Jaipur Part 2

Jaipur Part II

When I awoke the next morning, my first thought was to roll over and go back to sleep. My second thought was to figure out if I could find some sort of train, bus, or plane that might take a more complicated route but would keep me from spending another minute in this awful place.

The debate continued while I tossed and turned and tried to fall asleep for an hour or so. Finally, realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep my way through this, I figured it was time to do battle. And with only 500 rupees in my pocket and no idea where the nearest Western Union was, these battles had a chance to get quite interesting.

My first battle of the day was the Chowki Dhani tour manager, Islam. I had thought late into the night, and had determined exactly what I thought would be a reasonable solution. Now the question was whether or not I would be able to convince him that my solution was reasonable as well.

I walked downstairs and asked the concierge to call Islam. He entered the lobby a few minutes later, dressed all in white. He smiled at me and asked me to sit. We began our conversation:

“Sir, the tour is 700 rupees,” Islam began.

I took a hard line. “I know that now, but you originally said…you said that it was all together”

“But sir, the tour is 700 rupees. Just the tour.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“700 rupees, not including the entrance to Chowki Dhani.”

“I know…I understand what you’re saying, but just…just hear me out for a second.”

“Ok.”

“I understand that you charge 700 rupees for the tour to Chowki Dhani, but I need you to understand my position. When I signed up for this tour, I was told – by you – that the cost of the tour would include the ticket.”

A grin spread across his face. “But the cost of the tour is 700 rupees. You pay the ticket.”

“Please just hear me out. I understand that what you are charging is what you think is a reasonable price, but I also know that I would not have signed up for the tour had I known it was going to be so expensive. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Between the grin and the simple answer, I can tell I have his attention. I decide to go ahead and make a try at it. “Anyway, I know that you think you charge a reasonable price, but I also think that the price I agreed to was reasonable. So I am wondering if perhaps there is a way to compromise, so that you do not feel cheated, and I do not feel cheated either.”

His grin widens. “Ahh…a compromise! What do you suggest?”

I know what I can get, but I also understand what is reasonable. The fact is, 500 rupees for the cab ride would be totally ripping him off. And even 600, which I could have wormed out of him, would be somewhat unfair. So I’m not asking for much. “I tell you what. All I want is for you to get me a cab to a Western Union so I can cash money, and then when I return, I will give you your last 200.

He realizes that he’s getting off extraordinarily easy, and decides not to push his luck. “That sounds like a good compromise. Is it ok if it is an auto?”

“Sure. I just want to get there.”

“Great.” He motions to the young man currently staffing the tour desk, gives him a quick order in Hindi, and he runs off to fetch a rickshaw.

As you’ll soon see, sometimes, settling for what you need rather than what you can get pays off.

Islam and I stood outside for a minute waiting for the auto. Finally, a blue and brown one pulled up to the hotel, a skinny Indian man with a small grey beard in the driver’s seat. I hopped in, Islam gave him a few directions, and off he went.

As it turned out, the nearest moneychanger was right around the block. I cashed a couple traveler’s checks and now, assured of the fact that I wouldn’t be kicked out of the hotel or run out of Jaipur, the auto driver and I went back to find Islam.

The auto driver was the one to strike up the conversation. “What is exchange?” he asks.

“Around 40 rupees per dollar,” I reply.

“40 rupees per dollar? Hmm…” Then, after a minute of silence, “40 is a lot.”

I can see his English leaves something to be desired, so I begin to speak a little more simply.

“Yes. Dollar is strong. Rupee is strong now too, though. Dollar is going down.”

“Yes. Good.”

By this point we were back outside of the hotel. The once busy street, though, had emptied, and worse, Islam was nowhere to be found. “Wait for Islam, I say.”

The auto driver yells into the empty street in search of Islam. After he tries three times with no response, he concedes to the thought that Islam may be unavailable, and so turns and begins to talk to me.

“You want to go see city? I can show you Amber Fort, Hawa Mahal, City Palace…”

I’m still debating just staying in the hotel for the day.

“Maybe. I tell you what – let’s see Islam, and then we’ll talk about it. Ok?”

“Ok.” He yells out Islam’s name again, and after a moment of silence, decides this is a boring way to wait.

“You want coffee?” He asks.

“I dunno. I already had tea this morning…”

“Nay, nay nay. We’ll get coffee. Share a cup. Ok?”

“Ok.” He begins to drive towards the tea stand up the block.

On the way, we notice Islam coming out of a store ahead of us. “ISLAM!” the auto driver yells again.

He walks over to us, and I give him the money. We joke for a quick minute, and then he walks off. The auto driver gestures to me. “Coffee?”

“Sure, why not.”

We drive a few more feet up to the nearest chai stand. The owner exchanges a few words with my driver. “You want chai?” the driver asks.

“Definitely.”

We settle in and begin to talk while the owner has an assistant, who is probably 10 years old, fix the chai. I soon find out that the owner of the chai stand and my rickshaw driver are brothers. I find out because the owner of the chai stand tries to explain, and the end result is that I think he is calling ME his brother. He laughs very hard when I call him out on it, and explains.

