Jaipur Musings

            Beat, we landed in Jaipur late and hopped in a cab to our hotel – an AWESOME boutique hotel called the Hotel Pearl Palace (there’s a reason it’s #1 on TripAdvisor, and was only $15 a night!).  We were thoroughly impressed with the rooftop restaurant, room decoration, intricate paint jobs, and the service.  Hats off – travelers to Jaipur should seriously consider this place.

            As usual, we were up early, and as usual, I was on the computer.  What India lacks in public infrastructure build it has certainly made up for in technology.  My Uncle (Hitesh Mama) got me a USB travel modem (exact same size as a USB drive) which connects virtually tens of thousands of villages and cities in India to the Internet with broadband speeds.  Hotel Pearl Palace had very strong and fast Wi-Fi, so we spent the morning video chatting and Skyping with family and friends.  It’s funny how the grass is always greener – we yearned for the village life a mere 24 hours ago when we visited, but now equipped with Google Video were basking in the advancement of technology.  Life is great.

Giving the tour on Google Video Chat!!!

            I was flabbergasted by tourist inflation in Jaipur!  Aside from the hotel, we found prices for simple transportation and textiles (where there are scarves, there is Vans) to be exorbitant as compared to the spots we had traveled to.  Rickshaw rides were 5x the price of what they should have been (I don’t think we were getting duped, either).  We asked a local in broken Hindi of where to shop and got taken to a wholesaler, fixed price market that had palatable prices.  Once again, we sat in front of a couple of salesmen on mattresses and were showed dozens of different scarves, skirts, blankets, and other textiles to bring back to the US.  Vans bought a wool and silk blanket which they managed to wrap up into a package smaller than a shoebox!  (Which was also a selling point). 

And here is blanket #821...

Stay far away from this place, you're bound to get got...

             We spent a quick morning in Jaipur before our ride to Parag and Purva’s Palace (about 1.5 hours north of the city) and I wasn’t too impressed.  When I read about the old city area, I guess I had a Jerusalem-type situation and was looking forward to walking through the bazaars, etc.  This was quite the opposite.  The roads were lined with autos and it, again, was a tense walk through the city dodging streets, playing frogger, and inhaling carbon monoxide.  On the positives, there was a decent amount of Mughal architecture which was nice to see.  I can only imagine the splendor which is Jaipur are the myriad palaces in the outskirts of the city.

 

World famous Halwa Mahal...

Once back at the hotel, we met Trang and Isaac for lunch (from Purva’s side of the wedding – Trang went to architecture school with Purva in NYC) and our car picked us up right on time for our 1.5 hour trip through Jaipur and north into the desert hills of the Samode Palace.  Our hosts showered us with comfort from the top, sending us a Toyota Innova (think luxury minivan) to battle through the traffic and noise, and arrived to our dreamland for 3 days of royal treatment…