Day 12: Jaipur-Delhi
Our plan this day was to explore old Jaipur on foot. Our hotel was right next to the old walled city, also called the Pink City because the walls and the buildings were all painted pink (it seemed like quite a fascination amongst Rajasthanis to have a uniform colour theme for their cities... the Amber fort and palace complex was wholly painted in - you guessed it - amber, and apparently there were more blue and red and what-have-you cities further out in the state). However, there were only three major gates of ingress into the walled section and all of them were not very close to our hotel, so we decided to take an auto there. So we flagged down a metered auto and told the guy where we were going, and he told us to hop on.
When we got down at our destination - outside the Hawa Mahal - Dave prepared to pay the driver 3x the metered amount, which was the normal going rate in India. But the driver refused to accept it and asked for more, saying his meter was broken. So the three of us got into a confrontation with the driver. He got a couple of the onlooking shopkeepers nearby to give him support, but we were adamant on paying him any more - it wasn't the amount, although at the asking price of 70Rp it was pretty steep - it was the principle of the thing... if your meter is broken, then you tell us when boarding, not at the end of the ride and then start charging us some arbitrary price. In the end Dave pretended to call the tourist police, so the guy sped off, without even taking the amount we were offering him. For the remainder of my time in Jaipur I was in constant fear of being set upon by a team of auto drivers.
The "tension of the day" session over and done with, we proceeded to explore Hawa Mahal, which turned out to be under renovation, so we didn't really get to see much. While we were inside however, the skies burst open, and Jaipur got its first downpour of the monsoon season.
A perfect day to pick for walking on the streets.
The three of us split up after Hawa Mahal to do our own thing, and planned to meet back in the hotel in three hours to pack and leave for the station. There wasn't much exploration we could do however, with the rain still pouring down. I tried to wait it out by getting a haircut, shave and head massage (nothing beats an Indian head massage after a haircut!) in a barber shop along the street. But the rain still kept on coming...
In the end I had no choice but to head back to the hotel in the rain. I let Dave and Govin have the maps since I had more or less committed the route back into my head, but I didn't account for flash floods blocking my way. So I had to take a couple of detours, which branched out into even more detours as I couldn't find my way around the floods that were seemingly besieging the section of the city I was in. Eventually I ended up walking on a fairly unwaterlogged route, only to find my way blocked once again by a huge puddle, and to retrace my route would be more time-consuming, so I just had to roll up my pants and trudge through the flash floods getting my shoes and socks thoroughly soaked in the procees. Soaked to the skin, my shoes making squishy sounds at every step, and feeling completely unhealthy, I finally got to our room, only to find our other two friends very much drier than me - apparently they weren't in the same section of town I was when the flash floods sprung up.
The bathroom was submerged in wet clothes, shoes and underthings with the fan turned on full blast as we tried to get them as dry as possible before we left. In the meantime we started packing, and Dave realized that he couldn't find the bag with his shoes in it. Even more catastrophic, that bag also had my slippers in them! You know how hard it is to find a decent pair of bata slippers these days? Apart from that, the short term effect of this development would be that I had no choice but to travel back to Delhi in my wet shoes. We figured we must have lost it when leaving the station the previous day, since that was the last time any one of us could recall seeing it. Oh well, the odds were pretty high that some possession of ours would disappear on such a long trip, so at least it was just footwear and nothing more costly.
We had our meals - I had some noodles at the hotel restaurant while Dave and Govin went for pizza next door, which took such a long time coming that they had to get it packed in the end - and headed back to the station. We had spiked one bottle of Pepsi with what remained of our Black Label, and in the station waiting room Govin bought a couple of Limcas to be spiked with the Bacardi. But of course, in between all this, we had to have our tea, which we got from the station tea stall in earthen cups.
The last train that we would take turned out to be the only train that was behind schedule - by 10 minutes. The rest of the trip back was pretty uneventful though. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much out of our Jaipur excursion, so maybe that was why I was quite pleasantly surprised with the city - particularly the palaces and forts. In any case, our short Jaipur trip did leave me thirsting for more exploration of Rajasthan, if I ever get the opportunity in the future.
Arriving at New Delhi railway station this time, it was a short walk to Ajanta Hotel. We collapsed into the office while one of the hotel guys took Dave to show him our room. And it turned out to be a completely different room than the one we asked for - not even a suite, but a double room. Of course Dave refused to take the room, and asked the guy about the room that we were showed when we came here before, which turned out to be the only one of its kind, and it was no longer available! Dave got that guy to show him a couple more rooms - one of them was a bigger version of the suite that was showed to us before. The guy was asking for 4000Rp for it, but Dave brought it down to 3000Rp. The other one was another suite going for 2500Rp, but slightly smaller, no balcony, and only one (non-flat screen) TV. When Dave came back he told us about all this, and we discussed our options in Malay. Due to miscommunication and tiredness Govin and I voted for the 2500Rp, and I at least was under the impression that it was the same type of suite that was shown to us earlier but without a balcony. Of course when I saw it I realized it wasn't after all. I suppose on hindsight when the guy tried to show Dave that double room we should have all just walked out of the hotel and tried our chances elsewhere, but the exhaustion of the day's activities in particular, and 12 days of almost non-stop travel in general I suppose was beginning to tell, and we were in that stage where we just wanted everything over and done with, now that we were almost at the end of our trip. But it was pretty clear that we got conned good and proper, and subsequent events would reinforce this. So boys and girls, if you're looking for a nice place to stay in Delhi, Hotel Ajanta is strongly unrecommended. It may be recommended by Lonely Planet, and we did see a lot of Caucasians there, but once again like in Spars Lodge we got the feeling that because we weren't white, we got the shit treatment.
