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  Jaipur, India
Sunday, December 24, 2006

What a busy 2 days in Jaipur we've had. Erin and I arrived on our first domestic flight via Jet Airways. We chose to fly this leg of the trip because train service is rather slow in this region and the flight was cheap. Amazingly enough getting through the airport was straightforward and mostly uneventful. There were delays due to fog for the folks going to Delhi, however, which would have some interesting effects for us a day later. We stayed in a hotel called the Umaid Bhawan (Rs1600/night), which is named after a much nicer palace/hotel in Jodhpur. The hotel was a little on the expensive end but the staff was helpful and the room was attractive.

Our first afternoon in Jaipur was spent shopping in Babu Bazaar. This street was visited by President Clinton and was made a pedestrian mall in honor of his visit. It is the only street like this we've seen. The bazaar was mainly populated by sellers of textiles - shirts, pants, and bed coverings. We wanted to pick up a new duvet cover and after a furious round of haggling we got them down to about half price. Considering this was below what they claimed was their cost on the item we were pretty happy with that. "We lose money on every sale, but we make it up on volume."

One unique thing about Jaipur is that in addition to the normal clog of motorized rickshaws there are bicycle rickshaws as well. It's a weird feeling to be pulled through traffic by a 60 year old man on a single speed bike. These guys worked so hard we always felt like making sure they were well tipped.

Picture with the wedding couple

That night was the beginning of my friend Himanshu's wedding. The first event of the wedding was the ring ceremony, which near as I can tell was a mixture of Indian and western wedding traditions. The best part was the performances put on by his family. Cousins and other relations had put together intricately choreographed Bollywood dances, guitar playing and traditional balancing acts. The balancing acts involved a woman balancing a stack of clay pots on her head that were about as tall as she was. She perched on little cups, danced, and bent down on the ground, all with this huge pile of pots on her head. I think I was more nervous than she was.

At the ring ceremony we met a American expat from from London named Dan who we determined had been on our small sightseeing boat in Udaipur a few days earlier. Small world!

The next day we did some sightseeing with Dan and visited the Amber Fort. The fort was unremarkable compared to the one in Jodhpur. Our next stop was the Monkey Temple, which is as exciting as it sounds. In a mountain valley are some old temples and 5,000 monkeys. If you have a bag of peanuts they will eat right out of your hand. The scary thing is that while they're eating with one hand they have a grip on your fingers with the other so you don't pull away. To get around the city we hired a rickshaw driver for the day at for Rs350. It was easier to do it this way and probably cheaper as well since rickshaws are comparatively expensive in Jaipur.

On our return to the hotel I was greeted by some very excited rickshaw drivers outside who told me I was on the front page of the paper.

Ready to dance for the assembly of the barat

I didn't believe them at first, but they all agreed it was me so I went in to find a paper. Lo and behold, Erin and I were right there on the front page of the Jaipur city newspaper. The flight delays I mentioned earlier were written up on the front page (slow news day I guess) and a photographer was dispatched to the airport to capture someone waiting around. Erin and I happened to be standing in front of the airport carrying our backpacks so he snapped us. The irony is that we weren't waiting for a flight at all, we were waiting for a car to our hotel. We'll post a picture of the paper sometime.

That night was the main part of the wedding ceremony. Erin and I wore traditional outfits for the occasion, I in a knee length maroon tunic and Erin in a beautiful red hand stitched lengha choli. It turned out that I and Dan were basically the only men in traditional clothing but people seems to really like that we made the effort. As one person told me, "[I] look like a real Indian prince."

The most fun part of the ceremony was called the "Assembly of the Barat". This is where the groom, riding on a white horse, travels with his side the the wedding to be presented to the bride's side. We danced our way about 200m to the bride's mother while accompanied by a 12 piece band. All of the men in the group were given turbans to wear for the procession. People were very welcoming and Erin and I were repeatedly pulled in to the middle of the dancing despite our attempts to stick to the outside. The rest of the wedding was filled with ceremonies, eating and socializing. One difference with western weddings is that the ceremony itself is not viewed by everyone. Maybe 15-20% of the guest actually watched the ceremony itself while the rest ate appetizers and mingled. I am not ashamed to say that I shed a tear during the ceremony, but I think it had something to do with the outrageously hot pepper I inadvertently put in my soup.

One fun fact I learned at the wedding: According to the man who measured the men for their turbans I had the largest head (in circumference) of anyone. I had no idea that I had a large head so this took me by surprise.

One last thing to mention for about Jaipur was the earthquake. Apparently at 4AM there was a magnitude 3.7 earthquake centered in Jaipur. It didn't cause any damage, and we were exhausted in slept right through it.

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The wedding couple

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