Last Day in Jaipur

We have one more night in Jaipur, but with the hotel we have been at the past few days full, we made arrangements to stay one day at a resort some 20km from town, figuring we could give try something a little different and make a short trip to the airport in the morning for our flight to Goa. Relocation isn’t a good enough reason to interrupt prime shopping time however, so before anything else, we’re headed back to the old part of the city to try my patience.

3:00 brings a reprieve, as thankfully we need to clear out our gear and find a ride to our new place. In pulling out the map to explain where we want to go, one fundamental mistake comes to light, in that the airport is on the opposite side of town from where we are headed. 30 miles in India can take a lifetime, and our plans for a leisurely morning quickly crumble.

The hotel is very nice, and while it will sadly be for just one night, we get upgraded to a suite. I’m thrown for a bit of a loop, as the check in person refers to it as a “suite room”, which I hear as “sweet room”. It seems a little informal, but has to be better than a room that isn’t sweet, so sign me up.

Our last piece of business is to figure out transportation for the morning. Being out in the middle of nowhere, and a long way from the airport, I get the sweats thinking about how much a hotel taxi is going to charge. We passed a town 5km or so back, and figure we can book a driver there much cheaper, and there a few tuk-tuks waiting on the street that will take us the short distance. When we get there, the tuk-tuk driver just calls someone on his cell phone (not sure why he couldn’t do that from in front of the hotel, but then I guess he wouldn’t have gotten paid), and in broken English, we manage to make the arrangements.

It’s dark now, and we’re on our way back, driving down a two-lane divided highway in a glorified golf cart with no lights. I take some solace in the fact that, despite horrendous congestion and the lack of any traffic rules, I have yet to see even the slightest of fender benders, but it still a nerve wracking 10 minutes.

Sweet room or no sweet room, the bed is rock hard, so combined with an early morning flight, the forecast tomorrow is for two very grumpy travelers.