Golden Triangle

The Jaipur-Agra-Delhi cities are often advertised as the 'golden triangle' for tourists, and a well-travelled route. With Taj Mahal in Agra being the number one tourist destination in India and Delhi as the captial, I thought that Jaipur would be packed with tourists. I have been wrong before (please see last post).

After leaving my hostel I decided to take the pedestrian route to take in the city sights, and also avoid having to hassle with rickshaw drivers for prices. This can be a problem when the ratio of drivers to pedestrians is about 20:1. During my two hour walk I failed to see any other obvious tourists on the streets, and very few women. Even dressed fairly conservatively, I could feel all eyes on me as I walked. It felt a bit like 2am closing time at Rev, except that it's broad daylight in a public place. Some people whistled and yelled 'koni-chiwa,' others zoomed past on mopeds, ten doubled back again to take a closer look.

Being that conspicuous has its advantages though. For example, my taxi driver from the night before recognized me on the street and treated me to the best 'lassi' spot in town, which is a favorite Indian yogurt dish. I can't count the number of times that people have asked me to pose for pictures with them, or of children leading me along and tugging my hands so I can meet their friends. Makes me feel special.

Anyways, so where did I end up finding all of Jaipur's tourists? MacDonalds (not so surprising, actually) and.... the movies! I thought that Mickey D's would be an interesting experience in India. I mean, do you sell Big Mac's in a country that has the world's biggest vegetarian population, including those who consider cows to be sacred? The answer is no. The menu had some interesting variations to what we find in North America, like the McAloo Tiki vegetarian burger and the Maharajah burger, which is a fancy triple decker chicken sandwich. The rest was disappointingly familiar, except 1/5 of the price.



And the movies - I caught my first Bollywood film in an actual Indian cinema! It was a pretty cool experience, mostly due to the highly interactive crowd. Indians take their cinema very seriously. As soon as the curtains are drawn, the cheering begins, and its hard not to get swept up in the movie with everyone else. The movie was called Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani. I still have no idea what it means, and neither did the other tourists around me. The entire movie was spoken in hindi, but the plot was simple enough to grasp - boy falls for girl, girl can't be with boy, they break into musicals (everyone knew the words!) and it all works out in the end. It's the most fun I've had so far on my trip and hopefully not the last that I get to enjoy for my next two weeks of travelling.