Jaipur, Tuesday

1247 Think woken by alarm 940, snoozed on it til 12ish. Heading out shortly. Loads of sports hall noise from outside all morning. Want to find food, not rushing myself into anything else, if I stay here an extra day or two it's fine.

Guide book map is completely unusable due to simply not having the detail to make it legible when you zoom in. I doubt complaining will do any good anyway, but I will wait til I can try it on my N10 before complaining, just in case my crappy old Desire Z is somehow responsible (that would make no sense in my opinion, but maybe the software is brain dead and throws detail away based on the device's screen resolution before you get to zoom).

1350 At Copper Chimney (guide book recommendation) on MI Road, walked over here moderately unmolested. Slightly pricey but I'm a bit hungry and not in the mood to experiment with a random place, even if I can find one before the lunch window closes.

Music here is covers of English pop songs. We started with Wonderwall (not the Mike Flowers Pops cover) then Stairway To Heaven.

They close at 330pm here, then reopen at 630pm. I hope not to be restricted, Delhi-style, to one restaurant I both trust and can find, but at least this will hopefully serve as a reserve option. Not having beer at lunch, but FWIW it's about 180-190 for a 650ml bottle of Kingfisher. Having mutton do pyaza, jeera rice, stuffed naan and 'packaged drinking water' (since it's only 40 compared to 80 for diet coke and 70 for non-diet soft drinks). May have a coffee afterwards, may not as I should head on down MI Road and maybe at least have a wander round Pink City, plus I can always get coffee at some random place since less concerned about hygiene there.

1414 No food yet, but not a big deal. Table is rather too high for comfort IMO.

1444 Bill 720. Includes a 'service tax' at what looks exactly like 10%, though menu says service is included. Would this really be a tax or is this just deception? Think I will make it 800. Food was OK. I started to feel very slightly queasy as I came near finishing, think I might just have been full and forcing the last bit down. Feel OKish now.

1818 Back at hotel. Found Reliance Fresh round corner so have ice cream and cold drink. Waffle later.

1859 OK, basically I wandered on towards Pink City from Copper Chimney. Some young men asked me the time and I said I didn't know and carried on walking, one called after me 'what are you afraid of?' as I walked off. Slightly disturbed by that.

Anyway, not long after as I was stood on a traffic island, a guy on a push bike said hello. I said hello and ignored him. He repeated himself after a bit. I said hello again. Somehow he conveyed to me he wanted to know the time so I showed him my watch. Maybe the guys earlier were genuinely wanting to know.

Anyway, I am not sure I made it into the Pink City but more by look than judgement I stumbled across the Hawa Mahal (sp) so I went in there. This was about 330-4, last entry 430, shuts at 5. Quite nice, good views from top. Two guys wanted their pictures taken with me, I felt bad for keeping my hands in my pockets as they did so but WTF.

Anyway, then walked back. Lots of small open fronted shops along one road and a general market vibe. Bought a pair of nail clippers for 40 in one place, which I am almost stupidly looking forward to using as my toenails have been starting to irritate me.

Just down the road I tried to get some minor medication at a pharmacy. As the chap is off hunting, Indian guy who's come up to counter next to me (we are stood in the street, basically) and who appeared to be buying a couple of pills of some description said hello and asked me where I was from. I answered, a bit non-encouragingly but still. When chap came back to say he didn't have what I wanted I said goodbye to chap I'd been talking to and walked off. He called me back and we had roughly the following conversation (he spoke pretty good English, by the way - what he said was virtually perfect, I don't know if he could understand my probably more florid native speaker vocabulary and/or my accent perfectly, but he did appear to follow me):

