Jaipur – Pretty in Pink

JANUARY 2012

From Jodhpur to Jaisalmer to Jaipur, our tour of Rajasthani cities beginning with the same letter rumbled on. 

After nine hours on the road from Jaisalmer with the reliable Mr Singh, we arrived at the beautiful Shahpura House haveli in Jaipur – only to find that the recurring scourge of Indian hotels had struck again. There was a problem. A plumbing problem. Which meant that ten of their rooms were out of service, including ours. With forethought and consideration not previously witnessed in our hotel fiascos, they had already arranged for us to spend the night in alternative accommodation and would move us back to Shahpura House in the morning, and even upgrade our room. It was tempting to make a fuss, but at the end of the day that would achieve little, so we let them know how disappointed we were, especially after such a long journey, and agreed with their alternative arrangement.

And of course it turned out fine as the alternative arrangement was a similar heritage hotel, in an old haveli, and the room was lovely, with a grand four-poster bed, immaculately clean linen, and ornate arches separating the living and sleeping areas. In the morning we were transported back to Shahpura House and installed in the even larger Sheesh-Something-Something suite, complete with an extravagant mirror-tiled ceiling – which was much more tasteful than it sounds.

The plan for Jaipur was simply to walk around the old city and take in whatever sights there are within, but instead I allowed ourselves to be sold on a trip to Ajmer (or Amer?) Fort, a forty-five minute drive away. Now had we visited Ajmer Fort before visiting Jodhpur or Jaisalmer, we may have found it impressive, but in comparison to the other two, Ajmer Fort was, well, crap. Yes, it’s big and quite majestic, but it lacked the sheer magic of Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur and the sheer beauty of Jaisalmer’s sandcastle. The most striking thing was the overwhelming smell of elephant shit and the rather amorous monkeys who must have ruined – or improved – many a tourist photo with their brazen copulation. 

So we returned to the pink city – apparently painted terracotta pink to welcome the then Prince of Wales in 1876 – dismissed the driver, and visited the City Palace, which houses a museum, the royal residences, and an impressive and vast array of courtyards, gardens and buildings. The complex is home to Chandra Mahal and Mubarak Mahal and its various iconic gates — Udai Pol, Tripolia Gate and Virendra Pol among others, and blends the Rajput style of architecture with that of Mughals and Europeans. Sue however was more impressed with the preparations for an obviously lavish wedding ceremony taking place that evening and to which we appeared not to have been invited. I guess the invitation must have got lost when we changed hotels.

The Hawa Mahal is a remarkable honeycombed five-story structure with 953 intricately carved windows, designed to allow the royal ladies of Jaipur to observe everyday life in the street below whilst observing strict ‘purdah’ (face cover). It is however a little one-dimensional in more ways than one. In truth, Jaipur didn’t have as much to offer as we’d expected. Or maybe it was, that after twelve days in India, we had become a little immune to many of its charms. Indeed, as much as I love Indian food, after twelve days of eating local food morning, noon and night, I was beginning to crave a bacon sandwich.

And so, after a wander around a few more markets and the collection of a few more trinkets, we were ready to move on, without – to our shame – having sought out the Jantar Mantar observatory, the Albert Hall Museum, Rambagh Palace, Jal Mahal, Nahargarh Fort and Jaigarh Fort.

Our final task for this trip was to get ourselves from Jaipur to Delhi, a trip again to be undertaken by road as again the train times proved unworkable. And it proved to be hell on earth. The distance is less than 300km but it took over five hours as the roads were, and probably still are, appalling. It was one long set of road-works all the way from Jaipur to Delhi. The driver, Manoj, was conscious of our need to catch a flight so pulled out all the stops to get us there on time, but while Mr. Singh had given us great confidence in his driving skills, Manoj didn’t. He drove like every other lunatic from the manoeuvre-first-look-later school of driving. I was almost tempted to tell him to forget the flight, slow down or even get off the road altogether, and just make sure we got there in one piece, however long it took. But at the same time, we so desperately wanted to be aboard that flight. 

The drivers on the road were quite simply insane. They used the horn not to berate other road users but to make them aware of their presence and ask them to move over, which kind of makes sense. The heavy trucks even ask people to ‘Blow Horn’ to let them know to move aside. Of course if the same heavy trucks would just bloody stay in the bloody slow lane there’d be no bloody need for such bloody horn-blowing. Then again, there didn’t appear to be a slow lane or a fast lane. Most drivers just took whatever line they wanted until someone told them to move. Overtaking was done on the left or the right or by any means possible, frequently by veering off the road altogether. There were heavy trucks, buses, private cars, tractors and trailers, auto rickshaws, motorbikes, pedal bikes and even pedestrians. The hard shoulder was one long truck-stop. There was no gantry lighting, many vehicles didn’t have, or just didn’t use, lights, and people emerged from the shadows to dart between traffic going at 100kmh. My usual approach is simply not to look ahead and chill out but this was terrifying, sphincter-wrecking stuff. Maybe Delhi-belly isn’t caused by dodgy food after all but by an hour on an Indian motorway.

I just wanted it to be over. And thankfully, nerve-jarringly, it finally was. We got to the airport on time, bade farewell to Manoj, got on that plane, gulped down some much-missed vino collapso and started dreaming of western food.

Go to Jaisalmer – Castles in the sand