Day 43: An Adult Birthday
Today was my first real birthday as an adult. Sure, I turned
21 last year, but turning 21 is a cause for celebration, the last real birthday
that matters in life for anything other than milestones. At 21 you can drink,
gamble and basically be an adult, but turning 22 is nothing special, and for
me, it was doubly so. For once, I had a real adult birthday in that it was just
another day with traveling, a nice dinner, a nice show, one main present and a
few phone calls. Low-key birthdays, I guess that is what I’m in for from here
on out…
Still, it wasn’t a terrible day by any stretch. I woke up
with the best birthday present I could have asked for, having our 6:45 AM
flight from Bangalore to Jaipur delayed until 11:00 days in advance (I still
have no idea how this happened). I would love to think that my Dad somehow
orchestrated this, but since the flight number didn’t change, I’ll just have to
chalk it up to the man above. Bangalore Airport has one treat inside its small
domestic departure area, a bar/dosa stand that makes fine dosas, serves fine
drinks for reasonable airport prices. Since it was too early to drink (even on
my birthday), I got a large paper dosa which was excellent considering it was
an airport. We arrived late to Bangalore airport, mainly because we left late
and even with minimal traffic at 9:00 AM, it takes about an hour to reach the
airport. Even though we were pressed for time and the monitor in the airport
read ‘Boarding’ for our flight, we decided to take our time with dinner. That
led to another birthday present, with the gate counter announcing over the
loudspeaker that they would like “Mrs. Maryann Menezes and Mr. Daniel Menezes to
please report to the gate immediately”, which was definitely a first for me.
Late for flights: another adult experience on a real adult birthday.
The flight was on IndiGo, India’s new leading Lo-cost
airline and one of the airlines poised to take over from where Kingfisher and
Air Sahara once were. The flight almost a complete facsimile of Air Asia’s low
cost service except for one main difference: the Jaipur airport was not housed
inside a large Costco-type warehouse. From the airport in Jaipur, we quickly
found out that the cab we had ordered to pick us up wasn’t there, which forced
us to roam outside and try to book another cab. This gave us our first
experience with the Jaipur heat. Jaipur, and Rajasthan in general (the state
that Jaipur is in) is located near the desert in northern India. Whenever we
told anyone we were going there, the immediate response was that it was going
to be really, really, really hot. And it was, but it was dry. I never really
knew what dry heat really was because outside of places like Arizona, I’ve
never really experienced it in the US. I finally realized what that meant,
though, when after walking around waiting for a cab in 100 degree heat, I didn’t
start sweating. I can now say that I am all for dry heat.
We reached our hotel, the Naila Bagh Palace, after a half
our taxi ride. Our first impression was one of nervousness. Before I left on my
trip, my family and I watched the movie Best
Exotic Marigold Hotel together, and this place was basically the same hotel
from afar. When we got closer in and walked around, we realized that this hotel
was the best form of the half-done Marigold
hotel, with a large foyer with old-style seating, vintage furniture and
paintings of old Indian enlisted men. At the back was an elevated pool in front
of an old verandah. Our room was large and stylish, with a little pillowed
alcove and a large bathroom. It was a great little room, with an AC that worked
a little too well (seriously, we were freezing at times during the night). The
final touch to the hotel was a parade of peacocks that were meandering about
the front lawn. Just a really nice spot in central Jaipur.
We didn’t have many plans for our first night in Jaipur, but
one was to go for the Sound & Light Show at the Amer Fort & Palace
outside of Jaipur. The show itself created a host of logistical problems,
namely that everyone we asked (or each site we checked) gave a different time
for the show. Some said 7:30, some said 7:00. We finally got some confirmation
that the show was at 7:00 and so we decided to rest a bit at the hotel until 5
PM. We were then picked up and left for the Amer Palace, 12 km away from
central Jaipur – and of course in India, a 12 km drive takes half an hour and
gives a glimpse into every part of life in that particular Indian city.
There were some unfortunate turns where the cab driver, who
was in cahoots with shopowners and random third-parties, led us to a weird
shopping district and a messy, fly-ridden restaurant. Looking past that, we
reached the Sound and Light Show area across the man-made lake in front of the
palace which was up on the hill. It really is an idyllic setting, and with the
sun slowly descending behind the Alavalli Hills, and with the rows of seats
that we and the rest of the patrons to the show were sitting on, I could
imagine this being a destination wedding – a really, really obscure destination
– setting. I’ll never go through with it, but with the palace in the
background, it really is beautiful.
The show started around 7:10, with absolutely no
announcement on why it started late, and while the show started slowly in terms
of the lights, as the night fully came upon us, the lights started in earnest,
a mesmerizing symphony of yellow, green, blue and red. The ‘sound’ part of the
show was very informative, as we were all given a winding history of the
Kechuvar Dynasty, the part of the Rajput dynasty that settled in Amer in the
700’s and were centered there until moving to Jaipur under the rule of Maharaja
Sawai Jai Singh in the early 1700’s. The story was a little hard to keep up
with as they kept throwing out names that all included the names ‘Maharaja’ and
‘Singh’ with many having the ‘Sawai’ respect title added. Still, the ‘light’
part of the show kept me interested and affixed to the show for the entire
hour. Before I knew it, the show was over and the bright lights filling up the
whole façade of the Amer Fort was reduced to just floodlights, preparing for
the Hindi show at 8.
We left the Amer Palace and headed back to Jaipur central
for dinner at Copper Chimney, an Indian mainstay restaurant known for its
curries. The restaurant was decent, but slightly underwhelmed in delivering its
goods, as the curries had far too little meat. Still, it was one of the few
restaurants in Jaipur with meat and alcohol, so all was mostly good for my
birthday dinner. I decided to have a ‘Mint Tulip’ instead of my usual
Kingfisher (a beer that can incredibly not grow tired and old despite it being
the only domestic beer served at 90% of Indian restaurants), and it was a great
mixture of whiskey, lemon juice and mint. We reached back to the hotel late in
the night around 10:30, and I decided to stay up a little in the verandah of
the hotel and have another beer to cap off a low-key but fun Birthday,
preparing myself for some serious forays into the hot Jaipur heat in the days
to come.
