Warning: I believe swearing is both big and clever.

“Life’s what you make it, celebrate it.” – Talk Talk.

Agra train station was like a city within a city. Hundreds of people traversed the platforms as twilight descended over us. Passengers carried huge suit cases on their heads as they hurried to find a space to stand under the darkening sky. The sounds of men singing out their wares and the bashing of ladles on pots as they cooked food on makeshift stoves on the platform defined the evening tumult.

The poor, who lived on the railway line around the station wandered around looking for useful rubbish. Families sat around on their suitcases watching the smaller children run around in circles. A swarm of flies, up well past their bedtime, buzzed manically around a small spot of shit on the ground.

I hate flies. For me, the fly goes a long way to disprove reincarnation. How can you possibly do anything virtuous as a fly to justify being reborn as a higher life form? All you can wish for is to be reborn as something more infamous; something which has caused many needless deaths such as the mosquito, the flu virus or Tony Blair.

I asked a porter if I was on the right platform for the Jaipur train. He officiously demanded to see my ticket, stared at it for an age as if he had never seen one before (I believe he was trying to look very important indeed) and then nodded quietly before walking off.

A lad of about eleven asked me to buy him a banana just as a fruit seller carted his produce by. With my backpack restricting my movements, I didn't get my money out in time, so I gave the kid enough money to buy a bunch. It's not as if he needed them - it looked like his main source of vitamin C was pie.

For the next two minutes, he stood in front of me begging for more money. When I'd had enough, I said, "If you're not careful I'm going to take that money back." We looked sternly at each other for a second, then both burst into giggles when he realised the game was up.

As the train pulled into the station, I had trouble finding my carriage - the platform signs didn't match and Indian trains are very long. I made my way near to where it should be and jumped in the train so I wouldn't miss it. Almost immediately, a guy in a smart but stained black jacket jumped in front of me and asked where I was going. I told him I could find my own way.

Then he demanded to see my ticket.

"Why? You don't work for the railway," I stated.

"I do, now show me your ticket."

"No - you show me your ID."

"What?"

"Show me your railway employee ID." All railway workers carry an ID to prove they work for the department of railways.

He smiled - that same shallow smile I'd seen before in India when I had caught someone lying to me. However, at that moment, an older man sitting in the carriage said, "He does work for the railway."

I decided to defer to the old gentleman - he looked respectable enough. I let the young guy lead me to my carriage. There were two young Canadian girls already seated when I arrived and we briefly exchanged pleasantries. When I turned around, the young guy was still in the doorway of the carriage.

"Everything alright?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes thank you," I replied.

Then, with a theatrical flourish that would have made Stephen Fry cringe with embarrassment, he raised his closed fist to his mouth, coughed lightly into it, then flattened his palm and held it out for a tip.

Red mist descended. Tautly, I said, "Absolutely no way. I told you I didn't need your help. Not everything in this world should be done for monetary gain." I indicated for him to leave which he did.

I was sick and tired of scam artists and fools trying to extract every rupee out of me at every available opportunity. I didn’t care that they're not the richest people in the world. I didn’t care that they're only trying to make a living. In that mood I felt that they were all just greedy scavengers who didn't give a damn about anything except getting one over on their “stupid” mark; an attitude that stinks in any language, in any country.

I apologised to the girls for my behaviour which they were fine about, having been subjected to the similar experiences since they arrived in Delhi a week earlier. Kelly and Marie were Canadian girls who had been working in South Korea for a year teaching. Now they were on a whistle stop tour of the world on their way back to Canada for Christmas. We talked about our travels, their strange experiences of Korean culture and how they found some men there arrogant and bigoted towards women. We swapped ghost stories and basically had a laugh which helped to pass the time.

Leaving Jaipur station, an auto driver tried to accost me on the platform. I was later to learn he was called Jabad. I ignored him, but he continued to say, "You come with me, yes?" - despite the fact I repeatedly said no. He walked a few paces in front of me and changed direction whenever I did which made me increasingly angry. Being followed from behind is one thing, but someone obviously following you from the front is a challenge to your freedom of movement. He had a face ripe for punching.

"Let me take you to your hotel," Jabad said outside the station.

"No I'm going to the prepay stand."

"Give me a hundred rupees, I'll take you there," he insisted.

Again, I noticed that he had one of those faces that would only ever look good on the end of my fist.

"Get fucked," I replied, but I don't think he understood that beautiful little aphorism.

I walked to the prepay stand and got my ticket for thirty rupees, but astonishingly, the prepay stand assigned Jabad to be my driver. 

