I didn’t get a whole of sleep last night. After breakfast, Ben and I laid on the roof of our hostel for a bit. We planned our day, FaceTimed our friend Spencer, and Ben's grandparents, and then walked out and got some authentic street food: spicy noodles, rice, and this bagel type thing?
Ben holding a pen
On top of the hostel
Houses
Sleeping dog
Sleeping dog and Zac
Making the noodles 1
Making the noodles 2
Street food: so good, maybe because of the dirty ingredients it's cooked with..
Once we packed up our things, we took a tuk-tuk to the bus station and met 3 gentlemen: Shyam Kacholia, Banty Bansal, and Zeeshan Khan. Shyam is a senator of Rajasthan, Banty and Zeeshan were businessmen; they sold granite or something. We told them that we were taking a bus to Jaipur, and they told us they were headed there too, but had a private car coming to pick them up. I jokingly asked them if they had room for 2 more and they said yes, and when I asked how much they would charge us for the ride, they said they wouldn’t charge us at all! We told them we wanted to go check out the buses/prices but we would maybe be back. As we were walking away I turned to Ben and said, “Ben, we're in India. We’re probably never going to get a ride from a senator ever again. Let’s take it!” We went back and said we’d appreciate the ride. When the car showed up, it was a lot nicer of a car than what we had seen so far. Even had little curtains that could cover the windows. We started driving and Shyam told us they needed to make 2 stops before we actually started going down.
Business cards (I never got one from Shyam)
Ben and Shyam putting our bags in the car
Shyam outside of the car, Banty next to me
A bit of what Hindi sounds like:
Shyam talking to the others in the car.
My dad's friend said they're just talking about taxes, a guy getting a new job, and traffic
At our first stop, they told us they had to go "give some gifts to our ladies", and would be back in 20 minutes. We had no idea what this meant, but had them roll the windows down and we chilled in the car. After about 30 minutes, some random guy ran up to the car, handed us a bag, and said, "here: food for you, because you are in senator’s car!" We took the bag, and asked, "what?" He repeated himself and then left. We started laughing so hard because to our understanding, some guy saw that we were in a "government official" car (there was a siren/light on top of the car and the curtains on the windows?) and gave us food because he thought that we were important people. We kept thinking, “this is the life! We’re getting treated like kings”. After we finally stopped laughing, we opened the bag to find 2 samosas (fried triangle shaped food, filled with potatoes, onions, peas, and spices). I made Ben take a bite to make sure it was vegetarian friendly (and not poisoned..), and we enjoyed our food, still in astonishment.
Laughing
Samosa (looks gross, actually very good)
Lots of Suzukis. Cool cars
Mopeds all over India
Tuk-Tuks too
Some kind of small worshipping site
A bit of what Hindi sounds like:
Shyam talking to the others in the car.
My dad's friend said they're just talking about taxes, a guy getting a new job, and traffic
After about an hour they came back to the car and we drove 10 minutes to Zeeshan's apartment so he could grab some luggage for the trip. Ben skated outside for a bit, which our new friends loved and some people on the street watched as well.
Skating
"Guarding" the construction site. Watching Ben skate
Then we drove about 20 minutes to an office building, this one we were invited into. It kind of looked like a call center or something: rows of desks with people at computers, some wearing headsets, and others on phones. Ben and I were put into an office, each brought a glass of Coke, and told that they were going to a quick meeting and shouldn't be as long as the other. Ben and I talked about how this was all a bit weird and we wished we were already on our way, but the ride was free so we couldn't complain much. 30 minutes later, we officially we’re on our way to Jaipur!
Selling India flags on the street for Republic Day
Selling India flags on the street for Republic Day Probably surprised to see white people.. haha
People ride their bikes on the freeway.
I was filming a guy we were going to pass,
and Ben started flexing hahaha
Sunset + bad air quality = red sun
Shyam wanted to text his son's mother on his phone, and his son said, "okay, just a moment" and Shyam just kept his hand there for 2 full minutes. Ben and I thought it was so funny
Building
These guys may have been watching the people in the photo below, making sure they're working?
Across from the building we entered. My dad thinks this picture is funny because everyone's looking at us. When he first saw it he said, "What'd you do? Yell 'hey everybody!'?"