Him: Would you mind telling me one thing? Why is it that Westerners (prob not right word) won't talk to Indians? (This was not said in a blatantly stroppy way, the first sentence sounded genuine-ish, not sort of insulting)
Me: We're just not used to talking to strangers like that. It's nothing to do with them being Indian. If there was another tourist here I wouldn't talk to him either.
Him: But this morning there was a guy with a Lonely Planet guide and a boy went up to him and asked him what he was looking for, and the guy shooed him of (not exactly sure what the guy did, but something dismissive). It's just that a lot of Indians don't have much money so we can't afford to visit your country so we like the opportunity to learn about it from talking to people or practice our English
Me: You speak very good English, by the way. (He shakes my hand.) Where did you learn?
Him: At school, and in my art.
Me: (I am almost certainly paraphasing heavily here) Anyway, I understand what you mean about people wanting to talk. Let me be honest. It's partly that we aren't used to just talking to strangers. But also when I first came to India, I was in Delhi and people would start conversations with me in the street, saying they wanted to practice their English or something, and then they'd sort of lead me off and it turned out they were just trying to get me into their tour agencies. Those two things together are a powerful combination.
Him: But buying and selling is no crime.
Me: (diito) No, of course not. If some says 'do you want to buy this?' and I say 'no' and that's it, no problem. But these people are abusing my politeness by pretending we're having a friendly conversation when they really want something from me.
Him: What do you do?
Me: I'm a computer programmer. You?
Him: I'm an artist, I paint miniatures.
Me: Do you sell them round here?
Him: No, I send them abroad. (Some details here which I forget.)
Him: Let me show you my studio. (He wanders off down the busy street and I sort of follow. He turns down a side street.)
Me: Is it far?
Him: No, it's just in that building over there.
Me: I'm really sorry, I don't think I'd better do that. I'm sure you're OK, but I'm on my own in a strange city and I really don't think I should be going off with a guy I just met in the street. I really don't want to buy anything anyway. (I offer him my hand and he shakes it and won't let it go which is a little alarming. I'm not *fighting* to free it, but he won't let go so I can just withdraw it.)
Him: At least let me give you my business card. (I understood him to mean 'which I have in my studio, not on me just now')
Me: No, I'm sorry. It's been really nice talking to you.
(I extricate myself and walk away. He doesn't pursue me or shout abuse after me, as far as I noticed.)

I suppose he could have been genuine and just wanted to show me. I can't help noticing what might be a kind of indirect accusation of racism to soften up the victim into complying, *if* he was just trying to sell shit or even get me off the street to be mugged. I fucking well wouldn't have gone with someone like that in England, if I can even imagine it happening. But just maybe it was genuine - I mean, the way these people keep wanting their photo taken with me and the chap who spoke to me at the Taj Mahal yesterday both seemed just friendly/curious - in which case I obviously feel bad, but I was feeling a touch vulnerable, darkness was not that far off and let's be honest, maybe it's some Western paranoia but it seems only sensible to me not to go wandering off into non-public places with virtual strangers.

If I'd been a tiny bit more collected, I would have proposed to him we go have a cup of tea or something *somewhere on the main street* and if he really was genuinely curious, I could have clued him in on (as I see them, but I suspect in this sense I'm broadly typical) these Western cultural things, and whether he thought they were sensible or not it would at least have helped him meet people and have conversations with them in future. I really am not sure if he just wanted to flog me stuff or not. Of course, he's a bit fucked if he is genuine, just as the scammers in the UK mean normal honest people have fuck all chance of getting cash off a stranger to buy a ticket home if they lose their wallet, those touts in Delhi all got in something about being students and just wanting to practice their English early in their spiel. But I suppose the idea that people would get suspicious if he tried to get them away from public places too early would have been helpful to him.

Anyway, at least I wasn't rude, as such.

I am not planning on going out tonight. I didn't see any obviously attractive bars or restaurants nearby, I don't want to be farting around getting a tuktuk out and (especially not) back to/from some place from guide book, it just spoils it. Besides, I kind of need to decide where I'm going next (tomorrow is my last full day, so I need to go over to station to book a ticket tomorrow if I'm not staying here another night, and if I am staying here another night I need to decide that tonight) and what I might do tomorrow etc. I don't think I'm going to make an effort to see all the tourist sights here, unlike in Agra. I can't be doing with hiring a tuktuk for the day and visiting four or five sights and paying through the nose at each of them and fobbing off the commision shop salesmen and all that shit. I might stay another night, and I might just do some really lax visiting of one or two things a day and fuck it.

1932 Just noticed there is a door opening onto a balcony looking onto the inner courtyard, which is obviously where the sports hall noise comes from.

2337 Oh, not long after leaving Hawa Mahal (sp), a chap outside a shop said 'Hola! Que tal?' to me. I guess some people specialise in Spanish instead of English. I've heard a few guides etc speaking Spanish, I may just miss it if it's in a 'less personally interesting' language but I haven't heard any locals speaking any other European languages.

Generally not been too bad with touts, a few outside shops and a few rickshaw drivers but generally a 'no thanks' or ignoring them has sufficed.

0338 Still up. FFS. Need to go to bed soon. Probably stopping on here a fourth night, but can decide tomorrow.