As we left the Presidential precinct, the police and army suddenly made their presence more obvious and barricades started appearing across the roads. Uh, oh ... what's up?
With much blowing of whistles and angry gesticulation the traffic was kept well back while the prime Ministerial motorcade roared through! RH pic is more of the admin buildings in the area.
Last stop was the Lotus Temple, built in the 1980s for the Baha'i. Again, its set in large, relatively peaceful grounds. There is a lot of green open space around New Delhi, and in parts of old Delhi as well.
When I got back to the Shangri-La, I discovered that the internet was barely working. I called 0 and asked what was up, expecting to be told some nebulous problem which can't be fixed ... or it was my computer etc. Nope - was told straight out that there was a problem, and wouldn't be fixed until the next day. Phooey! I retreated to the lounge and mentioned the issue to the guy at the entrance. Good bloke - he said that doesn't sound right, so he called IT. About 10 mins later Mr IT appears (impressive!) and he explains that there is a 'VIP IT function' on in the ballroom ( I had noticed it - lots of suits etc) and that the hotel had given over 90 to 95% of its bandwidth to it! Incredulous, I asked if that meant guests just miss out - yes, he confirmed it quite straightforwardly (apologising ...).
Well, that's a red rag to a bull - I went down and asked for the Duty Manager. I explained the situation to her very politely but leaving no doubt in her mind that I was unimpressed and that it was the Hotel Management treating the guests with contempt, as far as I could tell. She wasn't aware of the issue, so called ... and I could see from her changing expression that it was being confirmed to her.
To her credit, she organised for IT to give me a 4G/Wi-Fi hot spot which fixed my problem, but its just appalling that the hotel (Shangri-La) simply turned off the internet for their guests in favour of a private function. My biggest pet peeve - when hotels charge their gusts for hotel facilities, then re-sell those facilities to third parties and deny them to guests.
When I went back to my room, there was a bottle of red and some nice chokkies there - unfortunately I was dead tired and left both of them behind when I checked out the next day. Hope the cleaners took advantage!
Next day it was an approx 280km drive to Jaipur. The highway was generally good - 2 to 3 lanes each way and we could do 80-100km/hr, but with zones of construction which slowed things down, and a number of small towns where things descended to the usual horn honking and inching past bikes, motorbikes and pedestrians. Good roads shown:
But it took about 5 hours in all. One major problem was the toll gates. As you may know, the Indian Govt abolished the higher denomination notes overnight without warning a couple of weeks ago, in a campaign against black market cash (which is huge and the measure is sort of succeeding). However the replacement notes are barely circulating, and this has caused a nationwide shortage of small change. Toll booths were an early victim, with no-one having change to pay the tolls. So for a couple of weeks the toll booths went free.
Unfortunately the day we travelled was the day they re-introduced tolls - and it was pandemonium (even on an Indian scale). We spent about an hour in gridlock behind 2 toll plazas and of course the Indians in their usual fashion made it a free for all of trucks, motorcycles and cars. Our guy quickly went to the shoulder, as did many others, and there was 2 to 3 'lanes' of cars on the sandy shoulder, in addition to the 4 or 5 lanes of cars occupying the three marked lanes of the highway. Not a place for the faint hearted (LH pic). After about 3/4 hrs behind the second jam, inching forward as those at the front struggled to, or refused to pay, the lines suddenly started moving. The operators had decided to open up several of the lanes, and the clearest way through was the shoulder area. So 'everyone' surged into that area, where we were and immediately clogged up the exits (RH pic) . :evil:
Finally, we reached Jaipur, population about 4 million and the capital of Rajasthan state. It was founded on 18 November 1726 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amer after whom the city is named. So its actually a 'new' and 'planned' city.
The old town is known as the 'Pink City', but its actually terra cotta colour. I think one of the British Royal family visited and admired some of the terra cotta coloured buildings, so it became a municipal law that all buildings in the old town (within the city walls) had to be painted that colour. And they are. Just a few views to set the scene.
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