We are visiting the Raj Mandir cinema this afternoon, one of the premier (nd maybe largest) cinemas in all of Rajasthan. It was designed to make patrons feel like they were invited royal guests of the palace, there to enjoy complete entertainment. And it definitely does that – with sweeping ceilings, chandeliers and balconies both inside and outside the theater itself.
In addition to simply visiting the theater, we are also going to see a movie about Queen Lakshmi, the fiercest warrior queen of India. It’s a new release (which I didn’t realize, I thought it was possibly a historical film) and we are only staying for about an hour, when the bus will pick us up. If we want to stay for the full film, Bhanu will help us arrange transportation back. But he also has said we do not need to attend the film at all, it is up to us. That’s all the invitation we need – we are outta there! We tell Bhanu, who asks us if we will be all right on our own – yes, Bhanu, you have no worries with us – and after we all enter for photos, we scurry out the front door clicking the Uber button as we go. This is our first afternoon of truly free time and we are going to make the most of it!
The Uber shows up in a jiffy, and we are off to the Bapu Bazaar area to really immerse ourselves into Indian daily street life (well, sort of) for the first time. Phew. The Uber ride is swift, even with the traffic (and talk about dirt cheap, it might have cost us $0.86 cents – seriously), and we are dropped off at the gate of the bazaar in no time. Now the fun begins! We dive into the melee, walking through streets crowded with people and merchandise stalls. Are we shopping? Well, sort of – we are looking for earrings and pashminas, but only vaguely right now. The priority here is to get out, walk and see a little bit of on the street life as opposed to from behind the bus window. Slowly we amble through the “textiles” section, making note of things we may be interested in later, until we make it to the “jewelry” street – which in the beginning, isn’t really much of a jewelry street, a few shops here and there, but as we progress up the street, the shop multiply in number and we can window shop to our hearts content. We walk far enough to actually get close to the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds, built in the late 1700s from which Royal ladies could watch the processions. I really wanted to see this, and I know from the itinerary that we are just doing a drive by, so, even though we have to navigate a traffic circle under construction (for the metro), we press on, squeezing through crowded little sidewalks all closed in by construction panels on one side and shops on the other, eventually ending up on the street, all huddled together getting ready to cross.
Ahhh, our first real street crossing in India without Bhanu to guide us! We all stuck close together and managed to avoid the tuk tuks, scooters and cars barreling around us in every direction, making it safely across to the other side of the construction panels where we carefully picked our way around the corner, hugging the wall to avoid stepping too far out into the traffic. Mission accomplished! Just up ahead we can see the palace, with its 5 semi-octagonal storeys carved out of red sandstone. The Palace consists of 953 niches and 152 windows, on the inside little more than simple passageways where women could walk and stand to see outside, while not being seen from outside. Awesome!
I really, really want to go inside, but it is 4:30, the exact hour they close. So no go there. Maybe tomorrow we can come back, but we’ll see. Across the street we spy a cafe up on top of a building with a great view of the Hawa Mahal. It’s time for a break and a beer! Bu unfortunately, it’s a cafe, and there is no alcohol up there, which one of the hawkers fortunately tells us before we make the climb. He says there is a bar down there a few blocks, pointing down the street. Ok, we’re game. We trek off down the street looking at various and a sundry trinkets and souvenirs. Maggi spots a steel/iron/tin dog statue which Richard goes over to inspect. Too much money, too much weight! Onward we march. And onward, and onward. Where is this place?
We ask another shop keeper and he says to go to the Simla bar, just down the street. Yeah, well, your idea of just down the street and ours is not exactly jiving here. But finally, just when all hope was lost – there it is, the Simla hotel and bar – probably one of the seediest dive bars you will ever want to find in India. And we’re there!
Walking in, the two guys behind the “bar” (really a partition with some refrigerators behind it) gesture us into the interior of the place, which is almost totally pitch dark with a few black lights around and a couple of cricket and soccer games on TV. Maggi and I are the only women there, and you know we get the looks from every single guy in there as we walk in. This is India!
After sitting down and ordering our beers – no way we’re even asking for wine here – we hang out in the dim light, soaking up the seedy atmosphere. Maggi has decided it is a gay bar because there are only guys (except we do find one other woman at a table with a bunch of backpackers and a couple of Indians) and they are all sitting close and hanging on each other. But that’s just how India’s social scene is – it’s mostly guys out together, and they aren’t afraid to touch each other. So, we’re pretty sure it was just a seedy, dive bar attached to a seedy backpacker hotel. If it’s there…leave it to us to find it!
Thirst quenched, feet rested, we make our way out to the relatively bright daylight (bright after the darkness of the bar), to be greeted by a cow. Yep, right in the street wandering around. This will become so common place over the next few days that it won’t even bear mentioning, but for now, here in the middle of a crazy busy Jaipur street, it’s pretty unique to us.
We are also, it turns out, directly across the street from the gates the City Palace where we will visit tomorrow with the group. We’ve covered quite a distance.
Sightseeing done, we start searching for an Uber, but the wait is too long, so instead end up in a Tuk Tuk which can actually carry 4 people. Perfect. It will be Maggi and Richard’s first tuk tuk ride, and what a ride it turns out to be.
Our little tuk tuk driver is a hoot. We tell him we are going to the Holiday Inn Jaipur city center, and he said, “Hmmmm….Holiday Inn…” To which Ed says again, “Holiday Inn City Centre”….and he says, “Oh, ok.” Meanwhile, Richard and I are trying to get the hotel keycard holder out to show him, and when we finally get one and wave it in his face, he says, “I know, I know, are you guys drunk?” To which we all break out in laughter – and so begins our tour of Jaipur in the tuk tuk with all the close up sights and sounds that it entails. Maggi learns quickly to keep her hands inside the tuk tuk, even when waving at the adorable children passing us buy on their parents scooters and inside vehicles. We pass back through the market gate, then turn in the right direction, going fast through town, then while we wait at an intersection, two motorbikes run into each other. Not badly enough to put them down, but one tail light may have been broken. This apparently does something to our driver who says slow driving is safe driving! Ok, we’ll go with that.
But what that actually means is that he drops his speed down to walking speed and then decides to take us on this little tour around through Central Park, pointing out all the soccer and cricket fields, then on through Deer Park pointing out different things as we weave and wove our way around Jaipur. In between tour announcements he’s humming and singing to himself upfront, while slowly driving us to the hotel. He final turns down some road that doesn’t match my GPS map (which I’ve now starting tracking just to make sure he’s headed in the right direction) and he yells at me again “I know where I’m going, I live here, I know!” Ok, ok, fine! And eventually he does find the Holiday Inn and drop us there, not asking for extra, but we gave him a big tip anyway for putting up with us “drunk” non-trusting tourists.
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