Riding on government buses in India, especially over long distances, can sometimes be quite exhausting. The buses get packed with people, and everyone with bundles tries to make their way through the narrow aisle. We covered 200 km in 5 hours — the bus stops in every little village. Probably, you need to ask at the ticket office whether express buses are available.
The water we hurriedly bought before boarding the bus turned out to be somewhat rotten. It smelled unpleasant, tasted bitter, and upon closer inspection we even saw that the bottle was full of all sorts of milky dirty-colored stuff, like flakes. It’s a good thing we only took a small sip…. Usually, we approach buying water more consciously.
After somehow making it to Jaipur, we got off at the city’s main bus station. Indians immediately flew up to us and started competing with each other to offer taxis, hotels, and various tours. They refused to listen to us, and telling them that we already had a hotel booked turned out to be completely useless. They persistently followed us. One of them escorted us all the way to the doors of our hotel and only calmed down after seeing the printed booking confirmation. We have never encountered such pressure and persistence in any city before… So much for touristy Jaipur.
After looking at three room options at the hotel, we checked in. There was hardly any window in the room (apart from a small one overlooking a wall). After several arguments with the man at reception, the internet finally started working, more or less — but it was far too slow for such a big city. The water in the shower was barely warm… As Wolf so aptly put it — you can immediately tell the hotel was made by a miser.
The room was freezing, like a cave — even though it was hot outside. We decided that if a room has no window, it is doomed to be permanently cold.
There was about an hour left before dark, and we decided to look around the area near the hotel. No sooner had we stepped outside than, out of nowhere again, tuk-tuk drivers, cycle rickshaws, and all kinds of suspicious characters started pestering us. Our hotel is located right next to the bus station — apparently not the best location, and that’s where all this kind of “salespeople” come from.
We were hungry, so we bought some delicious fried mini-pies, the same ones we had already bought in Chittorgarh. Here they turned out even tastier — crispy and with a little chili.
After snacking while sitting on the steps of some abandoned building, we moved on, not really understanding where or why.
After wandering around for a while, we decided to head back to the hotel — there was clearly nothing to do here. I spotted a shop selling beer — we asked the price — it turned out to be very reasonable — 85 rupees for a bottle of beer (we had previously bought it for 110). We bought a bottle. We decided to wrap it in my fleece so the beer wouldn’t get too warm before we got back to the hotel, which amused the shopkeepers greatly.
On the way, we stopped by a confectionery shop with a huge variety of sweets and pastries. We bought some assorted cookies there; maybe tomorrow we’ll go there for pastries instead of a birthday cake.
Then we wandered into a decent-looking restaurant with normal prices and had a great dinner of soup, palak paneer, and flatbreads. Everything was quite tasty (though the most delicious palak paneer we ever had, served in a copper pot in Udaipur, still hasn’t been beaten by anything) and it ended up being cheaper than usual.
The soup, however, turned out to be a bit unusual; we decided that one taste was enough. It was thick and semi-transparent, with finely chopped vegetables — cabbage, mushrooms, peppers.
We spent the evening on the internet…
I wanted to go home. Wolf suggested giving me a ticket back to Kyiv for my birthday.
My mood was somehow gloomy. I couldn’t even really understand why, as if some heaviness had appeared inside me, and something was pressing down, not letting me relax and go with the flow.
