After some dinner and a long night’s sleep, I was finally able to shake the dirtiness from yesterday’s train. It was the type of grunge that seemed to saturate my skin… The shower I took the night before removed the dirt, but I still felt grimy as I laid down for bed. That train ride has now taken the top spot of my ‘most miserable commutes’, and will not be forgotten any time soon. Horrible commuting experiences aside, today was a new day. We were in a new city, and one worthy of exploring!

The day started at 8am. We quickly put on clothes, rushed down to the hotel restaurant to grab some curd, and were off to start our city tour. We had an arranged rickshaw driver that was going to take us to all the landmarks of our choosing for 200 rupees. Hopping in the little rickshaw we were on our way to the first site on our list: Galta.

I needed batteries for my gps unit, so upon arrival I asked our rickshaw driver where I could purchase some. Out of the blue a small boy, about 13, came and told me he could get 2 AAA’s for 20 rupees. This was about half of what I have normally been paying for them, so I sent him off with a 20 rupee bill. He showed up minutes later with 2 sealed AAA’s. He had, somehow, managed to get the batteries for 10 rupees. A man of my word, I gave him the difference. Happy with the exchange, the boy then proclaimed himself to be our guide.

The novelty of having a Hindi speaker with us quickly wore off after we reached the supposed destination. The description that Lonely Planet had of pilgrims bathing in man-made pools and beautiful fresco paintings on the sides of buildings didn’t quite fit the scene of a small dilapidated temple on top of a hill. Within moments of our entrance a priestess tried to stamp us with a tikka. This is the usual custom in which a foreigner is painted in exchange for ‘donations’. After bobbing my head like a ninja, and dodging red and orange covered fingers, I managed to get away. Genelle followed suit, and we started to walk around the small 50×50 foot complex. Nothing truly to note here, we started questioning our little guide:

“This is nice, but where are the pools?”

After a couple more rounds of questioning, our guide walked us down the backside of the hill and into a small village by way of a treacherous cobble stone path. Along the path the we saw a multitude of interesting objects. Our guide had a knack for the obvious and pointed these things out:

“Sadhu.”
“Cow poop.”
“5 legged cow.”

Wait what?

Indeed, a 5 legged cow existed 4 feet from me. The cow looked substantially odd. It had a 5th leg protruding from the top center portion of its back, which immediately reminded me of a jeep with its attached spare tire. Unfortunately for the cow, I didn’t think this was a usable spare. The limb hung lifeless as the cow’s reins were pulled by a sitting Sadhu screaming “Baksheesh!!” Refusing to pay for a picture of a 5-legged cow, we moved along. Within about 10 feet, our guide proclaims: “6-legged cow.”

Again I turned, this time seeing a 6-legged cow. This one looked substantially more unfortunate than the 5-legged cow, though it was still being yanked around by a sitting Sadhu. We continued on wondering if the number of legs on a cow would progress continually all the way to the pools. Fortunately for the species, it didn’t.

After about 10 minutes we were within eye-shot of the sacred pools. If I could express what we saw in one word it would have to be: COLORS. Indian women were coming in the hundreds to bathe in the sacred pools, and their saris were as colorful as the local kingfisher birds.

We stood outside the pools for a couple moments to witness the bathing ritual. Some people were undressing before jumping in, others cupped water and washed their limbs one-by-one. The water was incredibly dirty, to the point of being vividly green, but that didn’t stop the pilgrims. They continued to bathe, and then filled up vases and water bottles with the sacred water.

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We continued walking further down the steps when we were ‘tikka-raped’ by a quite fat, Indian woman. Without our permission she proceeded to place a thin film of red on each of our foreheads. Confused, G and I both stood there for a second before “Baksheesh. Baksheesh!” was uttered.

The tikka-raper now wanted money for violating our personal bubbles. G and I were incredibly annoyed by this, we didn’t even see her! I repeatedly told the tikka-raper “we didn’t want that tikka” and proceeded to take off before she could utter another “baksheesh!”

At the bottom of the steps we had come to an alley way between two large buildings. The building on the left had a long line of men coming out its main doors, while the building on the right had a long line of women. These buildings were the ones that had the frescoes painted on their sides. G took a couple of photos before we started walking back to the rickshaw.

Along the way our guide decided he didn’t want to go all the way back down the hill, and had requested payment. G and I had decided on 50 rupees, and I presented the handsome fee. A cheeky “100 rupees” came from his mouth. I was a bit speechless since I thought this was a good amount. We were already giving him a quarter of what we were paying the taxi driver for driving us around for the entire day! “I don’t have 100 rupees,” I responded after a moment. Not entirely satisfied with the outcome, our little guide continued to walk with us down the hill. He pressed again, and again for the 100 rupees, but I wouldn’t budge.

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We quickly hopped into our rickshaw, and the little guide left us. In the distance we could see him approach one of his buddies with the 50 rupee note and a huge grin. We both agreed he was happy with it. Cheeky guide.

The next stop on the tour was Birla Mandir, a building noted for its three different styles of architecture. The building incorporates Muslim, Hindi, and Christian forms of architecture, and it would have been pretty cool to see if it was open. But scaffolding consumed the North side, and the gates were locked. A view from the street was all that we could manage, so G hopped out of the rickshaw to snap a couple of pictures.

After Birla Mandir, we stopped at the “world famous cinema” Raj Mandir to grab tickets for an evening showing of “Blue”, and then had lunch at the McDonalds next door.

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After a quick Maharaja Mac, 9-piece McNuggets, Fries, and a 20oz coke, we bypassed our rickshaw driver’s more expensive bus ticket agency for the real bus station. We got our tickets to Ajmer/Pushkar for the next day, then got dropped off inside the city’s walls and were on our way via one of G’s walking tours to the Jantar Mantar observatory.
This was where we found out that I was “the complete man.”

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Upon entering, we were soon captivated by the ancient and odd astronomical instruments. Being the geek that I am, I had found it essential to rent an electronic guide that discussed the use of each. I walked up to the 1st azimuth-calculating instrument and soon learned the electronic guide was an unneeded expense. A tablet the size of 2 notebook papers was posted on each instrument detailing exactly what they did. The electronic guide had a slightly more colorful explanation. It added a theatrical spin to what I could have freely read. Feeling foolish, I continued to make use of the guide for most of the remaining instruments.

After having our fill of the cement doohickeys, we hit up the postcard shop for some souvenirs and were on our way to the next site. Having to shoo away countless numbers of ricksaw drivers, we continued to walk to a closed “Wind Palace”. The fact that it was closed didn’t stop us from taking multiple pictures of its amazing architecture before making our last stop at LMB restaurant.

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The lobby of LMB was a small sweets shop whose glass counters housed a multitude of mouth-watering treats. We were here, however, for the Rajasthani Thali. A taste of Rajasthan’s native foods, all on a single plate. We moved quickly from the lobby to the main restaurant, where we sat down, looked at the menu, and ordered. The plate that came out was filled with a variety of vegetarian dishes, mostly made from lentils and barley.

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I scoffed at the portions thinking that I would, undoubtedly, be left hungry after finishing. Within an hour, I had to admit defeat. The Thali had owned both of us.

Squirming from being so full, we left LMB for our hotel. We needed to clean up before our first Bollywood movie!

Check out the pics from the day in the Jaipur album!