India – Jaipur New Gate

I woke this morning in the Jaipur New Hotel to the eerie sound of the lslamic call to prayer still a bit shaken from last night.

The Jaipur station is more modern than its counterpart in Ahmedabad. For one thing it’s inside a building whereas the Ahmedabad station is mostly outside in the open air. Hence there were no monkeys, dogs or eagles to been seen; and at 3 in the morning it was not packed with travelers. The place is big and the way to exit wasn’t clear. I made a guess that took me to a bunch of hovering tuktuk drivers.

The drivers surrounded me each one trying to get me in their vehicle. My plan had been to Uber to the hotel but the tuktuks were here and ready to go so I told them my destination. None of them gave me confidence they had heard of the hotel, but they were all more than willing to take me on a wild goose chase around town hunting for it.

It bothered me that they didn’t recognize the hotel as booking.com and TripAdvisor declared it well known and rated it highly and at $76/night it was expensive enough to be a pretty darn nice place. Then an older driver in the back of the crowd said he knew the place well and motioned me to follow. The younger more aggressive drivers all politely deferred to the older guy. We agreed on a price, I loaded my bag into his tuktuk and we were off.

The ride went on for three or four miles over dark and deserted streets. The road was wide enough for three lanes of traffic but was completely empty. A large old wall ran along one side of the road. Soon we made a left turn at a place where the wall had two arched portals allowing traffic to pass through. As we headed through the driver stopped alongside a couple walking out the gate we were entering. We’d seen no traffic and no other people for the drive so I was surprised when the driver stopped alongside the couple and had a conversation. My paranoia was rising as I wondered what they could be talking about and how odd that the driver would know these folks. Shortly he broke off the conversation, pulled through the portal and quickly turned down a deserted, dark alley. Now this place appeared seriously sinister.

The driver stopped and said we’d arrived and wanted me to get out. With growing paranoia I asked him to point out the hotel. We walked a short distance further into the alley and sure enough there was an unlit overhead sign “Jaipur New Hotel”. But the entrance was shuttered like every other place in the alley. The driver and I made a racket pounding on the hotel’s steel shutters but raised no sign of life inside.

I’d told the hotel I’d be arriving around 3am and they assured me via email that someone would be there. Where were they! I certainly didn’t want to be dropped off in this deserted scary alley. I was thinking maybe there’s a coffee shop I can get the driver to take me to but I hadn’t seen anything open or even another person on the drive here.

I’m starting to feel adrenaline kick in when I look back towards the tuktuk and see the couple standing next to it. Who are they and what are they doing around my tuktuk?

India is a foreign country, a very foreign one but not one known to be dangerous. I knew that and I wasn’t too worried but the situation had pushed up my alert level several notches. Over the next several minutes things started to make sense. It turned out that the couple wasn’t really a ‘couple’ at all. In fact the guy was a security guard escorting the woman outside to snag her a tuktuk.

Even better he was the security guard for the Jaipur New Hotel. Looking at the building I could see nothing ‘New’ about this place. I took my bag out of the tuktuk, the lady climbed in and the driver zoomed away with his new fare. The guard then walked me around to the other side of the building. This side of the building was still dark and foreboding but had a huge solid and beautiful wooden door you could drive a truck through if it was open which it wasn’t. Turns out the driver and I had been pounding on the back door. This door was also locked but the guard showed me a 3/4 size door built into the big door. This little door was unlocked, the guard pulled it open and invited me to duck down and step through. Inside a turbaned fellow was waiting to escort me to the checkin desk.

We were inside the old walled city of Jaipur which was built in the early 1700s with seven entry gates. The gate the tuktuk drove through was added 50 years later and is still referred to as ‘New’ gate; hence the ‘Jaipur New Hotel’. The hotel, like the rest of the building has four stories and has an ancient feel to it. I was taken to my room and stood there awhile waiting for the residual adrenaline to disparate before climbing into bed.

The next morning the street was crazy alive like other streets we’d seen in India. I checked around the room took a nice shower and went downstairs to a bright colorful lobby. Everything looked different than the night before. I learned later the room was $76 for my three day stay not $76 per night.