My rickshaw driver’s name is Kayumbai (I don’t know even approximately how to spell it) and between his English and my Hindi, we are able to communicate most of what we want to communicate. We talk about his family and his job. I talk about my family, and what it’s like to be an American traveling. Finally, Kayumbai’s brother charges me 50 rupees for the chai – a ripoff by Indian standards, but still not too awfully bad. I pay willingly and I ask Kayumbai to show me the city.

Our first stop is Amber Fort, which is pronounced like the first half of America. On the way there, I ask him to stop so I can take pictures. As I stand there taking in the beauty, a man in a turban walks up beside me with a sack. He hastily kneels, and pulls out a snake and a flute-like instrument and begins to play. The snake stays put, obviously uncharmed – which is no surprise as the man appeared to have not bathed in months.

To the best of my knowledge, snake charming is a Persian thing more than an Indian one, but I watch him try to charm the snake for a short while. Then he asks if I want it around my neck. After making sure the snake is in fact de-fanged, I submit, and he leans in to put the snake around my shoulders. I hand the camera off to Kayumbai, and he takes my picture. Immediately after the picture was taken, the snake charmer leans in and whispers in my ear softly enough that Kayumbai cannot hear to object.

“300 rupees.”

“That’s a fortune!” I reply. “100 at most.” He agrees quickly – 100 is still a huge amount of pay for about 5 minutes of work, but better than I ever would have bargained for 2 days ago – and I get back in the rickshaw.

At Amber Fort, I am greeted by a friendly man who asks me to take a tour. At first I am skeptical, particularly given the events in Agra a few weeks before. Kayumbai steps in, however, and lets him know both that I am a poor American tourist with very little money and that I need a guide who can speak English. For a very reasonable price, the tour guide sets me up with what seems to be a perfect fit – a tour-guide in training who told me that he spoke “70 percent” English – which was not amazing but definitely good enough for the tour.

The tour was amazing. Amber Fort was a palace and a capital in the 1600s, and it is massive. There were multiple areas where I was told to wander around without my guide, and I was very nearly lost. There was a huge open space, a parade ground where the army would come to parade before the king and queen. There were secret passages connecting Amber Fort to other nearby forts – the passages were full of bats. There was an entire building made of mirrors. And there was a beautiful view of Amber the town and the neighboring forts – all of which were connected by a wall. The number of different styles of architecture was unreal – Muslim towers, Hindi ivory and mirrors, vast underground passages – the works. Not only did I get the full tour with a good guide, but just having him got me through the line into the fort, which looked like it might have taken over an hour!

I stayed there for as long as they let me, then was ushered very forcefully to a gift shop and given a coupon to see a viewing of the world’s greatest model of the Taj Mahal. I shopped around for a little while, and went to see this fantastic monument. It was actually pretty neat – the model was about 3 feet tall, and actually changed color depending on the type of light that was shown – modeling the Taj’s look at dawn, midday, dusk, and midnight. Unsuprisingly, afterwards, I was shown a fantastic array of marble work and pressured to buy, buy, buy. I rushed out of there as quickly as I could, with the (true) excuse that Kayumbai would charge extra if I was later than I said I would be.

On the long drive out of the fort, I convince Kayumbai to stop at the Jal Mahal as well. The Jal Mahal, or the Water Temple, keeps with the Zelda framework. The temple is located in the middle of the lake and, according to Kayumbai, is inaccessible. I think I may have been able to swim out to it, but I hadn’t brought a change of clothes, so I took some pictures and continued on.

By this point, Kayumbai and I have become quite jovial with one another, and so I get him to recommend a hole-in-the-wall Rajhasthani diner for lunch. I have an amazing dish of potato and onion (“Aloo Pyaz”), eaten with a very soft and fluffy roti. I am very happy. Kayumbai purchases some candy, in anticipation of his hard-earned rupees, and I try a piece. Like many Indian snacks, it tasted somewhat salty and bitter. I only had one.

Afterwards, I ask Kayumbai to take me shopping. He tells me most of his American customers he would take me to a place with fake goods and high prices, but now that he has seen my Indian savvy, he thinks I should instead go to a government-run store in town.

When we get there, there is a school bus filling up with Indian children returning from a shopping trip to this very store. The store is huge – I see everything from rugs to jewelry to 5-foot tall artwork. And I buy multiple pieces – gifts for my family, and for myself. Their prices are standardized, mostly written on the back of the piece, and definitely fitting the nice, handmade craftsmanship. There is no pressure, no bullying, no haggling – in short, it’s exactly what I wanted.

When I leave the store, Kayumbai wants chai. We go to the nearest chai stand and – much to my surprise and joy – Kayumbai offers to buy. I have a glass with him and we talk about shops in India and how they are different from America.

We talk for a while, then return to the hotel just in time for me to go find dinner. I do, and then I spend some time before bed analyzing my day. In retrospect, I was probably ripped off more than the day before. The chai, the snake charmer, the tour guide, the government store – all were really expensive. Perhaps the only thing that was actually cheap was the rickshaw. But somehow, during those few hours with Kayumbai, I began to trust Jaipur, trust India, and most importantly trust myself. It was a big, emotional moment. Chariots of Fire should have been playing in the background as I sat in my chair and thought. And then I went to sleep, ready as I have ever been to hop on a bus and go home the next day.