Tigers and friends
Trip Start
Jan 09, 2005
1
52
90
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
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Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
Saturday, January 17, 2009
We took another overnight chilly overnight train and got in around 5am in Jaipur. Our plan was to try and see a doctor to figure out what was wrong with us and then take an afternoon train to the Ranthombore National Park. Since we had arrived so early the only place we could seek medical help was at the SMS Hospital in the ER. We showed up with all our bags to an ER that was very similar to ones I saw and helped out at in Nicaragua. There were bodily fluids on the dilapitated metal gurneys (read gross), no privacy for any of the patients that were clearly in a lot of pain with IV's hanging from them, and a doctor sitting with a computer at a table as the head of ER. We came at a slow time and walked right up to the MD who basically said there was nothing he could do, we had to wait till 9am when the hospital opened up.
We spent about 3 hours (with nowhere else to go at such an early time of morning) sitting in the waiting room with a ton of other Indians that had brought blankets and were sleeping on the floor. The overall experience took me back to my Nica days and I was glad when we found out there was a lab across the street that opened at 8am that we could use. After some confusion due to the fact that we don't speak Hindi, we finally were able to get across what we needed and find out we could get our results around 1pm. We decided to kill our time visiting Jantar Mantar. After hanging out at Jantar Mantar for several hours, we grabbed a very disappointing and pricy lunch at Niro's.
Things we checked out:
Jantar Mantar:
The orginal city is enclosed by large pink walls and thus aptly called, the Pink City. Despite not feeling well and wishing we could just be in bed instead of some park, this park is in my opinion a must see. There are about 18 huge astronomical measuring pieces that were built in the early 1700's. It's just amazing the way the huge pieces that were built so many years ago are totally accurate to this day and give accurate dates and times. We opted not to get a guide thinking we would come back again when we visited Avani but this didn't happen so I highly recommended getting a guide.
Ranthombore Park
Since our results from the lab came back inconclusive, we decided to take the afternoon train to Ranthombore Park. For the first time our guidebook failed us with the guesthouse recommendation. The room itself was no worse than other places we had stayed at, but there were tons of mosquitoes and the sheets were stained and obviously not clean. I asked for clean sheets and while the guy clearly went to the storage area to get clean sheets which came back folded like clean sheets, they too were just as gross and stained. The book only lists one place to eat at so we grabbed dinner there both nights and I finally tried the popluar lemon juice in a cup with a bottle of soda water drink. We did find a local place the next day that sells Potato Pakora; delicious bread with potatos inside it which is basically a fried tortialla with slices of potatos inside and spicy pickled veggies in a small bowl on the side. YUM!
Our orginal plan was to check out the one road town and walk around and use the internet and take the jeep safari the following morning, before we left for Jaipur. We walked around the sparsly filled road until it eventually met up at a roundabout and became more popluated with stores, one restaurant, and many more locals hanging about. On our walk back to the guesthouse we saw a pick up game of cricket going on and decided to sit and watch. Of course everyone else watching immediately came over to where we were and tried their best to communicate with us. There was one guy playing in his 20's that works in tourism and speaks English very well who did his best to explain some of the rules of the game. He also eventually explained that it's better to take the afternoon tiger safari since it's so foggy in the morning and you have a better chance to see a tiger in the PM.
The following morning we packed up to leave and I went to recount my money only to find a substantial amount missing. This is the first time in my life someone has deliberatly stollen money from me like this (the only other time I was stupid and left a purse next to an open window on a busy festival day in Nicaragua). The whole situation was weird because despite the gross sheets, the Raj Palace Resort guesthouse was pleasant enough and the staff was super warm and friendly. There was no way anyone could enter the room from outside and the staff insisted that we were the only ones with a key to the lock. Since I had just taken money out in Jaipur, the only place I could have possibly had the money stolen was at this guesthouse and I remember that I left my pack unlocked the day before (for the first time, of course). What was even more weird was none of my credit cards or atm card was taken and the person left 4 $20US bills and our passports (none of greg's stuff was taken). The person also took the cell phone we got in the UK out of a bag on the floor and put it into a drawer in the dresser near the bed (something I would have NEVER done since I always leave my things in my pack) confirming any doubt that someone was definitly in our room.
The whole situation was akward because I didn't want to accuse anyone and it was hard to really prove anything since the staff was adamant that this has never happened in 20 years and even showed us a notebook with positive comments from previous guests. There were eventually about 9 people involved in helping us figure out how to handle this; one of which was the owner of the hotel/restaurant we had been eating at and spoke the best Englihs. We had the added pressure of needing to take off to get our train to meet up with our friend in Jaipur which didn't help our cause. There wasn't much point in getting the police involved (we couldn't find them anyways) since it would just be a time consuming process ensuring we'd miss our train and not accomplishing anything. They didn't make us pay for our two night stay and g ave us a free ride to the train station to "prove their clear conscience that they didn't take the money." They also took my email addy in case someone ever turns in my $120US (about a weeks worth of travel money), which I'm not holding my breath for. I can only hope the money is going to someone that really needs it.... I just got really good advice from our Chillean friend that it is best to just buy your own lock for the door that way only you have the key.
