Overall, I liked Jaipur (aside from the random crazy hotel owner) – most people must be turned off by Jaipur because it is their first stop in India aside from Delhi or Agra, so they think that it is way too chaotic since they aren’t used to it yet, but compared to other cities, this one is great! You still get people asking you to come in their shop or to use their rickshaw, but unlike most cities, if you say no, they leave you alone. Even the bazaars were easy to roam around in. You can tell that there is money here and that they aren’t just dependent on tourism money.
The monuments aren’t that great compared to some of the other ones India, but still pretty cool – especially the pink palace amd the amber fort. The best part though – was the lassiwala’s! The Lonely Planet makes it seem like only the original store (the one on the left in the picture) is a good one, but I went to a different shop everyday – the mango lassis from the store with a yellow and brown sign kick ass and has got to be the best lassi so far. (i’m on a lassi tour in case you don’t know yet…)
oh – i went to go see Bollywood film – Rang de Basanti – way too heavy! what happened to all the cheesy dancing and singing? it still had dashoom dashoom fighting scenes but the story was way too deep – a political themed story where of course everyone dies in a blaze of gunfire… brutal…
get this, in the cinema, they sell you coke/sprite in a bottle, but you can’t actually go into the screening room with the bottle. So obviously, we didn’t know this when we bought the drink, which was 20 seconds before the start of the movie so they knew were going to go in. When they wouldn’t let us into the screening room, we asked why they sell items that you can’t take in, and they said well you can still take the drink in, you just can’t take the bottle in but since they don’t have cups… well i guess they didn’t really think that far ahead…
time for another lassi me thinks…