Ep5: Jaipur Kite Festival

  Jaipur, India
Tuesday, January 16, 2007

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Jaipur: Kite Festival

Watch the Kite Festival episode.

by Dan

The Taj Mahal still in our thoughts, we set off for Jaipur. After waking up very early and rushing to the train station, the train was of course 6 hours late. We waited amongst the locals trying to stay warm in the early morning air. Finally the train arrived, and the 7 hour trip to Jaipur was uneventful. The air was warm and the sky was bright by the time we arrived in Jaipur.

Jaipur is located in the northwest region of India, in the arid state of Rajastan. Jaipur is one of the three cities that compose the "golden triangle," along with Agra (where we just were) and Delhi (where we were headed). Well known for its bazaars, the downtown center of the city is all painted in a pinkish color, thought by locals to keep Cockroaches from eating the walls. The city sprawls over the floor of a valley, with rocky hills surrounding the area. Old forts and palaces fleck the horizon, looking out over the city.

Our goal was to rent motorbikes and explore the city and surrounding areas, but after an exhaustive search, we began to realize there was so little demand for tourists to rent bikes in the area, few stores would offer to rent. "No rent, just buy!" we were told countless times as we wandered the wildly busy streets. Finally, we were taken to a place called "Enfield corner" where we were told they could rent us some motorbikes- but they would have to bring them to us from the other side of the city.

We spent the next couple of hours milling around, drinking Chai with the store owners, and chatting with locals. Justin and his lady-friend made friends with some kids across the street who brought him to their roof to practice flying kites. Tomorrow was the city-wide kite festival and the whole city would shut down for the event. They invited us back the next day to join them on their roof.

Finally the motorbikes arrived. One bike was an enormous army-green Enfield that looked like it was probably used in World War II. The other bike was a tiny little scooter painted a rusty red color maybe 15 years ago. Driving in Jaipur is probably just below swimming with great white sharks with a bloody nose on the list of most dangerous activities. Add this to the fact that the bikes were manual transmissions, and neither of us knew how to drive them. Justin manned up and selected the behemouth Enfield, and I hopped on Scooty. After a few "stalled" attempts at getting my little bike moving, with Jen on my back seat I popped the clutch, and was off racing through traffic. The wind in my hair, the hot pavement beneath my feet, the open road! Man and machine melted in to one as we raced down the street at speeds previously unimaginable. Nothing could stop me!

I made it barely 50 feet down the road before the engine puttered and ground to a halt. A crowd of about a dozen "mechanics" were on me in an instant poking, prodding and offering suggestions on how to fix my bike. We had enough petrol, enough gas, and the engine was well oiled- the thing was just a heap. I soon gave up, wrestled my bike away from the swarm of locals and walked it back to the store to get my money back. On the way back, we passed Justin (the other road warrior, conquerer of pavement). He hadn't been able to get his Enfield started either, and had traded in his motorcycle for a bicycle. He was peddling down the road with his girl, Destinee, on his handlebars. Moving too slow to keep a straight line, they weaved back and forth on the street. Haven't already wasted a good part of the day, we agreed to meet back up for dinner and they set off for the Monkey palace on the other side of town.

Jen and I gave up on our two-wheeled dream and decided to get our money back. We hired an autorickshaw to take us just outside of town to a fort we heard offered a good view of the city. The driver inexplicably stopped about 7km away from our destination and refused to go any further at any price, and we had to pay him another 100 rupees to bring us back and not leave us stranded in the desert. Frustrated but not broken, we set off on foot. We explored the bazaars around town, did some shopping, and sampled food from local street vendors. We wandered in and out of the local palaces and took in the sites. We all had dinner together that night and turned in early.

We awoke early the next day. It was time for the kite festival! We headed out to our friends house in town who we had flown kites with the day before. That morning, they had flown a gigantic kite they had hand made that actually sat 4 people. The thing was as big as a room! We were bummed we couldn't catch a glimpse of the big guy flying, but we were happy with our little kites. We joined about a dozen other family members on the roof of a 3 story apartment. From that vantage point, you could see the thousands of kites being flown all across the city skies. Kites of all different colors and sizes sailed from every rooftop, and not a man, woman or child was left out of the fun. Giving the line of ones kite a tug would send it zipping through the air in the direction the kite was facing, and using this effect, one tried to cut down the kites of your friends. Just getting the things off the ground was a challenge for us, and the locals' kites would swarm ours, and everyone would cheer when our kites were cut. We drank more Chai, chatted and danced with the people on the roof for hours and took a ton of great pictures and video.

We lost track of time and almost missed our bus to Delhi.