Solo trip to Jaipur and Ajmer

It had been a long time since I travelled solo with a backpack, and even longer without a laptop. I picked Jaipur because I had never been there, and Ajmer for the qawwali, and the plan was to read, write and draw instead of scrolling. My Google Maps list of places in Jaipur has all of them.

Jaipur

Get a guide for Amber Fort, or it is just rooms and walls. Early in the morning, halfway through, I realised I could ask him to slow down or take a pause, and from then on I did. I loved that.

Outside Amber, an auto driver offered one price to take me around Nahargarh, Jaigarh, Panna Meena ka Kund and Jal Mahal. Each fort has its own ticket, and from the top I could see the whole city. We had lunch together, and somewhere between the gates he became a friend, and we had long conversations about staple Rajasthani foods.

I reached Hawa Mahal close to closing time, took a quick walk inside, and sat in one of the many cafes across the road, for a cover charge of two hundred rupees that comes back as food. After an hour and a half with my Kindle and a notebook, the building had gone from simple to new details everywhere, until the lights came on and the whole front glowed.

I walked the old city, then went down to the metro. At the kiosk a man was struggling with UPI, so I showed him how it works. My phone had no network, so I could not pay for my own ticket, and he paid for it, with a smile and no fuss. A stranger bought my ticket because I had helped him with his, and I understood how small favours make a strange city feel like yours.

At Jantar Mantar I shared a guide with a family of two, which cut the cost in half. Without one the instruments are just strange shapes, and with one I got what each measures, the originals and the prototypes. I stayed an extra hour on my own.

The City Palace next door has two tickets, and you can skip the costlier one, which is just a photo-op, and the guide too. I read in the cafe inside, and my plan not to drink on this trip lasted until a beer there.

Raj Mandir, Jaipur’s famous single-screen theatre, was on my list like the forts, so I planned an afternoon around Drishyam 3 there. The lobby is like a grand hotel reception and the hall seats around 900, nothing like the single-screen halls I grew up around.

Food

It started with Laal Maas at Amano, a rooftop place, and the real stars were the breakfasts. Samrat has everything, not just kachori, with jalebi makers working next door, and Gulab Ji Chai Wale, an old tea stall, was full of locals.

Handi looked like the entrance to a kitchen and I almost turned back, but a few words with the waiter told me they knew what they were doing. The Junglee Maas, mutton cooked dry in ghee, was the best non-veg dish I have had in a long time. In between came lassi at Lassiwala, sweet first and salted on a return, chaat at Rahul Chaat Bhandar, coffee at Half Light and Town Coffee, and sweets from Bhagat for Bangalore.

Ajmer

I took the 12015 Ajmer Shatabdi from Jaipur Junction, two hours and a good one for reading, and returned on the 12978 Maru Sagar. The lane to the Dargah is narrow, with shops on both sides and an ocean of people flowing through it.

A man offered to guide me and sell flowers for the Dargah. I knew this one from the Kali Mata Temple in Kolkata, where a similar offer left me feeling cornered, so I set my limit up front, Rs 200 for everything and a Rs 30 kerchief for my head. He took me through the crowd, I said no to every donation, and I came out with a much smaller bill. I still don’t know whether he was a scam or just a guide, but he made me feel part of the city, and with his help I got an auto to the post office.

I bought postcards for friends there, promising to draw on them next time, and walked back to the room. I knew the way to the Dargah, the restaurant and the hotel.

The evening at the Dargah brought the usual scams around sacred places. People followed tourists for a few hundred metres. Then, at the shoe counter, a man from a nearby hotel held up a plate of food and said fifty rupees. I said no. “Ten rupees,” he said. It took me a moment to work out what had just happened. He was not selling me dinner, he was selling me the chance to feed a needy person standing somewhere I could not see, his business mixed up with my charity. A newer scam. I almost laughed, and that was when I knew I knew this place now.

Inside, I followed the crowd to where the music would be and found a place to sit. When the qawwali started I recorded a bit, and after twenty minutes I realised I was watching it through a screen. I put the phone away and just listened. It was peaceful.

Budget

A little under Rs 50,000 for four days. Flights and the train were close to Rs 20,000, and rooms around Rs 15,000 at Keys Lite by Lemon Tree Hotels and Ginger, which could have been less without a room near the Dargah. Autos and Uber came to about Rs 4,000, food Rs 7,000 since I was eating by following my nose, and guides, tickets and the Dargah about Rs 2,500.