Tiger Safari
Ranthombore National Park:
The afternoon safari was about to leave (there is an AM and PM safari so this was our last chance to see a PM one) so we rushed back to the tourism office to see if we could get tickets. There are two types of vehicles that go on the safari rides, the quiter and smaller jeep (which holds about 4 people) and the canter which is really loud and can hold up to 20 people. All the hotels buy up the nicer jeep safari tickets and sell them for WAY more as tehre are only a specified allotment of jeeps allowed into the park a day so the jeep tickets sell out fast. We managed to find a man that tried to work his magic and get us jeep tickets from the tourist office but of course they were all sold out. He offered to get us a jeep on the sly but wanted us to pay for the other empty seats which we refused to do. We eventually agreed on a price ($1000 each, about $20US) and were told we would be the only people in the jeep. It came as no surprise to us that when we were picked up from our hotel for the ride that the guide found a family to come along as well (of course he would try to get more money for his trip). After some back and forth we got him to knock a few hundred rupees off our total and then just gave them to him for his tip.
I have never been on a jeep safari other than these cheesy stuff you do as a kid at Valajo Park. I really didn't know what to expect but basically you just drive around the park looking for a tiger. Since we are still up north in the Rajasthan state, the park was quite dry. The long dry gasses seemed to be perfect hiding spots for the tigers. Ranthombore National Park is supposed to be THE park in all of India to see tigers. We spent about 3.5 hours or so driving all over, looking for tracks, asking the few other people we saw in jeeps if they saw anything and talking with the few park rangers we saw trying to find tigers. Alas, it was in our cards to see a tiger. We saw pretty much every other large animal in the park other than a big cat (they have leapords too) though. We saw several types of antelopes and deer, many birds, a water snake and a group of monkeys. Despite not seeing a tiger the entire adventure was great and I was glad we did it. Apparently it's pretty common to go on multiple safaris to try and spot a tiger but we were happy enough with our one.
Jaipur
Staying with Avani and her family at their home in Jaipur was a very welcome reprieve after the previous few days. It all started with a driver picking us up at the train station in a car that had seat warmers already heated and the pampering continued from there. We arrived at their enclosed home and had an entire guest room and bathroom to ourselves, replete with a huge king size bed (no pushing two twin mattresses together). The home was built in about 3 years due to the elaborate detail throughout each room; from the inlay pieces in the marble floor, the handpainted cielings with intricate design, the lagoon themed bathroom made for her brother, the servants home outside, and the home theater in the basement that also doubles as a dance floor. Basically the home was unlike any home I've ever stayed in.
Since we were still getting over being sick, and poor Avani was recuperating from back problems, we spent the majority of the time eating amazing home prepared meals, getting to know her parents, and hanging out. In India it is very common to have servants that cook, clean and wash your clothes for you; oftentimes family members are hired for this. I don't know the exact number of servants that work for this family, but every single thing was always taken care of by hired help- again, unlike anything I have experienced before. We definitly took advantage of having a place to wash our clothes and we pretty much ate like kings and queens the entire time.
We really only stayed two nights and one full day so there wasn't much time with our friend and her family. Saturday morning we woke up early to do yoga with a 75 year old yoga guru that comes to the home to do daily yoga- um, awesome! While we only focused on basic yoga, it was so exciting to receive lessons from someone that has studied and practied yoga for almost 70 years. It was a wonderful way to start our day...
In the afternoon the driver took us to both the train and bus stations to book our tickets and then the Bapu Bazaar where I was able to get a few tourist things to mail home. The bazaar is basically a long street filled with open stores and people trying to usher you into their store to buy things. Since this area is used to seeing a lot of wealthier tourists I had to bargain extra hard to get decent prices and in the end I'm sure I still ended up paying more than I should have but I'm ok with that. We also got a cute little Ganesh statue for Avani's parents as a thank you present and the store wrapped it up in a box and then wrapping paper for free! What service :) After the bazaar we went to the Shri Lakshmi Narayan Temple which was quite beautiful.
