them. There were eunuchs in watchtowers surrounding them who would report them for punishment if they were caught speaking. A polygamists’ dream. I think the royal lapdogs probably had more freedom. Wandering the hallways alone, I could hardly imagine how claustrophobic and small the life of a Rajasthani queen was, compared to my wide open and wonderful world of a life. I had the urge to yell out “hey, queenses, we’ve come a long way, baby!” But instead I just felt sad.
(in case you were wondering what the queens’ punishment was, like I did, the guide told me it was grinding flour for chapatti)
We then stopped to view the beautiful Water Palace, and I also saw the City Palace where the Rajasthani king still lives. In between, I also was brought to some specialty shops where they showed me how certain handicrafts of the region are made. It was charming enough that I spent some money there, and I shall say no more, because these gifts are going to be surprises. I probably paid more than I would have at an open air bazaar, but it was kind of fun getting schmoozed like a VIP for hours on end, with assistants bringing me drinks and laying all sorts of gorgeous treasures out in front of me. One particularly slick salesman gave me a palm reading, and tried to use what he read there to sell me certain things that he said would get my chakras back into alignment. He kept saying “I’m not a god, just a human being.” So many times it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Oh and by the way, apparently I’m going to have some horrible ailment of my heart strike me at age 37, so keep an eye out for that. The palm reading was hilarious to me because he was trying to do the classic fortune telling ‘say what you think they want to hear’ routine. He was like “I see you have a lot of pain in your past. Someone has hurt you.” “I think that’s true of anyone,” I said. “Your childhood was unhappy,” he told me.
“No, not at all, I had a wonderful childhood!”
“Your parents, perhaps they did some things to harm you.”
“Certainly not, my parents are great!” “Of course they are.” He replied gravely, raising an eyebrow.
“Your husband is like fire, hot, and you are more cool, like water,” he suggested. I just smiled and drank some chai, because it was really getting funny how far off the mark he was.
India really makes me prolific! I am truly enjoying my trip.
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