Day 34 - Jaipur

Off we went in our private vehicles this morning to get us from Pushkar back to Ajmer and the Ajmer bus station for our second local transport “experience”, as Intrepid like to call it. We had one such experience, you may recall, getting from Alappuzha on the Kerala Backwaters to Kochi on our South India tour. The big difference this time is that we’ll be doing it with all our luggage! We unloaded our bags and walked into the usual mayhem of an Indian transport hub. While we stood and waited Anant went off to secure our bus tickets as there was no particular bus and no particular departure time pre-arranged. This, it seems, is standard practice for this tour. After much discussion and two-way gesticulation on the part of Anant and the tickets office we had some tickets. Our bus was just about to leave but Kerry was nowhere in sight as she’d taken the opportunity to “powder her nose”. A fair call because the whole “finding your public transport vehicle” normally takes ages. But not this time!

When Kerry emerged from the “powder room” we raced off in the direction of our companions who were frantically trying to get themselves and their bags on the bus, fighting the hordes of other travelers all the way. We got ourselves and our bags on the bus and headed for the backseat just to get out of the way. Still more people piled on and then the “bus aisle ballet” started as everyone tried to get themselves and their bags to their allotted seats. Cleverly, Anant had booked a couple of rows of seats for all our bags which pleased the locals not one little bit. Indian buses are set up in a two-person bench set, a narrow aisle and a 2.5 person bench seat (meant to hold three slim Indians). The windows are barred and open and, in the north, there is only one door. The bus finally got rolling and we were on our way to our next destination – Jaipur, the capital and largest city of Rajasthan - on a journey estimated to take about three hours.

Indian buses don’t travel very fast. In fact, no traffic in India travels fast. I think it has to do with the crappy roads, the inability for drivers to pick a lane and stay in it (or even travel in the same direction on a given side of the road), the constant speed humps that litter the roads and, of course, the constant threat that you’ll have to stop for, or in the very least swerve around, livestock of some sort. I am exaggerating on none of the above, not even a little bit! At a prescribed bus stop Kerry leaned out the window and got us a couple masala chai teas, which went down very well.

Eventually we made it to the outskirts of Jaipur straight into a huge traffic jam. After crawling along the “freeway” we made it to the point at which no large vehicles were allowed to pass. They are all forced into the “ring road”. Anant had prepared us early for this so our bags were clogging up the aisle which allowed no one behind us to get past. We were towards the front if the bus so there were many very unhappy natives behind us. Anant, as gracefully as he could, took all the flack directed at us. The worst of them only shut-up when he threatened to throw them off the bus himself. Indians have this strange desire to always be in the front. They just will not queue in an orderly fashion and wait their turn. In the public transport context, we experienced the same thing trying to get off the train in Madurai a couple of weeks ago, but you just experience it everywhere you go. Even queuing up to use an ATM, if there’s a sliver of daylight between you and the person or the door in front of you some will try to fill it before you do. So, you just put your elbows out and fix your eyes on your target and move forward, just as the locals do.

The bus stopped in the middle of the road and Anant gave the order to alight so, using the approach just described, we pushed and shoved our way off the bus onto a narrow bit of tarmac no more than 1m wide bound by a crash barrier. I was first off, had no idea where to go next so wound my way through three lanes of standstill traffic to the edge of the road. Kerry and a couple of others followed me. Eventually we caught up with Anant and the rest on the other side of the road where three pre-arranged tuk-tuks awaited us. Off we raced, to a standstill. Roadworks coupled with the rapidly approaching 2:00pm start time for school exams that day meant the streets were in gridlock. To cut a very long story short we eventually made it to our hotel and escaped the madness, momentarily.

After a freshen up we hit the tuk-tuks again and back into the “pink city” we went. All the buildings in the old town are painted pink by decree of the Maharajah in power at the time Prince Albert visited. We walked through one of the many gates that guard the entrance to the pink city and into a world of market stalls selling spices of all sorts and tiny shops selling everything from hardware store items, to finance, to bangles and other jewellery, to sewing machines, clothes and fabrics, fresh fruit and veg and anything else you can imagine. Pleasingly, the street was devoid of any tourist junk! At the intersection of two major streets we climbed some stairs to a temple which provided a birds-eye view of the colour and chaos below.  We spent a little more time exploring this part of the pink city and then headed by tuk-tuk to the Raj Mandir cinema complex for a little Bollywood education. This very large mid-20th century style cinema (built in 1976) is a sight to behold. Today’s feature was the just-released Bollywood movie called “Selfie”. The movie is about the trials and tribulations encountered by a big Bollywood star (played by a big Bollywood star) while trying to get his driving licence. It was a sort of a comedy/drama. I won’t give a way the ending in case you see it one day. The movie was in Hindi with no subtitles but, miraculously, we were able to follow what was going on. Strangely, there was a bit of Hinglish thrown in at times which helped our understanding. The mandatory big singing and dancing scenes were in there too, which didn’t disappoint. After the movie we made our way to a rooftop restaurant a few blocks away, enjoyed a late dinner and drink and then headed back home exhausted after a big day.