An India travelogue Jaipur

Hotel Umaid Bhavan was the highlight of our trip to Jaipur and we always looked forward to the eventual coming back at nights to this heritage hotel. We happened to arrive in Jaipur bang on for the most ferocious heat wave the State was going through - 43 degrees of scorching, unrelenting, merciless sunrays. No amount of sunscreen lotions or hats did any good whatsoever.

Hotel Umaid Bhavan was great ! My thanks to the posters at Tripadvisor, IndiaMike and other similar sites for the info provided re.this hotel. If there was one thing that both my daughter and myself agreed about 100% during this trip, it was the fact that Umaid Bhavan is all the good things travellers purport it to be, and more.

We arrived at Jaipur airport from Mumbai around early evening of April 27. We had arranged with the hotel for a pickup from the airport at a cost of Indian rupees 350 (approx.C $ 9). We were tired, hungry, screaming for a bath and longing to get to the hotel. However, our pickup was nowhere to be seen. There were a dozen or so drivers with placards waving around looking for their passengers but the driver from Umaid Bhavan was MIA. We even approached a placard bearing driver who was carrying a placard with a name that could have been mispelt for mine, but no luck. After waiting around for 15 mins or so we went back into the airport area to access the communications centre set up there for passengers. Always keep your boarding card handy, without it we would not have been able to gain entry to the airport area after exiting. Phone call to Umaid Bhavan cost us Rs.20 (approx. C 50 cents). Spoke to Ranvijay who happened to be the guy I was corresponding with re. the booking,etc. Ranvijay is one of the sons of the owners and the entire family is active in the hotel/tourist industry. I told Ranvijay about the MIA driver and he said to stay on the line and he would check. I was holding for a good 10 minutes and out of frustration disconnected the line. Ranvijay rang the communications centre just as we were exiting and said that the driver was actually outside waiting for us and asked us to describe what we were wearing so he could identify us.

When we got back to the area with the placard waving guys, the driver from UB approached us and LIED that he was in the crowd all the while. I hit back aggressively and called him a liar to his face. He then said that our flight must have come EARLY. Lesson to be learnt from this for others: Instead of booking through this hotel, just get a pre-paid taxi from the airport itself. It will either cost you the same or less and you will escape the frustration of waiting for your driver or suffering his lies. This particular driver told us that he was the "transport manager" for the hotels owned by the same family and spoke good English. All he had to do was make an apology for his lateness, but if you ever come across a Rajasthani male making an apology and admitting he is wrong, then you are not in the presence of a Rajasthani, you are probably speaking to one of the milder, friendlier Indians from the south western coast of India.

Our hotel room was spacious, clean and extremely pleasing to the eyes. Everything worked. After 5 nights in a Mumbai hotel with a shower stall that was so temperamental, you had to treat it with soapy care at the handles (refused to budge on most occassions) we were more than pleased with the bathroom facilities of the Umaid Bhavan. The furniture in the room was picked with loving care. My daughter is crazy about antique furniture and antiques in general and she had plenty to see and rave about in every nook and corner of this heritage hotel.

The off-season rates we got were good (approx.C$45) Breakfast included, which was served on their rooftop garden restaurant. They make excellent tea and we always had 4/6 cups between us. They also have an ample choice for room service and we tried a few items. Quantities were dished out by a miser in the kitchen, but the quality was good. There is a supermarket nearby. Just walk a couple of blocks on your right as you exit the hotel and you will find the Gokul supermarket. Fresh fruits and more important, snacks and soft drinks are found here. Also, we came across an export dealer in readymade garments. His stuff, according to him, is exported all over the world and to all parts of India. We bought some excellent silk scarves from this guy. In the same lane where the export guy has his store (the store is a basement shop opposite some Bank offices) if you walk further towards the main road, and cross the road and somehow get to the other side in one piece (great roads for people with suicidal tendencies) then look for a tiny little hotel just behind the vegetarian hotel on the main road. Its name is Hotel Badiyal Haveli and if you are a tandoori chicken lover like us, you will find some great tandoori stuff here. Hopefully they have the same cook as it all depends on a cook’s special touch.

