Around the World with Hardy(T)Around the World with Hardy(T)...continued from Jaipur(1)
On the way back to Jaipur, we stopped off at the Jal Mahal palace. That's the famous one built in the middle of a lake. As I said before, I was a bit tired of forts and palaces by now, so to me, the most interesting thing about Jal Mahal was that my companion James the Mountain Man got to meet his first 'holy man'. Well, when I say 'holy man', a more accurate description would actually be a beggar who had painted himself blue and secreted a water squirter under his headdress. But James was happy to pay his 10 rupees and take the guy's photo!
Jaipur is a great place for shopping, as long as you're prepared for the heat, dust, noise and overwhelming smell, are able to dodge the maniac bicycle-taxi drivers (I hate to think how dangerous these guys would be if they had engines) and are prepared to come away having bought heaps of things you didn't want in the first place. I made the mistake of trying on a shirt, not buying it and then walking out of a shop... wrong! I soon had half the family chasing me down the street asking what was wrong with the shirt. Using skill and dexterity normally only seen on Cumbrian fells, they managed to shepherd us into another family member's shop where I bought not only three or four shirts, but Alison bought a dress about 18 sizes too big for her and a couple of scarves. After this experience we thought we'd get away from the tourist area and see what the average Indian bought from the shops. A couple of sidestreets later we were in a different world where whole shops were dedicated to tin buckets, potato peelers or broom heads, items which, strangely enough, we weren't being implored to buy, allowing us to simply observe ordinary Indians going about their business. Which was all we really wanted to do in the first place!
That evening we put on our glad rags and went out for an excellent curry (in a sadly unlicensed curry house) before retiring to the Polo Club bar at the Rambagh Palace Hotel. This was reputed to be one of India's swankiest bars, and we weren't disappointed. It's set in the former Maharajah's palace and the grounds are huge. The building itself has white marble everywhere and even the toilets were better than most hotel rooms I've stayed in! The bar was everything it was cracked up to be. I fully expected it to be full of retired colonels in pith helmets talking about how many tigers they'd bagged that day, but actually it was full of rich tourists. However, they served excellent cocktails and they had tonic water to have with our gin - a rare find in India!
So, having recharged ourselves with an evening of decadence, we prepared to leave Jaipur and begin our Rajasthani cycling adventure...