Thankful in India :: Peaceful [Paid] Places

For this story about India, I'll have to use a few old, slightly blurry photos. My apologies, but it is all part of the story. You see while we were in Jaipur we went to the Amber Fort, a majestic old Mogul structure from the 1600s with long corridors, domed arches, and amazing views of the lake below.

To get to the fort, you've got to hike up the hill. Or you can opt, as most people do, to take an elephant ride. A tad touristy, but what the hell. How many times do you get the chance to ride an elephant? As we headed off, an Indian boy ran up to our elephant, camera in hand yelling "smile." We told him no, but he clicked away. We'd been in India long enough to know that he'd try to sell us that picture. 

While we had started off near the front of the pack, we realized quickly that we had by far, the slowest elephant in the bunch. And this gave our friend the opportunity to run up to us twice during our climb to us ask us to buy the pictures. Oh yes, there were multiple pictures. We were a bit trapped sitting atop a seriously slow elephant and could not avoid the boy. But we forgot about it once we were up at the fort. It was stunning. We paid our admission and walked in.

The arches of the fort gave off beautifully angled light, and overlooked a calm lake with a palace sitting in the middle. And as we looked out over the view, monkey’s jumped from the arches in the distance. Such an ‘other world’ experience. We wondered around the old fort for the better part of the morning before we decided to head back down the hill. As we climbed up on our elephant a small boy ran up with the pictures of us. Crap! Almost forgot about those stupid pictures. Now mind you, this wasn't the same boy from this morning. This was a different one, but he had our pictures in his hand and knew exactly who he was looking for. Our answer remained ‘no.’  We managed to get a faster elephant for the ride down, but once at the bottom we were once again asked to buy the pictures before we could get off the elephant. 'No!' we said in unison.

Our next stop was the Jain Gardens where we were out of reach from anyone local who was hunting us with the morning's Polaroids. We were now acutely aware that there was a network of children assigned to follow us around town for the day to try to get us to buy the pictures. The Jain gardens had a ‘paid admission’ and we were for the first time all day … left alone. It was peaceful. Quiet. No one wanting anything from us. At last.  We stayed for more than 2 hours enjoying the found solitude. Then decided we had just enough time left for a museum we had hoped to see in Jaipur. 

As we entered the museum, yet another boy ran up to us asking us to buy the pictures. We didn't recognize him, but the pictures were the same. Completely exasperated, the answer remained ‘no.’

Once inside we were left alone to wondered the grounds. We saw lots of mogul tapestries, armor, clothing and architecture. A wonderful museum. At one point we asked the guardsmen for a picture, only to find out that we would owe them money for taking their picture. Sigh. But as you see we took it anyway, and paid them. 

When we were leaving yet a different boy ran up to us. Asking again about the pictures. At this point our guide looked at us and said that the cost (roughly $1.00 USD) was their cost and they just wanted to re-coup their money. I admit I was furious. From the beginning I was clear that I did not want the pictures, and that I had no intention of buying them and so no pictures should have been taken. Sigh.

The $1.00 USD was nothing to us, and I felt obliged to give them what it cost to take the pictures. Yes, the pictures at the beginning of this post are in fact the same ones we were hustled to buy all day. Now these pictures sit in the bottom of a box in my den. Pictures I did not want, nor ones that ended up in a frame. But I did pull them out for this post. And as I continue my list of things we were thankful for while traveling in India, it includes finding peaceful [paid] places of solitude for a few hours away from the hustling.