Pink, Pink, Pink, Pink

"Madame, I have a certificate from Thailand". I love being called madame. My eyes are closed. I'm sitting there in Mughal city, the factory district of Jaipur in a textile and carpet factory. Akki, the carpet designer, is massaging my temples amid a plentitude of rolled out carpets in a roof top room of the factory. Raj, the smooth talking owner of this place gave me a tour of the textile portion earlier. I was shocked to walk into a room with colourful fabrics being decorated by children. Raj soothed my fears immediately. He said the children go to school during the days and that this was a co-op... After trying to sell me a $60 table cloth he turned to Akki to try his luck with the carpets. Akki, the man who massaged my eyeballs and cracked my knuckles was not a smooth talker but he was super friendly and gave me his number along with some nutritonal advice. "If you want to eat 3 chapati, eat only 2. Too much is not good."

Earlier in the day, I got off the train station in Jaipur and was greeted by Janu (who's real name is Abdul Shabbir), who offered to take me to my hotel for 50 rupees. I accepted and what began as a ride to the hotel ended with a 12 hour sightseeing tour. Being my mistrustful self he tried to cajoul me every way possible and even bought me a pink flower lay. "You know why Jaipur so beautiful madame? Because I here." He took me to all the major sights: the Albert Museum (in the picture at right), Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar, the Jal Mahal (Water Palace), Moghul City, Nahargarh (Tiger Fort) and the Royal Gaitor.

Our sight seeing begun by entering the old city through the Sanganeri gate, heading straight to Hawa Mahal, the Palace of the Winds. This is the piece of Rajput architecture the city is famous for. It's small broken shuttered windows face the markets of the city and make people watching a lot of fun. I was happily surprised to see a ton of Indian tourists walking and skipping through the courtyards of the complex. Somewhere out there there is a picture of me with one of them at the palace. She 'tssst' at me and I thought she wanted me to take her picture but then she put her arm around me and her husband snapped a quick one.

The entire back of my t-shirt was soaked with sweat all day long. I imagine this is why the smell of the city didn't bother me. Delhi is clean compared to this place. There are garbage piles everywhere. Most of them are in various states of being consumed by pigs, cows or camels, animals that are an everyday part of traffic along with elephants and ox-carts. I must say that seeing an elephant stuck in traffic was a bit surreal. Monkeys stay atop the buildings and jump from rooftop to rooftop. They are a pest.

Once I'd seen the major sights of the old city and his 'friend's' textile factory it was off to the Royal Gaitor, the royal cenotaphs located in a quiet spot outside the city with the Tiger Fort's walls snaking their way along the hills above. Here I took a tour. I was given a camera ticket (you pay extra to take camera's into sights) and introduced to my guide, a man with well greased short hair. Five minutes into the tour of the white marble cenotaphs he pulled out a comb and started to fix his coif without missing a beat in naming off all the rajs that the monuments were dedicated to. The best of his stories goes like this: "This raj was 7 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 250 kg (he said the letters). He big man. Every morning he eat.... you know, chapati?" I nodded. "He eat 40 chapati. He have 9 real wives and 900 girlfriend and no babies. He like sex and when he sleep with girl she die because he heavy." He laughed at the last part and man, it was pretty funny having this little guy crack up at the story of a fat bastard killing young village girls with his body weight.

The intricate marble carvings of these monuments were mind blowing. At one point my guide turned to me and said "Give me your finger." I thought if he pulls it and lets one rip I'm going to be not impressed. He took my finger and let me admire the detail of the carvings my running my fingertip along a carving of a pregnant woman. The touch of her tummy with all it's indentations was incredible.

Hasina joined us after 5pm for an 8 km Hindi music filled ride up to Nahargarh, the Tiger Fort. Wow. That's all I could think when I got up there. There was a bar at the top and apparently also a hotel (which I didn't see). The view is out of this world and we were finally away from the crowds. I would have gotten into a lot of drunken trouble had some of my friends from back home been here.

A quick detour to another 'friend's' jewellery shop turned out dissapointing. Prices were high but the man running it is a renowned guru who reads your chakras and aura. He pinpointed Hasina's health issues halfway through his salespitch (almost as an aside). She wants to go back for a full reading.

That was yesterday. Today we shop at the bazaars... and maybe have our auras read.