As Jaipur was in the grips of a heat wave, we had to carry litres of water or soft drinks with us on our treks to the countless heritage sites and monuments in and around the city. We stayed in Jaipur for 4 nights/5 days. The first 2 days we moved about on our own and visited the Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Pink City, Jaipur Albert Museum and walked around the city gates with our cameras and mingled with the locals. We sat at junk food places for the coolness and had ice-cold drinks sold at 3 to 4 times the cost at supermarkets. We did people watching. People watched us, in fact shop workers (who were probably bored) came out of their shops to watch us.

Jaipur is an aggressive city with a strain of the most aggressive Hindu mentality I have ever seen in India. As Christians wearing western garb, we solicited angry looks - more so, because we could be identified as Christian Indians as my daughter proudly insisted on wearing her glittering Swarowski cross necklace throughout our treks.

If you take one of the tours offered by travel agencies and the Rajasthan Tourist Corp, you will never get to see the Hawa Mahal like we did. The street where the Hawa Mahal stands is a no parking zone (although the street is parked with cars but those cars belong to the shops lined on both sides of the street). Your tour bus or car will just pass by and linger only a moment or two for photo ops of the facade and that’s that. I would suggest that you plan to do some of the more important sights on your own and then take either a full day or a half day tour with the RTC. We took a half day tour with 2 other people and paid Rs.150 each. Your guide/driver will take you to some stupid dye makingfactory or to some leather store or some other crap store where he will get a commission if you buy something. Just go ahead and lose your temper like I did. Stay in the car and refuse to get out to see the junk. The driver will get the message. If he is thick-skinned or thick-headed, do like I did. I wailed at him in my colorful Hindi and said what he is doing is unforgiveable as he is wasting our time at these money grabbing places instead of showing us what the RTC is supposed to be showing the tourists - heritage sites. Well, he then gave us more time at the Amber fort and other places, took snide looks at my face to check my temperature, but later in the car he took his revenge by telling me that 300 years ago everyone in India were Hindus and not Christians. I told him that our ancestors are from Goa and our Christian backgrounds go well over 400 years and we are not linked to the British but to the Portuguese. However, he brushed my claims aside by giving me a betrayed look.

This incident as well as some remarks from other Rajasthanis have made me come to the conclusion that Rajasthanis do not get on well with their 9 percent Muslim population nor with their almost non-existent Christian population. Remember, Jaipur is the city where in 2007 more than 70 people were killed by muslim militants who placed home made bombs in scooters and bicyles around the city gates. Another obvious fact is the absence of females in the throngs of people milling around the city. Either they all have cars and refuse to walk with mere mortals, or they stay indoors away from the prying eyes of these hungry Rajasthani males. The only place we saw females was in the Babu Market. We also heard one lone Christian voice haggling for a pair of earrings and wearing western garb. I could not find even one English language newspaper in Rajasthan although India boasts that English is its second language. This desert state of India is no friend of the English language and I suspect of anything English.

Caution about the Rickshaws in Jaipur: The drivers are crooks of the first order. Our biggest expense was transportation in and around Jaipur. For example, if a native Rajasthani is charged Rs.40 for a certain distance, take it for granted you will be quoted 4 times that figure. You can look like a native, talk like one, dress like one - but no escaping these guys, they can smell the Canadian or UK or USA something on you. I hated the shark like feeding frenzy emitting from Rajasthanis. Compared to these guys, the rickshaw drivers in Mumbai are saints.

From Jaipur we took a State run bus to Agra (6 hours journey). Rs.316/pp. Book your tickets a day ahead to avoid disappointment. On our way to Agra we came upon a horde of forts lined all along the route. It was amazing to note that there were so many regional "rajahs" or "sultans" each one reigning in their own little kingdom and having to defend their properties from each other. We have come a long way - whew !! Battles must have been fought on a continuous basis, given the aggressive nature of the men in this part of India.

Our bus route briefly passed through the State of Haryana, where for the first time since we set foot in Rajasthan, we saw some signage in English. It was like seeing things clearly after a dust storm. I am lost if I cannot understand what’s put before my eyes and I had not stopped criticizing Rajasthan for their lack of English signage and lack of an English newspaper. My daughter was so peeved with my whining, that she proclaimed she would not holiday with me in a non-English speaking country.