Jai-ho to Jaipur...

I’ve been in Delhi for 10 weeks and as much as I love the place, it can sometimes feel like an attack on all your senses, so it was time to have a break and head off to Rajasthan for some r’n’r…

Jaipur is only 5 hours away, it is a beautiful old city renowed for it’s pink buildings and a rather good Literature Festival held there every January. The perfect place to escape Delhi and its 22 million inhabitants. We left Delhi in the fog and thumbing through my trusty Lonley Planet, I prepared myself for the “chaotic and congested city” that awaited.

Being a volunteer is a bit like being involved in a big game of Snakes and Ladders. Some days you roll the dice, you are on the ladder and on your way up. Work is productive, the constant noise and smells don’t bother you, curry for lunch and supper is a treat and every minute of that day you know why you are here. Then there are snake days where you feel you are slipping back down to the start. The return to civilan tourist life was definitely a snake day. We arrived in Jaipur to a crowd of auto drivers hustling for our bums in their rickshaws. We were just another bunch of blondies fresh off the bus.

The rickshaw drivers of Jaipur are a special breed. They’ve pimped their rickshaws out to make their smaller green and yellow cousins in Delhi look like poor country folk. Like little black beetles, (slightly larger and more padded for the supersized American tourist backside), they swoop across the street ready to entrap and overcharge you. “Hello luvvly jubbly” tends to be their usual opening line followed by “cheap as chapati price for you madame”. They seem to have learnt their English off re-runs of Only Fools and Horses. But as a resourceful volunteer, if you are having a snake day you are able to do a little snake charming. Dropping the H-Bomb as I like to call it, (AKA feebly using some badly constructed Hindi), can normally ease you out of most situations. But not in Jaipur. As you are kerb crawled by a rickshaw driver telling them to go away or haggling down the price in Hindi leads to much raucous laughing and limited budging on the fare.

But it’s all worth it. I can’t tell you the joy of being in the so called “chaos and congestion” of Jaipur. It was like Driving Miss Daisy compared to the The Fast & the Furious that is Delhi on a daily basis. To be able to walk down a wide open street in a straight line, hear a honking horn only every other second, sit above the roof tops enjoying sundowners whilst watching kites darting, blow our budget and drink a glass of Rs 225 wine was heaven. The best bit of all was the fact my polar fleece look was discarded within 5 minutes of arrival. The sun was out all weekend, sitting outside at the Literature Festival listening to William Dalrymple, hearing how the founder of Lonely Planet made his first trip to India in a £65 Mini in the 60s and other travel writers tales was a relaxing contrast to psychedelic Delhi. This international development gig is a tough one, but someone’s got to do it…

Highlights: Too many again after such a pleasure filled weekend, finally having a hot power shower and washing away the dirt of Delhi was divine, successful failing to be a vegetarian once again and eating delicious lamb (at a party last night someone told me of a certain ‘Meat Dealer’ who will deliver steak to your door in the darkness of night, this led to much debate on whether it would be entrapment but may be worth the risk for some beef), seeing so many amazing authors and lively debate for free (William Dalrymple deserves an OBE for Cultural Services to Volunteers), celebrating Republic & Australia Day with fellow ex-pats with sausage sandwiches, a quiz, some boogie action (fuelled by Jen’s Special Gin Cocktails, I’m starting to think it would be wise to invest in Blue Moon Gin, India’s finest and cheapest, during my time here…)