Jaipur Road Trip

In June, right before coming home for 4th of July and our management conference, I went to Jaipur for the third time with Austin, Mollie, Louise, and Cindy who was visiting from Mountain View. After driving down from Gurgaon on a Friday night, we landed, softly, at Le Meridien Jaipur. I swear their web site outright lies and says they're in downtown Jaipur, which is not the case. However, thanks to Austin's Starwood membership, we were quickly ensconced in two of the plushest suites I've seen in India. Since we had Devindar with us, being outside of town wasn't too big of a deal either, so it all worked out in the end.

On Saturday morning, we rolled out of bed around nine, had our breakfast and headed for Amer. I had been there before, in February, with Heba, Heather, and Pallavi, but this time we were more at our leisure with the whole weekend in front of us. I discovered that there was a fort that we'd completely missed the first time - Naigargh Fort, which was beautiful. Amer Palace and Jaigargh Fort were beautiful, as they were the first time. Austin, Mollie and Louise insisted on going up on the battlements at Jaigargh Fort and copying the pose that I used in my photo for our web site at work. It looks pretty funny now that it's uploaded, especially because Austin reports to me and his picture and mine show up on the same pages. After puttering around Amer most of the day with our guide, Ragu, we made the obligatory stop at one of the tourist markets that is wildly overpriced. We made a quick trip of it, but it was cool to see them making the Jaipuri woodblock prints, and hand knotting silk and wool carpets. We made a quick pit stop at Le Meridien and then headed for downtown Jaipur to do some shopping at the main bazaar. I was on a mission to get a Rajasthani tie-dye saree, and although Mollie and I waded through a sea of beautiful silk, I didn't quite find the right one, at the right price. I did get some lovely hand-worked silver earrings, which Devindar was sure weren't real, but I have which I have on good authority ARE real - I'll let you all be the judge when I get home. Anyway, few people have the shopping stamina that I have, so we were fairly quickly on our way to Choki Dhani for dinner. Choki Dhani was a bit nuts. I guess the good news is that it was mostly Indians in this mock Rajasthani village, but with the liberal interpretation of standing in line, the somewhat muddy grounds, and the sheer number of people, it was pretty chaotic. The few other Westerners that were there were escorted around looking waif-like. After having a traditional meal, which we ate entirely with our hands, we went to get mendhi done. By this time we were hot and fairly well tuckered out, so we headed back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

On Sunday, we decided to see downtown Jaipur. Since I had been to the City Palace before, Devindar dropped me off to do some shopping while the other folks headed off to sightsee. I bought a bunch of Rajasthani parasols for the Montgomery girls and me. It was great fun picking them out from the bundles and bundles in the shop. At one point, I had a whole room full of vibrant parasols spread out at my feet. So fun. Devindar helped me negotiate, so I got a good deal too - what a team! After our shoppping, we picked up the other four and headed to the Gaitore Cenotaphs to do our last bit of siteseeing. The cenotaphs are where Jaipur's rulers were cremated in the last two centuries. The site itself is set outside of the city on the way to Amer. All of the structures are elaborately carved out of white marble and quite beautiful. The overall effect is pristine, but Devindar and Ragu told us that it's traditional for Hindus to bathe after going to such a place, literally to wash the death and bad karma from their bodies. From my perspective, it seems a lovely and quiet place of remembrance. After Gaitore, we set off for Niro's to have a late lunch and gird our loins for the trip back to Delhi.

And then the real adventure began....

So, after dinner, we drove through Jaipur to drop Mollie off at the airport so that she can fly to Hyderabad and then we headed back towards Amer to catch the Jaipur-Delhi highway. We got about 10 minutes away from the airport before Mollie finally reaches Devindar on his phone (Austin's was on silent - nice) and tells us that her flight has been canceled. We do a 180 and pick her up to bring her back to Delhi with us. We're on the road again and then outside of Amer, I suddenly hear a very quiet "oh shit" from Devindar, and the car rolls to a stop. Austin, ever the intrepid photographer, caught them moment on video:

Luckily, Devindar was able to call in a favor from our guide, Ragu, and he showed up within a half hour in a Jeep, and proceeded to tow us by wiring the bumpers of the two cars together. If it sounds flimsy, it was. All of us, save Devindar, hopped into the Jeep, and watched Devindar do the cab-driver equivalent of the 'walk of shame,' steering and breaking the Innova as it was being towed. Now, I'm not sure exactly why this was a better option than having Ragu bring a container of gas, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. Whooeee, did we give Devindar a lot of crap - all the way home and then some. But the fun wasn't over, no sireee Bob. We got back on the road again, only to find ourselves at the back of a huge traffic jam as we neared the boarder. Devindar assessed the line of trucks and cars as a minimum 45 minute or more wait and, as we approached a break in the median, threw on his hazards and pulled onto the wrong side of the freeway. As I was sitting in the front passenger seat, I got a birdseye view of the action and very quickly began to see my life flash before me in the headlights of the oncoming cars. The crazy thing it, this apparently didn't phase oncoming traffic at all. They did honk at us, but generally, everyone stayed well out of our way for the 1-2 kilometers we traveled until we could pull back in line ahead of the jam. I sincerely hope that Devindar never, ever does that again, but I can't fault the effectiveness of the methodology. This one goes down in the books as the road trip to end all road trips. I think I'm ok for a while without another dose.