Getting scammed and un-scammed in Jaipur
As mentioned in our previous blog post, our wonderful tour around the city of Jaipur came to an unfortunate end when we ended up paying a whopping £26 (it's a lot when you have no income!) to give one elephant five minutes of 'affection'.
(On a side note, it is undeniable that there was another contributing factor to our current state of sorrow at this point. We popped into a local supermarket that evening to buy a few essentials and came out really shocked at the sum of £8 we had handed over for binbags, 2 x cans of coke, a loaf of bread, pot of jam and some cheese slices - nothing in the supermarket was priced. It was only when we got back to the hostel and looked at the receipt we realised we had paid.... wait for it..... 4 POUNDS for cheese slices. Robbed.)
Throughout the following evening, we tried multiple times to shake off the feelings of irritation and justifying all other ways in the world we could have wasted £26 (there are many). But when our tour guide text us for about the fifteenth time asking for a trip adviser review we decided we needed to get some frustration off our chests.
Much to our surprise, a few messages later and we had been promised a trip back to the elephant place the following evening where we would receive a full refund. I have to say I was pretty sceptical, but sure enough, 5 pm the next day and we were back in the Tuk Tuk en route to the elephants. After the slightly (very) awkward passing over of the money, we gave our tour guide a fiver to say thanks for his help and left with our money back.... win :) (No money back for the cheese slices though).
We were then invited to the home of a young guy who was friends with Khan, our tour guide. He wanted to introduce us to his mum and younger brother so we went along to their house which was set in the peaceful countryside. We were given (very spicy) chai tea with a (very spicy) rice dish. The family home had such a warm feeling within it and it was cool to see inside a traditional Indian house.
Our final day in Jaipur basically consisted of getting lost.
The first time getting lost:
We needed to book our next lot of travel so we got some directions in order to find the bus ticket office. It is easy to forget sometimes, how different the area you are in is to what you are used to at home. I think we were expecting some big official looking ticket office which would be hard to miss. We followed the directions the best we could, delving further into the unknown. From the vast increase of people staring, we starting to realise we had gone wrong. However, perhaps from our desperation, a building suddenly seemed a likely candidate for a bus ticket office. The man at the door seemed ever so welcoming so we quickly went inside before realising we had ended up in a very small, intimate temple. The man was very obliging and quickly got to work, telling us about the different gods and showing us around. At the end we were both handed a small food item (looked like orange playdough), and marked with an orange bindi on our foreheads. We might not have found the bus ticket office but at least we now fitted in with the local community as we continued to wander round like lost souls.
The second time getting lost:
Getting confident, we decided to brave the hour long walk home from the city centre after dinner that evening. That was a mistake. It was all going so well, and we were very nearly home. However, one wrong turn later, and things didn't seem quite right. As we were walking along a fairly busy road, we decided to walk down the other side of the big, pink wall and it wasn't until we were already a few hundred metres in that we realised we had wandered into the depths of a bustling slum. It was dark, and late, and as sweat started to form on my head and my pace started to quicken, I heard Butty mutter 'I think we might have really messed up here!'. There was no way out of the thin, winding path and an increasing amount of people started to notice the unusual presence...
'What are you doing down here?'
'COME HERE!'
...were a few of the things we heard as we continued to stride through as quickly as possible. We had a small handful of people following us at this point, and it felt like the tunnel-like path was never going to open back up onto the main road. We were actually pretty lucky a big fight had kicked off between two locals as it diverted most of the attention off us, and a few minutes later we were back out on the road, sweaty, a bit scared, but mostly relieved.
It shocked both of us how quickly the built up city, with it's plush hotels, restaurants and top-end retail stores, met a world with a very different story. Walking past the same wall the next day in broad daylight, you really would have no idea what was taking place literally on the other side. It was a real eye-opener about the huge social devision that can be found in India.
(On a side note, it is undeniable that there was another contributing factor to our current state of sorrow at this point. We popped into a local supermarket that evening to buy a few essentials and came out really shocked at the sum of £8 we had handed over for binbags, 2 x cans of coke, a loaf of bread, pot of jam and some cheese slices - nothing in the supermarket was priced. It was only when we got back to the hostel and looked at the receipt we realised we had paid.... wait for it..... 4 POUNDS for cheese slices. Robbed.)
Throughout the following evening, we tried multiple times to shake off the feelings of irritation and justifying all other ways in the world we could have wasted £26 (there are many). But when our tour guide text us for about the fifteenth time asking for a trip adviser review we decided we needed to get some frustration off our chests.Much to our surprise, a few messages later and we had been promised a trip back to the elephant place the following evening where we would receive a full refund. I have to say I was pretty sceptical, but sure enough, 5 pm the next day and we were back in the Tuk Tuk en route to the elephants. After the slightly (very) awkward passing over of the money, we gave our tour guide a fiver to say thanks for his help and left with our money back.... win :) (No money back for the cheese slices though).
We were then invited to the home of a young guy who was friends with Khan, our tour guide. He wanted to introduce us to his mum and younger brother so we went along to their house which was set in the peaceful countryside. We were given (very spicy) chai tea with a (very spicy) rice dish. The family home had such a warm feeling within it and it was cool to see inside a traditional Indian house.
Our final day in Jaipur basically consisted of getting lost.
The first time getting lost:
We needed to book our next lot of travel so we got some directions in order to find the bus ticket office. It is easy to forget sometimes, how different the area you are in is to what you are used to at home. I think we were expecting some big official looking ticket office which would be hard to miss. We followed the directions the best we could, delving further into the unknown. From the vast increase of people staring, we starting to realise we had gone wrong. However, perhaps from our desperation, a building suddenly seemed a likely candidate for a bus ticket office. The man at the door seemed ever so welcoming so we quickly went inside before realising we had ended up in a very small, intimate temple. The man was very obliging and quickly got to work, telling us about the different gods and showing us around. At the end we were both handed a small food item (looked like orange playdough), and marked with an orange bindi on our foreheads. We might not have found the bus ticket office but at least we now fitted in with the local community as we continued to wander round like lost souls.The second time getting lost:
Getting confident, we decided to brave the hour long walk home from the city centre after dinner that evening. That was a mistake. It was all going so well, and we were very nearly home. However, one wrong turn later, and things didn't seem quite right. As we were walking along a fairly busy road, we decided to walk down the other side of the big, pink wall and it wasn't until we were already a few hundred metres in that we realised we had wandered into the depths of a bustling slum. It was dark, and late, and as sweat started to form on my head and my pace started to quicken, I heard Butty mutter 'I think we might have really messed up here!'. There was no way out of the thin, winding path and an increasing amount of people started to notice the unusual presence...
'What are you doing down here?'
'COME HERE!'
...were a few of the things we heard as we continued to stride through as quickly as possible. We had a small handful of people following us at this point, and it felt like the tunnel-like path was never going to open back up onto the main road. We were actually pretty lucky a big fight had kicked off between two locals as it diverted most of the attention off us, and a few minutes later we were back out on the road, sweaty, a bit scared, but mostly relieved.
It shocked both of us how quickly the built up city, with it's plush hotels, restaurants and top-end retail stores, met a world with a very different story. Walking past the same wall the next day in broad daylight, you really would have no idea what was taking place literally on the other side. It was a real eye-opener about the huge social devision that can be found in India.
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