Normally touts aren't allowed to drive from the prepay. Jaipur was obviously different.

As we journeyed to the hotel, I diverted myself in thinking of the number of different ways I could stove the cunt's head in. Meanwhile, he rapturously talked of how most of his work was follow up business from delighted customers giving them tours around the city and of how honest he was.

"If you're so honest, why did you try to charge me a hundred rupees for a thirty rupee journey? Honesty is more than just words."

He completely ignored me and continued to exalt himself and his services.

At the hotel he gave me his business card. I still have it - I'm saving it for when I'm caught short without toilet paper.

I woke the next morning another year older. It was my birthday, and to celebrate I was going to do absolutely nothing. I lay in bed for a while reading, then watched a couple of films. Then I slept a bit more. I rang around my friends and family. I was really missing home. Here I was, a million miles from anywhere, on my own, seemingly surrounded by a bunch of morons whose only interest in me was how much they could extort from me. It was one of the lowest points of my travels.

You may be wondering why I moan so much about touts and scammers in this blog. Well apart from the fact that they are endemic in tourist areas in India (I've only talked about a fraction of the touts I've met), the simple fact is that I am a mug. I suffer from some kind of strange reverse autism where I can sometimes relate to people too much. I usually take people at face value without cynicism, so I'm easily misled. India is therefore a real struggle for me as I have to force myself to keep my guard up - not a natural state of affairs for me and something I find very tiring.

Just as I was pondering this, there was a knock at the door. It was the hotel manager. My guard was still up from my encounter with Jabad and I cynically started thinking that perhaps the manager had just invented a new "Backpack Wanker" tax that I had to pay for staying in his hotel.

"Hello sir, we've been trying to phone you all day." I had accidently knocked my phone off the hook.

"Everything ok?" I asked, wondering what could be so urgent.

"Certainly sir." He smiled. Behind him was a waiter carrying a big silver tray and on it, a Birthday Cake!

It was such a nice moment that all my cynicism disappeared and I was back to being myself again. I thanked them profusely and for the rest of the evening I was walking around on tiptoes. Sometimes the simplest gestures can make the most profound difference.

The next day I decided to face Jaipur. I was accosted by a number of rickshaw drivers straight outside the hotel. One bicycle rickshaw driver said he could get me to Nahagarh Fort for 50 rupees so I jumped in. 

Off he cycled and ten minutes later stopped at a crossroads in the middle of town, waiting for me to get out. I tried to explain we weren't near the Fort but he suddenly couldn't speak English. He started speaking to a cop on the street who was directing traffic. The cop explained to him I wanted to go to the Fort and then he demanded his money. I got off the rickshaw. I was annoyed now. I was tempted to walk off as the guy had either played me or hadn't understood a word I'd said and just got me onto his rickshaw to beat the other drivers to some cash. While I was thinking about this, he got really agitated and started screaming at me for his money. I gave him an icy stare and he continued raging. Now I'm not a violent person, but I can honestly say I was on the verge tickling his tonsils with my fist when the policemen came over to see what the fuss was about. I gave the guy his money, knowing that I would lose a lot more if I had to bribe the cop.

I found an auto rickshaw driver who was being pimped out by a very unpleasant old freak who was as high as a kite on weed. They stung me for 400 rupees but by this stage I was tired of battling scammers and just wanted to get to the fort.

They dropped me in a backstreet full of pigs and young naked children running around shacks with corrugated roofs. Here I walked up a steep incline for about half an hour before getting to the top.

The long and winding road.

I couldn't find the entrance to the fort, but it was in a ruinous state anyway. There was what appeared to be an amphitheatre filled with dirty water and rubbish.

Teenage boys wandered around lackadaisically in large groups, trying to outstare the few tourists bungling around.

One came over to me and said, "Are you alone?"

"What's it to you?" I replied. He turned around and sauntered off.

I really thought this place was not worth visiting. It wasn't kept well, it was shoddy, dirty and falling to pieces whilst trying to convince it was a premier league attraction. It reminded me of Burnley Football Club.

I had come up to see the sunset and in the words of the great English poet Lord Byron, “It were a bag of wank.” (I’m sure he must have said that at some point in his life).

On the way back down the hill, I passed a woman with three children all carrying firewood on their heads. Her face was tired and lined, though I knew she must have been in her early thirties. At times she would call out to her herd of goats further down the path. The goats responded by stopping, calling back and waiting for her to catch up.

