Jaipur - Rajasthan 8th January
Yesterday was the first full day in Jaipur and if the rest of Rajasthan’s towns were to be like this, we would shorten the trip or change the itinerary completely. The main roads are an unending, deafening cacophony of horns and hooters. Some vehicles set their hooters to be permanently on. The general rule of the road is that whoever is microscopically in fornt can do what the hell he wants - stop, turn in any direction without warning, absolutely anything.
Most of the male population chews betel nut so there are large, gooey red spit stains everywhere - to go with the ordinary spit stains. They spit all the time - sometimes you just see a stream of red spit crossing your path from inside some shop to the edge of the pavement. Urinating of course can be anywhere. Beggars of all ages and sex rap on the car windows to gain attention. Sonali told me to move my foot today as I was standing on a dead rat. There are piles of rubbish all over and cows that feed on it - so much for pigs being dirty. Street vendors set fire to small piles of rubbish to keep warm and when almost out, you’ll generally find a mangy dog on top of the smouldering heap. Both cows and goats attack the marigolds left at shrines almost immediately. Greengrocers carry long sticks to fend cows off their veg - a favourite haunt.
We passed a couple of hundred homeless settling down for the night on the way back today with their little fires, washing out of small pots on the pavement. The weather is exactly winter in Durbs.
Yesterday caused a major policy decision to be made about the trip. We found that we could return home on the 19th but talked about the options and have decided - in the absence of any more horrors - to stay the course and set an itinerary. we are due to leave here on the 11th for Jaisalmer on the sleeper. Then to Bikaner, Jodhpur, Pushkar and finally Ajmer where we can get an overnighter to Delhi.
In contrast to the bedlam of yesterday, today was much better. After redoing the plan, it was 12 noon before we left the hotel and we got a tuk tuk to the Monkey temple - 6,000 macaques. And I got to hold a cobra. After that, back to the shops in the old city but the back alleys this time; a nice curry on the rooftop of a backpackers (where we would have stayed if they had vacancies), a refill of ground coffee and back to the hotel.
Tomorrow, we have a driver for the day to take us to the outlying villages and forts.