Jaipur

This city is such a sensory overload that I don't even know where to
begin. We arrived yesterday in jaipur expecting, as the tour book
suggested, a city painted pink with shopping where "you can bargain
your pants off or risk going home without them". The city was pink
alright...but the shopping bazaar was a completely insane experience.
Let me try to describe it for you...you basically choose a street and
start walking. There are booths every three feet for a span of 20 or
so city blocks selling everything from saris to fly covered fried
dough balls. As you walk down these streets, merchants are literally
throwing their cheap fake pashminas on your head and you have to bend
your body in a way such that they fall off of you instead of stay on
your head. In the mean time, there are beggars grabbing at you and
following you around shouting "hello" over and over again. Don't
forget about the traffic...all this time there is two way traffic
driving maniacally in one lane the size of one lane on the fdr ... And
in the mean time everyone is beeping non stop. So basically, you have
people shouting at you from one side, pulling at you from another
side, and beeping at you from somewhere else. Its all totally insane.

In all this craziness, our driver has become knight in shining toyota.
He finds us in all of the insanity and sweeps us away back to our
hotel. Its just amazing how good he is at what he does. He doesn't
really speak english, but we still manage to communicate.

So, back to jaipur...the pink city, inside of which is the city palace
is just lovely. The walls are not exactly pink but are more of a
salmony pink. The merchants here are noticeably less pushy than in
agra. Its almost strange that when you say no, they actually
listen...weird.

Jaipur is an awesome place for shopping once you realize that you
shoud just go to the boutiques and not the crazy market. I bought
shoes and a necklace and david bought me a lovely hand embroidered
shawl and these gorgeous gold and semi precious stone earrings...which
I just love. I wish had another day here...but I would probably spend
a lot of money.

All in all, jaipur is the best out of the golden triangle cities...but
its still a giant culture shock for the unsuspecting western traveler.
I am now fully ready to relax in sunny goa and to eat the yummy
seafood specialties that they have.

-ellen

--
Sent from my mobile device