Diwali in Jaipur - Jaipur, India
Jaipur, India
The bus ride to Jaipur was probably the worst bus ride Ihave ever had in my entire life. Forsome reason there was a miscommunication between our program director and thebus company we hired, and instead of bringing the usual spacious coach bus,they brought a smaller almost mini-bus where we had zero empty seats. 26 of us crammed into the bus, all of us witha backpack and suitcase in preparation for the next 6 days we would be spendingoutside of Delhi. Tomake matters worse, we also had visitors….lots of visitors. I am referring of course to the mosquito apocalypse that had somehowproliferated between the 30 minutes our bus was waiting outside for us withboth doors open and the time we boarded. There were mosquitos everywhere….in the first hour I killed 56mosquitos…I don’t think I have killed 56 mosquitos total in the past threeyears of my life. The windows of the bus weresmeared with dead mosquitos, everyone’s hands were smeared with dead mosquitos,and it was honestly analogous to some form of savage battle ground inside thebus for the first hour or so until we managed to kill them all. Once the battle was won, everyone attempted to fall asleep...the only problem was that the roads happened to have crater-sized potholes in them and the bus had the shocks of a grocery cart. Bumping and smashing our way through torn up dusty ashphalt roads, we managed to roll our way into Jaipur just past 2:00 in the afternoon (7 hour bus ride). When we got into Jaipur, we were immediately shown to our rooms, where we were to fit three people in each room. Our shower was situated directly over our toilet for no apparent reason and our beds were pretty much pieces of plywood with thin slabs of cotton sheets on them. Apart from the room situation Jaipur as a city on first impression appeared to be much cleaner than Delhi...the sun was actually shining through the dust, and we could see blue sky for the first time since Russia. We decided to get out into the city and take an auto rickshaw as soon as possible towards the supposed "#1 tourist attraction in Jaipur" called City Palace. When we arrived to city palace, a curious Indian man came right up to us and began speaking in almost perfect english.,..he offered to take us to the water palace (another main attraction in Jaipur) and then on to other palace's for super cheap. Normally we would be hesitant and skeptical that this guy would be trying to rip us off, but something about his nature and smile was very warm and inviting. We hopped into his rickshaw and for the first time in India so far our inherent trusting nature of people paid off.
Our driver's name was Shiekh but he told us to call him shake. Shake had been driving around tourists since he was 12 years old and learning english from almost anyone he could interact with. He was a lonely planet travel informer and had been featured in a news article which aired on BBC. He also was quick to show us his massive double binded notebook, literally filled to the brim with people who had written notes on how wonderful he was at showing them around, people from South Africa, Hong Kong, the US, pretty much everywhere. We were thrilled, and in the 4 hours we had that day before dinner, we saw more of Jaipur than we saw in an entire weekend in Delhi...Shake whisked us from one tourist destination to another telling us all about the historical significance of each place. After the water palace (which was 7 stories deep) we had the opportunity to ride elephants! Our elephant's name was Madonna, and shake took us to a place where the elephants were supposedly (and appeared to be) treated quite humanely. We rode madonna around the block, ducking under low hanging wires and waving to all the small children who followed us, bringing smiles to everyone's faces for a solid hour straight.
After Madonna, we were taken for a tour around the pink city, or the inner area of Jaipur which was walled and painted entirely in pink, the royal color when the city was built in the 1600's by the 2nd Mughal Emporer Mansing....an aside on Mansing, this guy pretty much built the entire city including all of its palaces and main tourist attractions. The day finished off with a "suprise" from shake; he took us to a hindu temple which opened at 5 PM, and asked us to walk up the front steps without looking back. When we walked all the way up, we were instructed to turn around, and what we saw was pretty incredible; basically the whole city looking out onto the lake where the water palace was situated, with the sunset adding to the surroundings quite nicely. We walked around the temple taking pictures before we were suddenly pounced on by a group of local Indian tourists for pictures. Everyone wanted to take their picture with us, and we were very confused as to why...we asked shake what was going on, and he replied to me with a smile, "they think you are Justin Beiber"...-_-
After taking about 10 or 11 pictures, the tourists not believing shake when he told them I was in fact not Justin Beiber (they clearly dont get out much) we headed back to our hotel for dinner and a Diwali celebration! Reunited with the group and sharing our day's events with each other, it was clear that there was a lot of interest in getting shake to give us another, more detailed tour of the city the following day. We called shake and arranged him and another 4 rickshaws to be waiting for us the next day at 9:30, and as soon as the sun went down we headed up to the hotel roof to set off some celebratory Diwali fireworks! Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights is celebrated by Jains as well as many other faiths for a variety of reasons. One of the trademarks of Diwali besides lights everywhere, are fireworks. Basically people all around the city were sporadically launching everything from roman candles to 12-shot professional canon fireworks every 2-3 seconds....the city became alive with noise color and light, and it was truly a spectacular couple of hours spent with each other setting off whatever we had collectively bought at stores that day and marveling at the atmosphere around us. Satisfied with our firework show, we ended the day with a pick-up game of soccer on the hotel's lawn under the light of neighboring firework displays...a pretty amazing way to end a pretty amazing day.
