Jaipur

We arrived in Jaipur at 4 pm after our delayed train and were immediately hounded by tuk-tuk drivers vying for the rights to our rupees. After evading the first overzealous driver we found another who seemed trustworthy and negotiated a price of 80 rupees to get to our hostel. The tuk-tuk sputtered as the driver yanked on it for a couple minutes before giving up and negotiating a split rate with another driver. We switched rides and started through the congested road.

Our new driver swerved and the previous driver reached over to correct his path. The first driver leaned back and cackled, “I have to help him get there because he can’t see!”

We laughed.

He responded. “No seriously, look!” The new driver rotated in his seat to show his heavily reverse-cross eyed eyes.

The hostel journey concluded safely and we checked into the Mustache hostel. This hostel was a dramatic change from our stay in Mumbai and felt like a conventional foreigner spot. After four days of staring and photo bombardment we were grateful to have some foreigners to relate to.

For dinner I ate a mushroom curry on the rooftop of the Sunder Palace, a vegetarian restaurant nearby our hostel. Unfortunately my phone kicked the bucket once again so I don’t have as many photos as I’d like for this post.

The next day we met two Germans from our dorm room, Alex and Anna, and I joined them on an excursion to a fort overlooking Jaipur. The views were beautiful and we were only asked for four selfies. As we exited the fort, an Indian playing a drum motioned for me to come over to him and I got to test out the instrument. The Dholak looked like this.

After I finished playing I thanked them and the guy quickly offered me a marionette-like doll as a gift. I refused, explaining that I was traveling with only a backpack. Then he asked for a donation. It’s been difficult to differentiate between genuine generosity and feigned friendliness.

 

On the walk back to the hostel the first street was lined with dozens and dozens of bangle shops. Literally hundreds of thousands of metallic bangles lining the walls of store after store.

We turned down a side street, and found ourselves in a lane of sculptors. Men chipped away at bulbous hunks of marble or polished nearly finished pieces of Indian political figures and hindu gods. Smiles all around.

Alex recommended a famous Lassi place, Lassivalla (I think?), and we bought tall lassis for 50 rupees a piece. Alex and Anna asked for no ice and I realized that, despite making the effort to drink only purified water, I’ve been drinking the ice constantly. The day was humid and I wasn’t going to drink a lukewarm Lassi so I went with ice once again.

The lassis came in beautiful clay mugs that were discarded immediately after use in a bucket where they shattered. I’m not sure if they remake them somehow or if they’re so cheap the waste doesn’t matter.

After a quick nap Louise and I took a tuk-tuk to Hanuman temple, referred to often as the Monkey Temple. We bought bags of peanuts from a vendor at the base of the small mountain and started the walk towards the temple. Monkeys were scattered along the path, and knew quickly that my pockets were full of tasty peanuts. One monkey crawled my leg and shoved his hand into my shorts before I secured the peanuts against my leg.

A cute five year old who introduced himself as Raju proudly announced that he would act as our guide. We followed Raju through an adjacent building to a view of the city and alongside makeshift homes. Outside the homes women handling cobras shouted words like “safe!” and “photo?” to us as we walked past. I didn’t take them up on it and felt that truthfully I was a bit afraid. I will take a photo with a cobra before the trip is over.

The difference between Raju at five years old and the five year olds at my school in Spain was startling. At the elementary school the five year olds could hardly tie their own shoes, let alone confidently approach a stranger and act as a guide. Raju walked as an adult.

Although Raju tried to convince us that the Monkey temple was located somewhere else, we walked over the ridge of the hill and descended into the valley below. Near the bottom we entered the temple.

Immediately we were greeted by hundreds of monkeys. Monkeys with babies strapped to their stomachs and backs screeched and effortlessly scaled the walls to gently remove peanuts from our hands. The monkeys stored some of the nuts in their mouths like squirrels for later and Louise and I were soon covered with monkeys. As Louise fed a angsty mother monkey on her shoulder it peed all over her.

We entered a temple were shown to a room by a Hindu man. He explained that this was the temple of Hunuman, the monkey god, and proceeded to bless us with a mantra-woven protection bracelet and gently rapping us on the heads with feathers. This “ritual” was followed by trying to get us each to give 100 rupees.

We gave 100 and scurried outta there.

As the sun set, the monkeys began to nonchalantly refuse our peanut offers. We glanced down the path to see a man holding a huge box of bananas. Our peanuts didn’t cut it anymore.

Luckily the man gave us a hunk of bananas to hand out and the monkeys snatched them out of our hands. A baby monkey snagged Louise’s sunglasses while a full grown accomplice raided her back pocket for the biscuits we had snacked on earlier.

A larger type of monkey descended from the mountain above and terrified the smaller monkeys into giving up some of their banana gold. The larger monkeys stormed the area, and the smaller monkeys retreated into the adjacent mountain. Some of the bolder monkeys tried to bite and bounce off the larger while they were distracted, but it was clear the larger monkeys ran the show. We were temporarily in an episode of Planet Earth.