The journey to Jaipur was
better than the one to Agra; the roads were
a lot quieter so there was less beeping and swerving and hard breaking
and we were able to sleep for a couple of hours after our early start. The scenery was predominantly countryside
with the odd bustle of huts and shacks with their standard stray dogs and cows
chilling out in the streets but there were a lot more cows in the road. They’re not fazed by cars at all! They’ll just graze on the grass of the
central reservation without a care in the world. Cars will speed past or beep and they’ll just
stand there with a ‘give a crap’ attitude.
If cows could shrug indifference these would.
We arrived at the hotel
and were greeted by a big sign with all the listed facilities and very clearly
one of those facilities was ‘internet’.
Turns out that was a big fat lie.
It’s only been 2 ½ days so I was able to cope with another day. Annoyingly the travel updates I was posting
onto Facebook through text message were back-dating comments received before I
left. So my phone was regularly going
off making me think someone was being nice and texting and it was just a funny
comment from a mate taking the piss out of me from the 5 days previously.
As it was only 4pm
(despite the driver wanting to call it a night, no such luck, buddy) we headed
into town. We stopped to take some
photos and I was hounded by a man selling homemade sandals. In all fairness they were really nice and he
insisted on me trying them on which I did and despite having feet apparently much
larger than all Indian women we found a pair that fitted me. I was trying to tell myself my feet were
swollen from the heat but I think they’re just swollen with fat. During the trying on of nearly every shoe he
had we had gone from being just us and him to a little gathered crowd watching
the white woman try on shoes!
The sandals were nice and
they were homemade and he only wanted £4 a pair so I ended up buying 2. We were heading to a fabric factory
afterwards and I wanted a sari so some Indian style sandals would go well with
it.
Upon arriving at the
factory we were asked if we were interested in buying a rug, another of those
easy to pack items you can take home on the plane after carrying it around
India with you for the rest of your trip!
After a lot of bartering and hard ball I got a 100% silk sari and custom
made top to go with it for £38 instead of £65.
My advantage had been going in there late in the day and spending so
long deliberating that after half an hour of back-and-forth and me getting up
to leave and seemingly waste all their time they caved as they just wanted to
go home for their dinner. Win for me!
Will had originally gone
into the shop to get traditional Indian robes as every man needs traditional
Indian robes! Especially a British
man. But then he changed his mind to a
normal grey suit and then after a lot of discussion about what fabric he wanted
and a lot of bartering to get a price for a 3-piece he then decided he wanted a
tux. (If a woman had done that she’d
have never heard the end of it). The
folks we were chatting to didn’t know what a tux was and kept showing him very
Indian style suits that in no way likened to a tux. I appreciated their efforts to get a sale but
it was like someone going into a pet store for a puppy and being sold a
hamster. He settled for a custom made
shirt for £20 (what he would pay in Debenhams off the rack so not too shabby)
and we left, headed back to the hotel for dinner then went to bed.
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