Day 10 - Jaipur

After breakfast with Sebastian, he joined us for another day of sight-seeing with Saldar. We went to the Albert Hall first and looked around the museum there. There were so many different things from different cultures and times that we probably could have stayed there all day but there were lots of things we wanted to see so had to get a move on. The Indian way of looking around sights however seems to be to walk up to things, take a picture and then walk away and so the tuk tuk drivers always seem surprised by how long it takes us to look at things.

After this we went to Surya Mandir (Sun or Monkey Temple).  I was pretty scared of seeing the monkeys (fear of teeth and rabies!) but they didnt pester too much if you didn't have any food. Sebastian had been the day before so we didn't spend too long there but we did take lots of humourous and cute pictures as we wandered to the temple at the top of the hill. In the temple we were given bindis and bracelets for good fortune and we saw another view over Jaipur.

Next, we drove up the big hill to Amber Fort. The tuk tuk seemed to struggle a lot more with our burly bums on the seats but there were no complaints from Saldar as all other traffic rushed passed us with the horns blaring. We passed lots of decorated elephants and Sebastian wanted to ride one but we had missed the tourist window for the elephant safari - Saldar offered to take us to the elephant village later instead.

The Amber Fort was really impressive. The architecture and the views were amazing. It stands on the hill next to two other forts but really stands out in its beauty and almost seems to glow. We spent quite  long while exploring - longer than we wanted to but we couldn't find the way out. Eventually we took a turn which led us inside the Turkish bath area that we had previously seen barriered off. After posing for a photo in the bath itself, we emerged and had to furtively climb over the rope and the 'No Entry' sign.

The fort had different monkeys to the ones we'd seen before: black faces and long tails instead of red faces and big, red bums. It didn't them any less scary though, especially since they were so tame. As we left, we saw lots of them mob two ladies carrying ice-cream lollies. The women threw them and the monkeys picked them up and munched through them.

At the 'elephant village' we saw three elephants. They wanted us to pose for photos with them and I felt obliged since we had obviously gone there to see them. However, I could not get the experience of last time I saw elephants in India out of my head. I asked Saldar where they came from and he told me that it was Kerala. We discussed the fact that the elephants I had seen there had been trapped and he told me it was very likely that this was how these ones were obtained. We made ourselves sad thinking about it so we gathered Matt and Sebastian and bid a hasty retreat. Saldar told us that we didn't have to pay the men there but with the way they pestered us, we did not have much choice but to give them something.

Since we were taking a night train to Bikaner and didn't want to end up freezing again, we had asked Saldar to take us somewhere to buy blankets. We had thought that a sleeping bag would be too much of a pain to carry around and lots of travel info suggested they were unecessary but we didn't want another freezing night -especially not on a seven hour journey.  The idea of the usual high-pressure sales and bartering exchange  filled us with dread and didn't turn out to be much better than we expected. The salesman had the usual attitude and if he hadn't had been Saldar's friend, we would probably have left. We did however, manage to eventually strike a reasonable bargain (450 rupees each) and left with two rather shiny, not very well-made blankets and a guilt complex.

Again, I was really frustrated and upset that the good people in India, like Saldar, and others we have met, do not get what they deserve, whilst others prosper from cheating and taking advantage. It really got to me that we had paid Saldar the same price for a day of his services, help and advice, as we paid for two crappy blankets. In fact, we would have paid a lot less if we had given him what he had originally asked for. The good hearts, cheer and resiliance of the honourable people here is really humbling and quite heartbreaking. It is unthinkable how someone supports 7 children, goes without to put them through school, teaches them morals and respect, helps people in the community and yet earns a pittance taking ungrateful tourists to places he can't afford to go.  The hostel owner saw me upset and spent some time talking to me and comforting me - which of course made me feel worse as well as better. He was full of praise for my' good heart' and told me that sometimes, to feel compassion and a little understanding is enough.

We tried to leave some reviews for our hostels so far but the internet was so slow at Sebastian's hostel that the laptop ran out of battery. So we had coffee then walked to train station for 21:15 train to Bikaner.
Struggled to sleep on freezing, cramped train with our rucksacks for pillows and felt glad we'd bought blankets after all.