The next day we awoke early for another packed sight-seeing day with shake. Shake first took us to the Hawa Mahal, or the wind palace. We climbed up a crazy small spiral staircase and eventually came out onto a tower which was the tallest building in Jaipur (only about 8 or 9 stories high). After snapping some pictures of the scenery, we climbed down and headed to our second destination which was one of my personal favorites, Jantar Mantar. Jantar Mantar, again built by Mansing, was the world's largest active sun dial, and home to 13 different astrological instruments built in the 17th century...there were instruments for dates, zodiac signs, and many other purposes...my favorite was the giant sun dial which kept time down to the nearest second...you could literally see the suns shadow moving along the thing as we stood and watched. After Jantar Mantar, it was time to shop...shake took us to a local textile factory which was owned and subsidized by the government. Oddly enough, this exact place had been recommended to us by one of our IES abroad directors in Delhi who was originally from Jaipur. The place was incredible; we toured around the production area for the first 10-15 minutes and saw how they made their products; basically all the colors in their textiles were made naturally out of flowers or vegetables, the red color coming from roses and tomato paste, the blue coming from indigo plants, the black coming from a rock found locally in Jaipur quarries, etc. etc. After the fabric was dyed, it was then left to dry in the sun for 1-2 weeks, allowing the colors to oxidize, before being taken to local women in the village to stamp more dye on in patterns. The partnership with the government worked like this; the company provided jobs to local women who were unemployed, trained them, and paid them well, and in return, they received money from the government, in addition to favorable import / export taxes and shipping costs. The company exported to a number of high-end stores across the globe, one of them being on 5th ave in NYC! After spending several hours at this store, buying a tailored suit and many other gifts for people, those of us who had not yet ridden elephants took their turns at the place we visited the previous day. At this point, it was around 3 PM and people began to get weary and drop out of our group, one by one peeling back to the hotel. By 5 PM there was only 4 of the original 12 left with energy to keep going, and we had our sights set on the Tiger Fortress for the sunset....something that was in my opinion the highlight of India so far.
The Tiger Fortress was located about 40-50 minutes up a mountain that overlooked Jaipur. It was a massive walled in complex made of sand and rock that bared striking resemblances to China's Great Wall. After climbing the hill in our auto rickshaw, we made it just in time to see the sunset....which was absolutely spectacular. Climbing out onto the wall, and sitting up on a large circular pillar eating an indian snack and sipping water as the sun went down was a crazy experience...we basically could see the entire city of Jaipur beneath us. As the sun slowly went down, the lights began turning on one by one. We could hear the mosque's anouncing prayers, and Indian music blasting from cabs and houses. Every second that went by, the lights became more and more prominent, accentuated even more by the fact that it was still considered Diwali (Diwali is a one day event, but celebrated for a full week). After complete darkness set in, people who had leftover fireworks from the night before began to set them off, making an unbelievable panorama of lights that I know I will see again in my life before I die. We walked all the way up the wall to the pavilion in the corner where there was a small cafeteria. We all ordered pakoras and a couple of Heineken and sat there admiring the sights for a solid two hours before calling it a night and descending back down the mountain in our auto rickshaw.
That night we said goodbye to shake, wrote in his tourist book and wished him well, the next day we would be leaving for Bal Ashram, an orphanage for children who had been trafficked into child labor. Jaipur had been a whirlwind of incredible experiences and sights, fitting about a weeks worth of activities into 48 hours. The next two days would be markedly different, yet equally rewarding and we all hit the hay that night eager to experience the second half of our 6 day excursion away from Delhi.