When we got down at our destination - outside the Hawa Mahal - Dave prepared to pay the driver 3x the metered amount, which was the normal going rate in India. But the driver refused to accept it and asked for more, saying his meter was broken. So the three of us got into a confrontation with the driver. He got a couple of the onlooking shopkeepers nearby to give him support, but we were adamant on paying him any more - it wasn't the amount, although at the asking price of 70Rp it was pretty steep - it was the principle of the thing... if your meter is broken, then you tell us when boarding, not at the end of the ride and then start charging us some arbitrary price. In the end Dave pretended to call the tourist police, so the guy sped off, without even taking the amount we were offering him. For the remainder of my time in Jaipur I was in constant fear of being set upon by a team of auto drivers.
The "tension of the day" session over and done with, we proceeded to explore Hawa Mahal, which turned out to be under renovation, so we didn't really get to see much. While we were inside however, the skies burst open, and Jaipur got its first downpour of the monsoon season.
A perfect day to pick for walking on the streets.
The three of us split up after Hawa Mahal to do our own thing, and planned to meet back in the hotel in three hours to pack and leave for the station. There wasn't much exploration we could do however, with the rain still pouring down. I tried to wait it out by getting a haircut, shave and head massage (nothing beats an Indian head massage after a haircut!) in a barber shop along the street. But the rain still kept on coming...
In the end I had no choice but to head back to the hotel in the rain. I let Dave and Govin have the maps since I had more or less committed the route back into my head, but I didn't account for flash floods blocking my way. So I had to take a couple of detours, which branched out into even more detours as I couldn't find my way around the floods that were seemingly besieging the section of the city I was in. Eventually I ended up walking on a fairly unwaterlogged route, only to find my way blocked once again by a huge puddle, and to retrace my route would be more time-consuming, so I just had to roll up my pants and trudge through the flash floods getting my shoes and socks thoroughly soaked in the procees. Soaked to the skin, my shoes making squishy sounds at every step, and feeling completely unhealthy, I finally got to our room, only to find our other two friends very much drier than me - apparently they weren't in the same section of town I was when the flash floods sprung up.
The bathroom was submerged in wet clothes, shoes and underthings with the fan turned on full blast as we tried to get them as dry as possible before we left. In the meantime we started packing, and Dave realized that he couldn't find the bag with his shoes in it. Even more catastrophic, that bag also had my slippers in them! You know how hard it is to find a decent pair of bata slippers these days? Apart from that, the short term effect of this development would be that I had no choice but to travel back to Delhi in my wet shoes. We figured we must have lost it when leaving the station the previous day, since that was the last time any one of us could recall seeing it. Oh well, the odds were pretty high that some possession of ours would disappear on such a long trip, so at least it was just footwear and nothing more costly.
We had our meals - I had some noodles at the hotel restaurant while Dave and Govin went for pizza next door, which took such a long time coming that they had to get it packed in the end - and headed back to the station. We had spiked one bottle of Pepsi with what remained of our Black Label, and in the station waiting room Govin bought a couple of Limcas to be spiked with the Bacardi. But of course, in between all this, we had to have our tea, which we got from the station tea stall in earthen cups.
The last train that we would take turned out to be the only train that was behind schedule - by 10 minutes. The rest of the trip back was pretty uneventful though. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much out of our Jaipur excursion, so maybe that was why I was quite pleasantly surprised with the city - particularly the palaces and forts. In any case, our short Jaipur trip did leave me thirsting for more exploration of Rajasthan, if I ever get the opportunity in the future.
Arriving at New Delhi railway station this time, it was a short walk to Ajanta Hotel. We collapsed into the office while one of the hotel guys took Dave to show him our room. And it turned out to be a completely different room than the one we asked for - not even a suite, but a double room. Of course Dave refused to take the room, and asked the guy about the room that we were showed when we came here before, which turned out to be the only one of its kind, and it was no longer available! Dave got that guy to show him a couple more rooms - one of them was a bigger version of the suite that was showed to us before. The guy was asking for 4000Rp for it, but Dave brought it down to 3000Rp. The other one was another suite going for 2500Rp, but slightly smaller, no balcony, and only one (non-flat screen) TV. When Dave came back he told us about all this, and we discussed our options in Malay. Due to miscommunication and tiredness Govin and I voted for the 2500Rp, and I at least was under the impression that it was the same type of suite that was shown to us earlier but without a balcony. Of course when I saw it I realized it wasn't after all. I suppose on hindsight when the guy tried to show Dave that double room we should have all just walked out of the hotel and tried our chances elsewhere, but the exhaustion of the day's activities in particular, and 12 days of almost non-stop travel in general I suppose was beginning to tell, and we were in that stage where we just wanted everything over and done with, now that we were almost at the end of our trip. But it was pretty clear that we got conned good and proper, and subsequent events would reinforce this. So boys and girls, if you're looking for a nice place to stay in Delhi, Hotel Ajanta is strongly unrecommended. It may be recommended by Lonely Planet, and we did see a lot of Caucasians there, but once again like in Spars Lodge we got the feeling that because we weren't white, we got the shit treatment.
posted by silau | 7:05 AM
1 Comments:
The same colours are used for bulk purchase la boss..haha
Uniwalker
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