In the evening Avani felt able to go out and we went to this amazing resaurant called Shisha and we got the most incredible hookah ever. Instead of the typical metal base, we got the speical one where they used a watermelon as the base (a pineapple is another optoin) and watermelon juice as the water. At the top, like with all hookahs, you have the flavored tobacco and we got mint and grape. The combinatin of the watermelon and the other flavors was amazing! The entire décor of this place made you want to stay forever, with the low lighting, big pillows everywhere, and yummy smells from food wafting around. We did finally leave, though, and checked out one more spot on a rooftop of a ritzy hotel. We all got coffee which ended up keeping us up till way past midnight which was fine since we watched a bootleg version of Slumdog Millionaire back in Avani's room afterwards (you HAVE to see this movie).
Overall our experience in Jaipur was just what the doctor ordered. More than anything, it was nice to just be with friends and relax and get to know the family. We were only in town for a few short days which seemed to fly but will defintly be very memorable. It was hard to leave the heated bedroom and long hot showers and huge yummy meals but most of all it was hard to say goodbye to our friends.
Agra
We took a bus to Agra and true to form, we arrived several hours later than the estimated time. We continued our bad luck with guesthouses recommended by the book and stayed at the dingy Raj guesthouse. The only good thing about this place is its proximity to the Taj Mahal... they refused to give us soap and tp and only gave us one wet, dirty and smokey smelling towel- overall this place was gross. Since there was a full moon we wanted to walk around and maybe get some sweet pix of the Taj Mahal but the gates surrounding it were so tall that it wasn't possible. There were all kinds of hard core military personell telling us it was too dangerous to be walking around in that area and after serveral warnings, we decided to take the advice and turn around.
On our walk back we met a cool guy in his 20's that owned a jewelry shop on the street near our guesthouse. It's always hard to know if someone is just being friendly to get you to buy something from them since so most people that talk to you on the street are really just trying to sell something. We gave Nikki the benefit of the doubt and ended up hanging out with him all night- he didn't try to push us to buy anything once. It was nice to finally meet a local and just hang out and talk...something that hasn't really happened on this trip yet (besides the couchsurfing).
On our walk home we decided to grab a bite to eat since it had been forever since we had food (Avani sent us off on the bus with some delicious food "to-go"). There were a few food stalls out making late night food, both of which we tried. One was a huge wok type pan that fried up some veggies and egg to make a super yummy "omlet" with some toasted bread ($10R's maybe $.20)and the other heated up noodles and veggies for a super spicy and yummy chop suey type snack. Yum!There was also the standard cart roasting peanuts that I have yet to try...
The following day we saw the Taj and grabbed a disappointing thali from a rooftop restaurant with a view of the Taj. Apparently Agra is known for the Muslum pigeon hurders that spend tons of money on pigeons and then train them. We saw a some pigeons in action while we ate lunch... The family will go on the rooftop with something heavy tied to the end of rope or use something that looks like you would use it to scoop fish out of the sea. These tools are then used paired with special whistles to keep the pigeons up in the air, circling around in patterns until they are finally allowed down to eat birdfood. This is something that goes on throughout Agra on the rooftops around 4pm but we had left by that time.
Actually, we were stuck in the train station. We had wanted to take the only available express train from Agra to Varanassi but there was fog so the train was cancelled for the entire week. We had to book the longer, mulitple train ride from Agra to Delhi and then from Delhi to Varanassi. Our ride in the auto rickshaw to the train station was quite stressful as some politcian was in town just as we were trying to make our train and backed up traffic everywhere. To this day we don't know if our train left early or just never came since the traffic slowed us up so much we made it just in time for our scheduled train. Since the train never showed up (and I find it extremely hard to believe a train in India left early since every single train we've been on usually leaves a minimum 15 minutes late) there was no way we would make our connecting train in Delhi.
We spent a minmum of 1.5 hours trying to change our tickets around to get us to Varanassi. Everyone we have met so far that has traveled in SE Asia first has complained about how much harder it is to travel in India. Something that should be as simple as booking a train is always a huge hasstle as no one really speaks English and employees have an extremely difficult time with providing anything other than the standard solution (this is the case for pretty much anythign in India- outside the box is usually not an option). We ended up having to wait for 5 more hours until the newly booked train arrived. Since train stations aren't the most comfortable enviornment, we grabbed a long dinner with a fellow American who shared in our amusement about the train booking ordeal. We ate at Park Restaurant and ordered 2 delicious chicken Mughlai dishes.
Things we did:
duh, the Taj Mahal:
The Taj was really out of the way for us and $$ when you add in the trains and the ridiculous price foreigners have to pay considered to the local Indians. That said, it was totally worth the drama getting to and from there as once you see the building in front of you everything else melts away. It truly is beautiful and well worth going to. We spent about 3 hours just walking around and taking photos and enjoying the gorgeous building. We could have seen the Taj at night with the full moon but you can only stand on a platform very far away from the Taj and it is so foggy at night I can't imagine a single picture will come out. It's amazing in the morning when there aren't many tourists!
