Everybody told me to have very low expectations of the Taj Mahal. After hearing this over and over, I took the advice to heart so that once I did go there, I actually quite liked it and was not disappointed at all. When asking advice for where to go in Rajasthan with limited time, everyone spoke very high praises of Udaipur. After hearing this over and over, I took the advice to heart so that I actually have come there. Honestly, I’m a bit unimpressed. I did find a very nice guest house on the lake, it has a terrace with a wonderful view and dorm beds for barely more than US$1. The lake is very scenic, with the lake palace in the middle. This palace gives the illusion of floating in the lake from completely covering the island on which it was built. It has been converted to what is described as one of the fanciest hotels in the world. The only way allowed on the island is to stay there for extremely large sums of money, or to eat there for surprisingly not too large sums of money (about US$30.00 I hear, reservations well in advance). The rest of the city, so far as I have explored, would be very romantic little steep alleys winding around the hills, overlooked by various mountains with their obligatory forts and palaces. Unfortunately, all these alleys have been plagued with chronic lack of imagination in catering to tourists – well, trying to cater to tourists. A common ailment in touristy parts. Let’s see: there’s the cotton/hemp clothing shop, there’s the jewelry shop, there’s the assorted little hand crafts shop, there’s the internet/email room with a few computers, the travel agent, the snack shop, and the guest house with attached roof-top restaurant with always same menu. So, about 7 or 8 establishments, over and over and over and ov-you get the idea. It kind of ruins the atmosphere. Especially when none of the shops ever have enough business (I don’t wonder why) and the store owners sit in the doorway and hassle any tourist what walks by. “You come look my shop? Cheap and best! Looking is free!” I know it’s free, thanks bro. That’s not the worst though. What’s really bad – not just for tourists but also for all the nice and interesting Indians out there – is these damned guys who approach you with always the same damned questions under the pretense of wanting to practice their English and meet a foreigner. After the same stupid annoying conversation every time, 19 times out of 20 comes the popper. It’s either something like, “oh, I am student as well. I study art. My school is very near here. Maybe you would like to come and I show you the special local art. We’re having big student exposition.” Or the, “oh, I like to talk very much! You like chai? Maybe you come to my home* (*which also happens to be a jewelry shop) and we drink together some chai?” This is really bad because the very small and unfortunate minority of people who actually do want to practice their English and meet you usually start with the same questions too. I’ve just gotten to a point where if someone asks me “which country you belong?” I’ll just ignore them. Which is sad but I just don’t have the patience for all these guys who obviously only care what my nationality is to get an idea of how much they should inflate their prices on crap I don’t want anyway. I miss south India, at least they don’t pretend to care about more than just your money most places there.

Despite my new mistrust of any Indian man who wants to talk to me, I was good and duped in Agra. Still, in the end it turned out to be a profitable experience for me. I had gone in the morning to a travel agent to book a bus ticket to Jaipur, so I had to come back later to pick it up. I came at about seven in the evening for my ticket. The guy asked me what I planned to do until 12:00 when my bus left, I told him my honest plan, which was to go the bus station and read my book. He says “oh, the bus station is cold, there is nothing there. If you like, you can pass the time here and read on the couch and relax.” This sounded like a very reasonable suggestion. I should have been smart enough to know that he had his motives, but I guess I just wadn’t quick enough. After a bit he comes back, offers me some rum (which started my suspicions). We talk for a bit about this and that, and he very skillfully brings the conversation to the topic of the jewelry exporting business. Really, he had to be skilled if he could say they word jewelry without me thinking that he wanted to sell me any. In certain sense, amazingly, he actually didn’t. (Or didn’t he…?)

“Yes, actually, this is not my travel agent. I am just taking care of the business for a friend. He’s gone visit family for the day. My work is in the export business. My family, we export precious stones. You know about precious stones? Yes, yes, you know India has many many gems, and very very cheap too. But it’s very hard, you know, to do business in India. You know about export quotas? Yes, very difficult. If we export over $40,000 on anything after that we have to pay 250% tariff. They don’t like the market to be flooded with too much Indian goods. India very very cheap, you know. Yes, yes. Very hard to do business. You know, we can do 40,000 in 3 months.”

Pause. [Editor's Note: please do remember to read all quotes of Indians with your best stereotypical Indian accent.]

He takes a sip of his rum and soda. “You sure you don’t want some rum? Please, you are my guest!” The suspense was building. Whatever he was after was soon to be slyly revealed. “No rum?”

Pause.

“Actually, there is one way that we can work around these export quotas. A loop hole, you know. We work with many people from Europe and America, many people. Did you know that a tourist can bring up to $4,000 worth of goods home? And, you know, how much do you usually bring back, maybe a few hundred, yes? Well, what we do is have some people send the gems under their name, and then pass them on to our agents. Usually we give them 50% of the value of the gems, so, with $4,000 of gems, $2,000 dollars profit for you is there.”

Very clever, taking it out of the abstract “some people” and into “you”-land once there’s the $2,000 suggested.

“This is only like a 50% tax, and so we still make money, unlike 250%, you know. So, you make money, we make money.”

