The Pink City

Jaipur
October 30th - 10:30AM November 4th:

After my 18 hour "SuperFast Express" train ride, the last thing I wanted to do was deal with any hassle. My not being willing to barter or even acknowledge an offer by a rickshaw or autorickshaw led to my walking, unknowingly, 2 kilometers in the heat to my place of stay.

Note to self: when looking at maps, pay attention to the distance scale as 1 inch can mean 100 meters or, in my case, 1 kilometer.

The first two days I did absolutely nothing except dine at the rooftop restaurant, play guitar and obsess over whether or not the program that I had signed up for was actually legitimate. After being accepted, I was basically told to just show up ... If this had been in the states, it would be the exact same thing except that, well, I would be in the states. But I wasn't told to just show up in the states, I was told to just show up ... in India.

I finally put all my worries to rest once I met the organizer of the volunteer program I signed up for; a kind, soft-spoken man with a slight limp in his early 40's. After he had helped me with my bags and drove me to my new residence for the rest of my duration in Jaipur and explained a bit more about the program, I set out into the Pink City (Old City) and witnessed the real chaos that is urban India.



Later that day I met my future partner in crime, my fellow volunteer from Norway, and over the next few days we took on the sights of Jaipur starting with Galta (Monkey Temple ... you feed them right from your hand) and ending with the fabulous Amer Fort and Jal Mahal (Water Palace) ... all three are worth seeing.

After our last day of sightseeing, we met with another volunteer (a Canadian ... who would have thought?) who would be joining us in the upcoming days due to her arriving from South Korea, where she was teaching english, just the day before. The next morning, the Norwegian and I left for Bal Ashram, the rehabilitation center for rescued child laborers (who also may be orphans) not knowing what to expect, whom we might encounter and what our living situation would be like.