Palaces, pretenders and puking: Part 1

Rajasthan: a desert land of Maharajah’s palaces, elephants, camels and fortresses. Having returned from our brief sojourn to South Africa, and after making a surprisingly relaxed pit stop at the Taj Mahal (which was worth every penny of its $20 entrance fee), arriving in Rajasthan was an assault on the senses. Where else in the world could you see a neon painted elephant, a tattooed camel and a brightly costumed ‘wedding horse’ (of the kind every self respecting Raj groom rides to his big day), lolloping, lurching and cantering in amongst the mopeds, rickshaws and honking Tata buses, along the same main road?

Jaipur hadn’t been on our list of ‘must do’s’ – in fact we’d wanted to avoid the heat and hustle of Rajasthan’s main town and concentrate on the smaller places such as Bundi and Mount Abu. But what you want from India and what India actually gives you are sometimes very different. We went where the available trains could take us, and all roads led to Jaipur. In a fairly salubrious backpacker hostel later that night, we were somewhat surprised to meet some well dressed and charming middle class Indian guys, of a similar age to us, who offered to take us out. Why not? So we thought, and thus started a night of free drinks, dancing and driving around in smart cars – not your average backpacker night out in Jaipur. We had fun, and by the time we got back to our hostel we felt like we’d made some new friends. Although we’d planned to leave Jaipur the next morning, they persuaded us to stay by offering to take us for lunch the next day, would send a driver to meet us and see some sights, and in the evening we’d all go to a local festival – the ‘real deal’ and not at all touristy. Just what the independent traveller yearns for.

Strangely, when their driver picked us up the next morning, there was no sign of them. When we dropped by their rather unimpressive ‘office’ – they apparently worked in the gem stone import and export business (one of Jaipur’s biggest industries) – they were out on business, and, looking back, there wasn’t much sign of any work being done at the office. We had a tour round the city and were taken for a nice lunch by the driver, all of which didn’t cost us a penny. By five o clock we went back to see if the guys were there and to ask about the festival (the real reason we had stayed). Sure enough, all the guys were there and we sat down with them for some chai and chat.


All seemed innocent enough until the crunch came with a request for us to consider helping them with a tax ‘loophole’ which involved posting €50,000 worth of gemstones back to England and picking them up for them. They offered us a lot of money – it was tempting and vaguely plausible – and we said that it was an interesting offer, but obviously being a finance lawyer, Jonny would have to check out the legality of it all with a law firm back in London.


We left the office feeling extremely unsettled – gem stone scams are famous in Jaipur and we both knew deep down that this felt all wrong. Not long after we left the office, the driver arrived to take us to the festival, but this time he was with a taxi driver, who would apparently take us there and everyone would meet us later.

In the taxi we began to dissect the day’s events – after a great night the night before, nothing really seemed to hang together properly. When we arrived at the festival, half an hour later, it was no more than a tourist ‘Rajasthani Experience’ which wasn’t bad for what it was, but was so far removed from the local festival we’d led to expect we were kicking ourselves for not pulling the plug earlier.


Needless to say, the guys never turned up and we never saw them again. The strangest thing about it all was that we hadn’t given the guys a definitive answer to their undoubtedly dubious scam – and what had they gained? They’d given us a free night out, a free lunch, and a driver for the day. The only thing we could think was that ultimately they knew we were highly suspicious and would eventually work them out. In the end we hadn’t lost anything, except, unfortunately, our trust in a few more Indian people.