Halfway down the hill there was an angry cow that I passed very carefully. I knew it was angry because of the evil way it eyed me as I approached and the way it mooed abusively as I passed. It also had a very cross face.

Very angry cow - possibly suicidal.

At the bottom of the hill was a pig feeding her young while she ate from a pile of garbage at the side of the road.

As I walked back through the slums at the bottom of the hill, a naked boy of about three with a big toothy grin on his face ran past me waving his hands in the air shouting, "Hello! Hello! Hello!" After all of the irritations and annoyances of the day, this really cheered me up and made me laugh aloud.

That night I decided Jaipur was the worst city in India, full of scam artists and terrible attractions. The next day I didn’t go out – just stayed in my hotel and scowled into the mirror - but on my last full day I forced myself to go out and see some of the sights. I grabbed an auto driver and asked him how much to take me into town. When he quoted me a fair price I hired him on the spot for the day.

The central walled streets of the original Jaipur are lined by buildings of faded terracotta, which is why it is known as the Pink City. The streets are packed with bazaars and markets, cows and people, rickshaws and bikes, all hemmed in by piles of rubbish and glorious pandemonium. So far, the Pink City had been more like the “Red Mist” city to me, but all of a sudden, I started to enjoy it.

First I visited the Jantar Mantar, a large collection of huge astrological instruments used to follow the constellations about the sky.

Built by the city’s founder, Jai Singh II from 1727 onwards, these innovative devices not only predicted seasons for crop planting, but eclipses and planetary positions. I had a guide show me around, and would not have worked out what all of the instruments were for without him.

The Samrat Yantra – the largest sundial in the world – is accurate to two seconds and its shadow can be seen physically moving at about a millimetre a second.

For me, the Jantar Mantar is Jaipur’s most prized possession. I loved it.

Next I went to the city palace.

Unfortunately, apart from nearly being run over by a speeding black limousine carrying one of the royals around, I found it all a bit boring. There is a museum which houses a large collection of weapons (with little context to their display), a host of royal garments (yawn), and a couple of very large silver vases (snore). The Hall of Public Attendance was pretty and had some interesting photographs, but there was no real atmosphere to the place and the exhibitions were lacking in co-ordination, although the audio guide was fairly informative, if a little dry.

Pretty door decoration at the City Palace.

After the City Palace, I travelled out to the Man Sagar Lake to see the Jal Mahal, a five storey structure that is now mostly submerged and off limits to visitors. Auto drivers constantly come up to you in Jaipur and show you a picture of the Palace, then charge you an extortionate fee to visit it. It’s nice, but it’s not worth being scammed over.

On the way back into town, many decorated elephants and camels were being ridden in, though I’m not sure what for. I would like to say they caused chaos on the roads, but Jaipur is so congested and chaotic that it made little difference.

I also witnessed a small oven on the street which used cow dung to power it - a genuinely good use of an old idea, and hilariously, a street barber, where men sat on a chair and had their hair cut in the public theatre of the city streets.

Finally, on my last day I visited the Amber Fort. Constructed in 1597 on the site of an earlier fort, its high imposing walls belie the sophisticated architecture of the palace within.

Here there are shaded courtyards with elaborately carved gates, a hall of mirrors reputedly lit at night by a single candle, some amazing mosaics, a royal temple with silver doors closed to public access, extensive underground passageways with resident bats, geometric gardens in bloom and ornately decorated residences. The fort is certainly impressive and I spent a very pleasant morning exploring it all.

Geometric Garden.

Hall of Mirrors.

Residential rooms.

Finally I visited the Hawa Mahal, or the Palace of the Winds, which is part of the City Palace where the ladies of the court could go to watch the city privately through an elaborate stone screen stretching five stories high.

It is impressive from the outside, but I didn't spend long inside as there is little to see. Even the view of the city from the top is fairly dull, even though some commentators have called it astounding. Worth a short visit though.

After the Hawa Mahal, I went directly to the train station to travel to Jodhpur. As I travelled through the city streets watching the crowds jostle between the pink buildings, I realised that although I had first hated Jaipur, I had grown to enjoy its sights and history. After feeling hemmed in by scam artists and pedlars and a lonely birthday so far away from everyone I love, I had forced myself onto the city streets to face whatever awaited me. This was to change my impression of the place so much, that as I left I wished I had spent more time exploring and less time procrastinating. But sometimes life is like that – sometimes your mood is going to affect how you feel about the world around you. Sometimes, you can change all that just by forcing yourself to grab the world by the throat and shaking it a little. Most times,  life is what you make it.

This blog covers the period 05/12/2009-09/12/2009.