We have been in Rajasthan since the 4th of December... We arrived in Jaipur, Rajashtan's capital by train and so far have been there as well as Pushkar...
Jaipur did not impress us particularly as we did the tourist circuit of all the monuments... The things I did enjoy and which chamed me was the extensive use of camels and elephants to pull carts on the roads - It was sooo strange! Also, I love the women's bright dress here...
We went on elephant to the Amber Fort - A rather humilating experience which was enhanced by having the elephant spit all over us (If I had to carry me I would complain about it too!)... Once we got inside the fort, these two creepy guys starting taking photos of us and following us everywhere... We ended up having to run away from them!
On the way back to the car we were hassled by a bunch of souvenir street hawkers trying to sell us little bits of crap... I became inventive to find ways of getting rid of them which had Gwen hiding in embarassment! I found that 2 things worked quite well... The first was to say outright that in fact I thought what they were trying to sell me was horribly ugly and I did not like it nor want to purchase it. The second was pretending to misunderstand the price really enthusiastically which seemed to send them running in shock - For example: "5 paintings for 5 rupees!!!! WOW!!!! What a great price, I'll buy 20!!!! FANTASTIC!!! (Maybe you had to be there but it was pretty funny to see their reaction!)
The next day we headed for the Bhraman town of Pushkar... We chilled on arrival but in the morning we decided to go and explore the city a little... Before sending us out into the scary city, our driver gave us a 'safety' talk, letting us know that we shouldn't acept flowers from guys on the street as it is a scam to make a lot of money out of tourists...
So anyways, we get out of the car and walk 10 metres (record!) before being approached by a guy offering us both a flower... I say to him "No Thanks" and we keep on walking. He then runs after us and says, "No, you have to take it or otherwise you are not allowed to walk here"... I laugh at him at this point as we are just in the market place, not in a temple or anything, and tell him that we can walk here if we want and so we keep walking... Then he gets this other guy with him and points to his Bharman wrist band and says that we have to have one of those too or we can't walk there... By this stage the guy was getting really agresive and starting to make a scene, as was I... He started snarling things like "You culturally disrespectful tourists, just go back to your hotel, you are not welcome in Pushkar, get the hell out of our city" etc... I was really mad at this stage and I considered just continuing down the street to make a point, but he just kept on following us and abusing us on his motorbike... In the end, fed up with his shit, I turned around and yelled at him "Whatever you big jerk, if this is how you insist on trated visitors then I am more than happy to leave this city" and we turned around to walk back to the hotel - He followed us for about 500m down the road yelling abuse so we decided to stop for some chai to piss him off... In the end he sped off... On the way back to the hotel, we bumped into Saleem (our driver) who told us that the wanker on the bike had found him and started abusing him too about warning us not to take his flowers and stopping his 'scamming the tourist' business...
Anyways this soured the day and we were happy to leave for Bikaner this morning... Hopefully our experiences will be better there!
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