Jaipur (The Pink City) & Tordi Sagar
Day 4; The next experience on the tour was getting a local bus from Agra to Jaipur. We were rest assured by our tour guide CEO (Chief Experience Officer) that there would be plenty of natural air conditioning, but no actual AC.
Dan can sleep pretty much anywhere and he did get some, but the bus driver was horn happy; to Dan’s dissatisfaction!
Once we arrived we were picked up by another organisation funded by the tour which were taxi’s for ladies driven by ladies. They put the bags on the roof, we didn’t think we would see them again. Luckily we arrived at hotel and located our bags.
Hotel was nice, we had a balcony and it also had a roof top bar! Our CEO took us on an orientation walk around the city which was amazing. We saw monkeys stealing apples from street vendors, loads of small independent street shops and lots of spice (the chilli in the air hurt your eyes – see photo below) and the usual loud noisy chaos on the roads. We left the tour a little early as we had opted to see a Bollywood movie. We saw Thugs of Hindostan in a movie theatre which housed 1100 people! It was in Hindi and we didn’t fully understand what was going on, but we got that the British were the baddies and it seemed to have a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe. It was great to be in the theatre and experience a Bollywood movie though. The crowd cheered the hero’s and people also behave a little more relaxed i.e. eating their tea, talking on mobile etc. As we were a little clueless on the plot we decided to leave at the interval and enjoy a McSpicy in the Maccy D’s next door – first taste of the west for what seemed like a while.
Day 5; Next day in Jaipur we headed off in the tuk tuks to the Amber fort, stopping off on the way to get a photo. Whilst we were admiring the view a man came over and opened his basket revealing a cobra, he set it up right next to our group and started playing his pipe to “charm” the snake. Bit of a shock, but a couple of the group did sit with the snake and get a picture, Liz and I declined the opportunity to sit with the man’s snake!
In the afternoon, we were introduced to a drinking game called Kings, known in the UK as ring of fire. Liz lost! After Kings went out for food in town, then headed onto a sports bar and carried on the drinking, the Melbourne lads played pool with some locals and got chatting with a club owner, that club ended up being the next destination. Classy venue, nice cheap drinks, and yes, on a roof top!
Day 6 – Hungover and off to see the Duke.
The next morning we loaded up into some jeeps, and headed out into the country to a place called Tordi Sagar. We were told that this was a typical village, but was poor and that we were doing a home stay that night. We were all a little nervous as to what this “home stay” would be as the hotels had been a bit of a mix, but on balance poor, so we did not know what to expect. We pulled up and were all pleasantly surprised, we were checking into the Duke of the areas country pad! Yes it also had a roof terrace…soon to become roof top bar.
We then went on an orientation walk around the village and were invited into a local potter’s family home to watch some traditional potting. After the visit they were offering to sell some of their goods, and we were shocked at how cheap they were, a rupee (about a penny) for an oil burner! It was explained that rather than sending invitations out to weddings, they decorate the side of their houses to invite guests with the date of the wedding on the house, this stays on the house until the next wedding.
We got back and had a chill, Dan banged his head, and again, and again!!! The Duke’s house was nice, but had low doors and Dan and his “tall” stature did not mix well.
After a chill we headed out for a Jeep Safari and watched sunset over the sand dunes.
After this we went back to the Duke’s pad headed to the roof terrace, we ate, we drank – played kings again, the girls got henna, and Dan banged his head…again!!
7 months out of office 