3 Weeks Backpacking India: Jaipur

After my pretty bad experience in Agra, I traveled to Jaipur, the Pink City , and this is how it went.

Getting the Agra station

I took my train from Agra to Jaipur in a secondary station in Agra, my hotel was close to there (20 minutes walk).

In my walk I realized even more, how Agra is quite rural city, regardless its big amount of tourism due Taj Mahal, because the way to the station was only partially illuminated and was a little bit scary due the dogs hanging around barking when I got close to them.

Despite of that, I reached the station without any problem, took my train and nothing interesting happened during the journey.

Arrival to Jaipur

When I’ve arrived to Jaipur, around 9.45 hours, I saw a guy who was looking at me since I stepped out of the train; I thought that he was a tout and I tried to avoid to see if he paid the attention to other person; but he was in the way that I had to take so I had to go in that way and faced with him.

As usual he was trying to help but I was saying that “I don’t need anything, thanks” but he said that he only wanted to chat, so I said him “it’s fine”; he was kind and he told me that he didn’t want to sell me anything, but that’s also usual ;D

At the end we went out and he told me that he is a tuk-tuk driver and if I did’t need anything was alright, but if I would need a rickshaw during those days or anybody in the hostel, I could call him and told me that he will carry us the whole day in Jaipur for 500 Rupees. That approach is not very usual in India, so I was happy to take his phone number just in case, however as you’d have realized if I have read my previous post of this travel, my aim was trying to walk everywhere and only to use rickshaw or another metropolitan transport in especial situations.

I walked to the hostel, as it was 15 minutes from the station, and when I got into, I discovered that Mustache hostel , it was totally another concept from the guest houses and hostels that I had stayed previously.

After left my bags, I checked Internet to reply some messages, load maps, etc, because last time it was almost 48 hours ago, just before I stepped in damn Agra.

Visiting Raipur

When I finished everything that I had to do on Internet, around 12.30 hours, I went out to visit Amer Forte which is, yes, another fort, but this ones is located in a hill which is in one side of the city.

As usual I was walking until there, sneaking in the narrow streets to reach a foot path which allowed me climb up to the hill. I looked at some pretty nice panoramic pictures of the city and after, I went down to return back to the hostel.

However, I took a look to the map and I made the decision to take another way to see a different part of the city and during that way I got into the Pink City, besides to extend my way a little bit more to visit the Central Park, which was very unusual clean, by the way.

Hostel

When I was back from my walk, it was around 5pm; it was good time because it was the tea time; Mustache hostel serves Indian tea (chai ) with biscuits, and I realized that Indian tea is very tasty and I did like it a lot, something that I cannot say of the English tea.

After that I was hanging around Internet, connecting with my family and talking with a few travelers and the hostel staff which were very friendly, something unusual too.

After I went to take a shower in so clean shower and went to bed.

Following day, I got up and I had a breakfast in the hostel, in its terrace, which is on the roof; it was, actually, a very nice way to start my day.

During my breakfast I was chatting with an interesting Australian guy and an Indian couple who was having a break in Jaipur.

Right after I went to the living room and I spent my whole day there chatting with Kirk (an USA lady) who is bootstrapping a business in India and USA and bunch other traveler from different places. I didn’t go to anywhere as I realized that I visited all the city in roughly 5 hours walking the day before.

Following day, it was the time to go back Delhi for a transition day; the train departed at 6am, so I had to get up pretty early.

Conclusion

Been in Jaipur in Mustache I realized that there are some cheap and nice places to stay, and not only crappy ones, at the level of the ones that I had stayed in my Western-Central Europe backpacking travel.

I met a lot of people and they told me that in India there are a few places than nice as Mustache; they gave me the name for one in Rishikesh , my next destination, they told me the name of other ones, so I learnt that Hostel Bookers wasn’t that good for India as I found to find hostels in Europe.

See you in the next post.