Sippin' a Coke
I sat between Shyam’s son and Ben in the backseat for a while (I think his name was Zeeshan). He told me that he was the VP and was in charge of setting up/conducting meetings with clients, but that he actually wants to be in the jewelry business. He said his father wants him to stay in this business because, "the jewelry business doesn't bring much honor to the family name". That made me sad and I encouraged that he should go into the jewelry business, if that's what he really enjoys. As long as he is successful, I'm sure his father would be proud. As the trip continued, even though they were very nice and there wasn't anything specific that they were doing to make us feel it, the whole situation kind of just made us feel weird and uncomfortable. When they asked us where we were staying that night, we told them we were staying with our friend (Airbnb). Shyam invited us to stay with them if we'd like; told us that the next day was Republic Day (kind of like India's Independence Day) and that they were going to some "government parties", and we were more than welcome to join them. At first we said no thanks and that our friend was planning on us staying with them, but we kind of thought about it and I told Ben the same thing, “Ben, we're in India! What are the chances of us ever going to a "government party" with the senator of Rajasthan ever again?" We agreed we'd probably only stay with him 1 night, and told him that we would love to stay with them tonight. The rest of the drive was kind of a blur, I don’t really remember a whole lot. It was actually a pretty boring looking drive and it got dark soon, so I'm not very surprised. 3 hours into the drive, we stopped for some dinner at this little restaurant/casino(?) on the side of the road, kind of in the middle of nowhere? After we ordered, Shyam left the table for a few minutes, and returned with 2 turtle clocks that he gave to us? When we asked what they were for, he just said that he was happy to help us get to our next destination and he thought we were great guys. Nice, but a bit odd? Especially because they were Rs.1400 ($21.50) each! Neither Ben or I had much of an appetite, so we only ate a small amount of rice, chapati, and I had some lentil soup (Ben also got a milk shake).
Benny doing a dance for his milkshake
When we got on the road again, Shyam sat in the backseat with us. He showed us about 30+ of the same photo of him in China with some guards? "Here is me and the guards in China. Here are the guards again. Me and the guards. You see? The guards. Yes, this is me in China" etc. After the photos of the guards, there was a photo of him laying down on the bed, nude except for a sheet covering his midsection.. He quickly swiped passed it but we both saw it, unfortunately. About 2 hours later (12:20 AM), we finally arrived at Shyam’s apartment: I’m not sure what a senator’s apartment normally looks like, but this one looked like an average apartment.
Shyam's front door
He gave us a short tour of his place: 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a cluttered kitchen, and a living/dining room. We connected to his phone's Wi-Fi hotspot, texted our parents that we made it safely to Jaipur, then did some research on our new flatmate. Not only did we not find information about him ever being a senator, but that he had been charged not once, but twice with rape. Ben and I both found separate articles with the same information, at the same time. “Zac, you’ll never believe what I just found...” “What? That Shyam isn’t a senator but actually a rapist? Cause that’s what I found.” We no longer really felt safe and decided that we needed to go. We messaged our Airbnb host apologizing that it took us longer to get down here than we thought and if it wasn't too late, we'd appreciate the room for the night. We didn’t want to create any kind of tension/anger by mentioning the articles to Shyam, so we quietly planned our escape. While he was drawing a bath and kind of getting settled in, I took out my sleeping bag and laid on the bed– to not appear suspicious. He asked us if we needed anything else before bed; we said that we didn't, thanked him again for the ride, and letting us stay the night. When he went into the bathroom and shut the door, we waited until we heard the water stop: that was the signal to quietly pack up my sleeping bag and get out. We kind of felt bad for taking the turtle clocks so we left them on the dresser, quietly exited our room, and out the front door. Our Airbnb host never responded, but it wasn't too surprising because it was about 1:45AM. Safely outside, we found a tuk-tuk and showed him our Airbnb address, who we could tell was a bit confused where it was (the addresses in India aren't always that exact), but we hurriedly offered him Rs.850 ($13.06) and we left right away. We rode in the tuk-tuk for about 15 minutes and when we arrived we asked him to stay until we officially found it. We looked around for house numbers but couldn’t find the number we were looking for. Our driver kind of hollered at/into houses, asking where the number was– but nobody answered because it was so late. 30 minutes later (now 2:30 AM), Ben asked our driver if he had a phone we could use to call our Airbnb host (by showing the driver a screenshot of the host's phone number, then to the driver, and putting a "phone" to his ear with his hands). He understood but didn’t have a phone, so I found some people on the street who did and asked to use it the same way Ben had, but they didn’t completely understand so I motioned for them to come with me. I assume our driver explained what was going on and they let us use their phone! I was surprised when our host answered, but we told him that we needed the room and we possibly in danger (even though we knew that if Shyam had realized we were gone at this point, he'd have no idea where we were) and we still needed the room for the night, but were lost. He told our driver to go to Suraj Pol (a gate on the East side of the city. Translates to 'Sun Gate') and he would meet us there. We drove there and met Keshav (our Airbnb host)! We thanked our driver for being such a big help and paid him Rs.850 ($13.06) which made him smile real big. Keshav drove us back to his flat and we FaceTimed our friend Kenna, and told her about our wild night.
Some cute puppies I saw when looking for our place
The houses we were looking at, while looking for our Airbnb
The houses we were looking at, while looking for our Airbnb
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