Day Five: The Best—and Worst--Way to Get Around

After an early wake-up call, we made our way to the New Delhi Station. It had rained, so the platforms were puddled, which didn’t deter a few waiting travelers from napping on the cold cement, covered with a blanket. A train is absolutely the best way to travel in India—Chime bought us AC Chair Car class tickets for our five-hour journey to Jaipur. A bottle of water, newspaper and dinner (Meals on Wheels!) was included. Chair class (180Rs) is the least expensive of the four100km train ride classes (1^st class was 550Rs). Train fares are by distance, with several classes for each distance. WikiTravel has a good rundown.

The Irrepressible Mohammad Ali

With what appears to be almost as many animals as people, Jaipur is a huge city of tiny shops chock-a-block against one another resembling open garage doors or storage units. Lots of camels were harnessed as beasts of burden, and pigs and dogs are everywhere, feasting on garbage that is swept into piles for them. Odd to think of it as effective recycling, but it works—how else would all the “free” animals wandering about survive? Thanks to the rain, the broken streets were pools of water, mud, animal scat, garbage, and the usual chaos. We arranged for tuktuks at the train station (as opposed to bicycle rickshaws, tuktuks are highly personalized three-wheeled motorcycles covered with colorful vinyl). The motor sounds like a lawn mower, and is started much like one too. Our tuktuk driver Mohammad Ali took Matthew, Pamela and me on Mr. Toads wild ride to the hotel, talking non-stop, with an unusual disregard for the boundaries of road, sidewalk, pedestrians, bullocks, and oncoming traffic. It was fun; after several days in India, I was getting used to gasping in terror then being flooded with relief.

Courtyard of the Heritage Hotel

After settling in at the Heritage Hotel (definitely a step up after the functional-but-basic Suncourt) and a quick lunch, we careered toward the Amber Fort, about seven miles out of town, and one of the most worthwhile architectural monuments in the golden triangle.