Naturally I knew that this was all illegal, a plot to steal my money, or both. But, since I had at that point some 5 hours to kill, I decided I would pretend to be interested and let them do their whole game on me.

“Let me take you to my office, I’ll show you some paper work, some of the gems, and we’ll talk about it.”

He showed me lots of pretty translucent things of various colors and shapes, which for all I knew could have been worth the thousands he claimed, just colored glass, or anywhere in between. Next came the “paperwork,” the first part of which was the same numbers I’d heard before but written out very big on a piece of lined paper. Then they showed me the paper I was to sign then mail to the credit card company. This stipulated that while I will be charging $4,000 to my credit card, they shall not transfer that sum until further authorization. This authorization I am to give upon completion of the deal back in America. The deal being that I myself go with them to ship the package to myself. Once I get the package, I meet their “man” (he should not have used that term, I mean really guy you were doing SO WELL!), who gives me $6,000. “Man” and I go and authorize the credit card company to transfer the $4,000. Done and done, I’m $2,000 dollars richer.

So let’s say it’s legit, just for fun. I do it, it works, I get $2,000 dollars. Wait. Things just don’t work that way, one does not just get $2,000 dollars, or at least not without breaking the law. And, what they essentially proposed to me, though cleverly worded not to sound like it, is that they will sell me $4,000 worth of gems, and I can resell it in the U.S. for $6,000. That makes me a gem importer, something the I.R.S. would not mind being told about. So, either I tell them and get taxed what could easily approach $2,000 I’m sure, or I don’t tell them and become, in the eyes of the law, a gem smuggler.

And then there’s the matter, if indeed they are real gems, of all the child-slaves forced into digging these rocks out of a mountain side somewhere deep in the Indian hinterlands, with nothing but bruised bare hands to do it, and the incentive of narrowly avoiding being beaten and left to starve. Obviously my moral qualms with it were minor in comparison to the problem of the fact that I was obviously going to get ripped off.

And here’s how I think the ripping off would usually go down:

1. They swipe the card for $4,000 dollars.

2. We go to ship the package and mail the letter to the card company.

3. Card company transfers the money.

4. I go home.

5. Package arrives. Letter arrives at the credit card company.

6. I get a phone call telling me that it’s too late, they’ve sent the money, surely I read the customer contract and understand that they do not really like letters, and that they regret to inform me that I will be hopelessly in debt to them the rest of my life.

7. “Man” does not exist, and I’m left with a package of pretty pieces of glass.

Though not $2,000 dollars, I did get profit from this experience. In the process of them trying to sell me on it all, I got hours of entertainment, free chai, and a free chicken dinner. Not bad. Also eating dinner was a German stoner who had signed the deal away already. I considered telling him my take on it all – in German for the others present not to hear. But, maybe I’m just really cynical and the only thing wrong with it in the end is the illegality, so why rain on mein freund’s parade?

Thu. 12/11/03

Another night on a bus. I had the foresight to ask for a berth as far front as possible, and was thus able to sleep a bit. The bus naturally arrived at 5:30 am, perfectly inconvenient. Still, at that hour, as any hour, the arrival of a long distance bus is greeted by plenty of friendly folk offering me a place to stay and a rickshaw in which to get there. Usually I ignore them, find the quietest rickshawman, and go for something from the guide book. That’s what I did today. But I was intercepted after the rickshaw had started moving, with promises of a room and hot shower for this morning and only be charged for tomorrow night. Sounded alright, and he was talking about a place that was recommended in the guide book, so I figured I’d go for it. I was reminded of why I should never listen to people who hang around long-distance bus arrivals. The shower was catastrophic and my room pretty lame. I was so pissed that I was about to just up and leave, but I figured I really needed some good sleep. It’s amazing how much a few hours in a sleeping bag on a mattress can cheer me up. Breakfast sucked and costed too much, and I didn’t even really mind. Anyvays, the fort overlooking Jodhpur is simply magnificent and wonderfully overwhelming. And Jodhpur’s title of ‘the Blue City’ is not ill-deserved at all (while Jaipur’s ‘Pink City’ claim really was). The alleys and bazaars here are refreshingly free of people wanting to talk to me too. One thing with the fort is that it has fallen prey to the idea of overcharging foreigners. This must be a fairly recent tacting on the part of monuments because the guidebook usually doesn’t list the high foreign price, and it’s something that hasn’t really caught on in the south. At least with the fort here in Jodhpur I got student discount (first place I’ve been to with discounts for foreign students), and they did at least make it approach being worth the price by including the audio-tour with it. We got little mp3 players with number pads. They set the language for you, and then as you walk you punch in the numbers that you see and listen. Also really neat about it was some of the spiels told you other numbers you could punch in to learn about things in more detail should you wish to do so. Pretty hitek. Still, the high foreigner fee is a bit rediculous sometimes. I mean, yes, most tourists can afford to pay more, and the historical sights need all the money for preservation, but still, paying 33 times more than Indian citizens (at the Taj) is bit much, since it’s really amounting to a tax on being foreign…

I’ve developed a severe ice cream habit lately. I haven’t had my fix yet. Can’t stop thinking about it, oh sweet chocolaty sugary coldness. Must find you…