Erika in India

Jaipur

I’ve always wanted to go to Jaipur, even before I knew I was going to India. Also known as the “Pink City”, Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan. It’s well known for its shopping and as a good place to consult astrologers. Luckily I got to do both!

Jaipur was the last place we were going to visit, and by that time, I was pretty exhausted. We had difficulty finding a hostel to stay at but we happen to stumble upon a cute little hostel, and I can’t remember it’s name. I had to share one bed with Caroline and Abby, plus there was no AC so it was really hot. We didn’t mind because it was so cheap and we were too tired to search for another place.

Our rickshaw driver convinced us to hire him as a tour guide for Jaipur. Turns out he was a rotten tour guide and tried to scam money off of us at any opportunity he got. At least he didn’t ruin the city for me.

Our rickshaw driver picked us up around 11am and brought along his friend who we had met coincidentally once before on the train to Jaisalmer (He called me a “chocolaty brownie” on the train because he couldn’t believe I was from America.) I liked his rickshaw, it had string lights on the inside and huge speakers that blasted bollywood songs.

He took us to the Jantar Mantar which is an observatory that has huge astronomical instruments that date to the 1700’s. I wish I had taken astronomy because I was so confused while I was reading the bronze plaques on the instruments.

After visiting the observatory, we went to another place. I have no idea if it was an outpost or temple or what it was called but I do know that it was near the foot of some hills. There we experienced scam number one, he had two friends of his do henna for us but charge us outrageously high for it. 

When we got to the place there was a huge wall the surrounded the hills, it looked like it was once for defense. Also there were a ton of kids, and one of them asked for my coke, so i gave it to him.

Then was asked him to take us to a place where we could go shopping. Then came scam number three. He took us to his friends place who sold things like rugs. We weren’t looking for things like rugs, we were picturing things like jewelry or souvenirs so we had to argue to get him to take us somewhere else. Then he took us to a silver shop owned by his other friend and that sold pricey jewelry that we didn’t like.

It was at that place that I met an astrologer. I went to his office and he read my energy and my palms to read my past, present, and future. He was pretty accurate about my past and my family, but it could have been pure coincidence. I won’t go into detail about what he did tell me, but what I found interesting is that he told me that I would be much happier if I lived outside of the US and traveled more.

Then we went to do some shopping on a road with a ton of jewelry and sari shops. I could have spent hours on that road. I fell in love with the glass bangles there. The shop keepers could speak Spanish really well and had really adorable accents. They learned it from all the Spanish speaking tourists that they had met.

After all that shopping came scam number 3. We asked our rickshaw driver where was a good place to eat dinner so he took us to a place that he said was good. It was good but then his friends showed up who happen to sell puppets. They put on a puppet show for us and tried to sell us puppets that were expensive. I enjoyed the show and there was even a guy who played a drum and sang songs so I bought some dolls that they sold.

We went back to the hostel and slept a bit because we had a flight back to Hyderabad at 10am. When we arrived in Hyderabad it felt like home. I realized that Hyderabad had become a new home to me and I felt so comfortable and relaxed being back.