Days 19 and 20 - Jaipur

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  Jaipur, India
Thursday, October 27, 2005

I guess for every few great days I have, there are going to be ones like this that aren't so great. I didn't have the best introduction to Jaipur - we had an overnight train journey from Udaipur that was total hell. Last time we took an overnight train we had private compartments with 4 of us in, this time the sleeper compartment was open, so all and sundry were sleeping there and it was so noisy. My bunk was rock hard, I had to have my rucksack on there with me, the man next to me snored, my iPod battery ran out (nightmare), and just as I had dropped off at 3am, we pulled into a station where we sat for 45 minutes whilst the nice lady on the tannoy announced the platform number every 30 seconds, followed by a "ta-da!!!" noise. I kid you not. I wanted to rip my ears off to escape from it. So there were 13 very unhappy people who arrived at Jaipur train station on Wednesday morning - everyone is tired, fractious, sniping at each other, and definitely losing our enthusiasm for this trip

Jaipur Fort

!

Jaipur is a horrible city anyway - shops are good, but the traffic and pollution are worse than Delhi. Even the "spectacular fort" (ooh goody, another fort!) is covered in graffiti. Such a shame. Had a great meal in a very cheap restaurant though, but learned a valuable lesson in eating like the locals - small restaurants can't cope with big groups - orders are cooked one at a time and brought out randomly, so no-one got what they ordered when they wanted it. It was a great "cultural experience" as we are calling everything now!!

Had a visit to the cinema to see "Salaam Namaste" - the latest Bollywood blockbuster (set in Melbourne!). It was in Hinglish - an interesting combination of Hindi and English - but the plot wasn't exactly taxing to follow, so we managed to get it ok, and it was actually very enjoyable. Popcorn is 20 rupees - about 26p!! - for the size you would get in the UK for a lot lot more, and admission was a pound. Huge numbers of Indians went though, and they obviously loved the film, with lots of whooping at the funny bits! We just looked bemused!

The next day I was broken by the begging - a little boy of about 6 was carrying his little brother and was begging in the street

Pink Palace, Jaipur

. The smaller boy was almost blind with conjunctivitis and glaucoma, had a hacking cough, running nose and was half naked. I wanted to do something for him, but knew it would be a huge mistake to just give money, so we took him over the road to the hospital, and paid for the doctor to have a look at him and give him some medicine. It only cost a couple of pounds and the little boy had the hugest grin on his face afterwards. Later on we saw him and his family sitting in the street just looking at the medicine, and I can't help but wonder if they sold it and let that little boy die/go blind/whatever to save the rest of the family. Nothing I can do obviously, but it upset me a lot, as I'm sure this goes on so much. The level of child exploitation is huge, and the goverment are doing bugger all.

Anyway, political rant over and back to the disastrous second evening in Jaipur - a visit to a local "cultural centre". It was basically Disneyland Indian-style, ie on the cheap. Had a couple of crappy fairground rides (didn't brave one, sure my insurance wouldn't have covered it!), mock ups of women making bread (we've seen it for real!), and the saddest looking elephant giving rides. Plus it took 2 hours to get there, and on the way the driver took a speed bump too quickly and three of us (yes, me included!) hit our heads on the roof! It was a total nightmare evening, and I have never seen a bunch of more dejected people as was our group that night!! Its not funny any more!

As things are working out at the moment, tomorrow will be much better!

Sorry for the negativity of this report, but Jaipur was horrible!!

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