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I've spent four days in Jaipur now and tomorrow I'll be leaving for Delhi. It's been nice to spend a few more nights in the same place, the last weeks have been quite intense with a lot of travelling and a lot of new places. I traveled with Maxi from Agra, the train ride was only four hours, so we got a general class ticket and sneaked us onto the sleeper class carriage. We had a long wait on the train station though, because every train headed our direction was delayed. We were lucky and found two vacant beds on the train and slept a little bit before we arrived in the black of night in Jaipur.
The next day we took a rickshaw to what's called "The Pink City" and is partly what Jaipur is famous for. Jaipur is also the capital of Rajasthan, a state in Northern India. There are endless streets of shops one after an other, selling exactly the same thing. We walked around for ages looking for a restaurant, but apparently we were in the wrong part of the city. All the shops were the same tiny size and they would sell anything from clothes, jewellery, shoes and souvenirs to spices, tea, lentils and pasta to sewing machines, chairs, tires and books. You could find pretty much anything as long as you were on the street selling that particular thing. You would think that it might be better business to spread out the clothes shops with a few restaurants in between and one or two bookshops here and there, but no. All the clothes shops are next to each other and they all sell the same thing, all the tire shops are in a row, selling the same stuff and nowhere is a restaurant seen unless you are in the restaurant area and restaurants is all you see.
We spent most of the days just walking among all the colours and smells and extravagant details. One day we made a little tour, seeing Amber fort and the Palace in the water. They were beautiful, but I must say I prefer just randomly strolling up and down the streets not knowing where you'll end up. I bought a few things and Maxi bought a lot because he's going home soon. We bargained hard, with both shopkeepers and rickshaw drivers and it was a lot of fun. Of course, in the end, when we got a price we were happy with, they still ripped us off. But it's ok, I mean, the prices are nothing compared to home anyway.
One of the days was a really hot and humid day and there must have been something in the air. The whole time I've been in India so far I haven't seen any traffic accidents, despite their crazy driving. I've seen a couple of arguments after a collision, but never actually witnessed an accident. This day though I saw two people crash with their bikes. They were both ok and were able to drive off on their own again due to their low speed. There's so much traffic so nobody actually drives very fast, so accidents are rarely that serious. The third accident that day was our own rickshaw bumping into the car ahead. it wasn't serious, nobody got hurt except for the car and the rickshaw. But my adrenaline went pumping. Our driver stopped and the car driver got out and they started to shout at each other. I pressed a note in our drivers hand and we got out of there as quickly as possible. Luckily it wasn't a serious matter, if it had been we might have got badly injured, not by the accident, but by a riot of people claiming justice for the drivers actions. All was well though and we got a new rickshaw to take us back to our guesthouse. On the way we saw a fourth collision, also a small one, but I was a bit shaken after that.
The last day when we were walking in the hustle of the bazaar streets suddenly the main street was filled with women all dressed in purple. They were singing and carrying bowls of offering on their heads. In the front of the procession there was an elephant painted with bright colours, camels dressed in glitter and colours and horses equally decorated. After the animals a loud orchestra followed, playing and dancing and smiling. I tried to ask people what it was all about but didn't get much of an answer from the Indians. It was some kind of festival and it was only the women celebrating this day, the men would have a big celebration two days later.
Tonight we went out to eat at a nice hotel restaurant. We ate a big Indian buffet and ate a delicious dessert that was so sweet that it hurt my teeth.
Tomorrow we leave for Delhi!
ॐ
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