A Little R&R

Agra to Jaipur, India -- October 22-23

We'd done a pretty good job sightseeing the last few days -- Hunayun’s Tomb, the Red Fort, the Taj Mahal, and Fatepur Sikra.  As a result, we didn't have any plans for Saturday, though Meg did get up early to visit the Taj Mahal for a second time. I too had thought it would be fun taking pictures as the sun came up, but at 6:00 a.m. when she roused me, I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm.

For most of the day, we just sat around and played cards, though we did go into town for breakfast on the outdoor terrace of a tourist restaurant, one that Lala took us to. As usual, he waited outside while we ate. Clearly, two or three hundred rupees ($3-5) must be worth waiting a while.

Later in the day we asked to be taken to some markets, but we were expecting something like Delhi, a street full of shops with clothes, bags, and tapestries hanging everywhere.  Instead, we were taken to a couple indoor shops where we were constantly shadowed and offered every variation -- colors, sizes, pattern -- of whatever we happened to be looking at. Some people may thrive in that situation, but all we wanted to do was leave. To make things worse, Meg had a sudden and urgent need to use the bathroom, so we abandoned the shopping tour and headed back to the hotel where we collected our bags and got to the station for our 17:40 train.

Lala, our driver

For the first time in India, we had reservations for a non-sleeper train and were a little apprehensive about what it would be like.  To our surprise and relief, our C4 train car was an air conditioned affair with large, padded reclining seats. Wow, who knew.  We were actually given bottled water, a snack and dinner!  The sleeper cars weren't bad, but this was definitely a step above.  This particular “express” train (though just about every train seems to be called an express) really did skip most of the stops.  

Complimentary water!

AC luxury

Leaving Agra

By 9:45 p.m., we were in Jaipur.  We initially tried to ignore the guy who sidled up to us as we left the train, but eventually we gave in, followed him to his tuk-tuk stashed away in the back of a dirt parking lot filled with a hundred others. The funny thing is, we’ve rarely selected our tuk-tuk driver upon arriving somewhere, but have typically “been selected.”  On the plus side, the young men that usually find us are the ones that speak reasonable English and are clearly motivated to get customers. In this case, Ali was not so much interested in giving us a ride to our hotel, as in driving us around the city for however long we are here. I wasn't actually fundamentally opposed to the idea, although it really is only a minor convenience for us to deal with the same driver again and again.  The fact is, we can just about always find someone to take us where we want to go, and there’s no big advantage to having them wait for us. In any event, I felt bad about not committing to meet Ali in the morning for sightseeing, but we really weren't that excited about either the City Palace or the Amber Fort.

The good news was that Meg had made reservations at the Shakun “Resort Hotel” specifically because it advertised a pool.  I had cautioned that our vision of a pool might not match what we ended up with, but walking into the lobby, made it clear this was indeed a pretty fancy place -- marble floors, fancy blown glass chandelier, huge ostentatious roman pillars leading up a double curved staircase to the second floor restaurant. This, apparently, is what a hundred dollars a night will get you.  I'm afraid we must be getting soft. More and more, lately, it seems we’re trying to take a vacation from our vacation.

On Sunday, we continued the general lazy theme by having the buffet breakfast at the hotel restaurant, laying around at the rooftop pool (reading and playing with toys), walking the half block away for lunch at the excellent, Four Seasons restaurant, sitting around an actual city park (who knew), and watching a couple movies (Captain America and Tangled) on TV. Just a little R&R from our five month road trip.

Just stopped to say hi and take a photo

The Four Seasons decorated for Dawali