Allie


Wednesday, October 12

janu of jaipur

The next morning, we woke up to meet our driver, Janu... little did we know we were in for a huge treat. Besides being impossibly charming and attractive, his perfect English, which he taught himself, and absurdly impressive knowledge of ALL of Rajasthan made him the perfect addition to our group for the day. He showed us his journals, two notebooks FILLED with tourists singing his praises as we traveled through Jaipur. He also informed us that he was pretty famous on Google, so being the professional googler that I am, I gave it a shot and it turns out, he is. Click here for my favorite article.

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Snake charmer!


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Another great thing about Janu was when we got ahead of ourselves asking, "so what's the significance of this?" or "where are we going next?" Janu replied in typical Indian style, "if I start telling you about all of these things you will be seeing later in the day, you will miss what you are seeing right now and I don't want you to be distracted."

Anyways, he took us to the palace, through the pink city and finally to a textile factory, where we were able to see the hand embroidering, stamping and dying of fabrics that would ultimately be made into beautifl clothing, quilts and other home accessories. Needless to say, I went crazy for the custom made tunics and dresses and beautiful wall hangings.

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Hand stamping textiles...


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Janu!


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Obviously we had to go...


After several hours and a small fortune dropped, oops, Janu took us to eat and then for ayurveda massages, which were quite the bargain coming in at $25 for an hour and a half of pampering.

After our showers and a little primping, Janu picked us up again for a late dinner at his hotel, Hotel Moonlight Palace. It was impeccably clean and the rooftop was situated high over the city so that you could see for miles. The roof was decorated with lights and beautiful Rajasthani pottery... and the food was pretty awesome too.

Finally, we had to say goodbye to our new friend, Janu, as he departed for a business trip (what a catch!) to Barcelona.

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Kingfisher and good company!

1 comment:

Nuala Mahon Photographer said...

Agree 100% Janu is a fantastic organiser.