The Step Well

I never could have expected how much time, effort, and stress this picture would cost. August read in the Lonely Planet guide about a day-trip we could take to see a unique ancient well in Abhaneri a tiny village an hour and a half out of Jaipur by bus. That sounded like the perfect opportunity to get out into the countryside, and meet more people who would be friendly instead of greedy. So the day after the Monkey Temple we woke up early and headed to the bus station, ready for adventure. And adventure is what we got.

To get to Abhaneri, the guide said to take a bus to Sikandra and then catch an expensive jeep, or catch a bus to Gular and walk 5 kilometers. So, preferring to walk, we wandered around the bus station asking for a bus to Gular, and some nice men pointed us to one. The driver confirmed when we asked if the bus went to Gular, and we were off. Two hours and a Rps. 150 ticket each later, we started to get pretty worried. Some more questions revealed it was the bus to Delhi. Where else would tourists want to go? So we got off and caught a packed 2-hour bus back to Jaipur. I was forcibly offered a third of a seat next to a reluctant family, and August had to stand.

So, we weren't to be stopped by a 5 hour, $10 detour. We continued asking. I've now figured out that there are two towns called Sikandra, one of which has the great Mughal Emperor Akbar's tomb. And that there wasn't a bus to Gular. There is a bus from Sikandra to Gular, that you can take instead of the jeep. Once we got to Sikandra, the tiny bus onwards to Gular was very friendly. A beautiful woman offered me a small fruit, sort of like a miniature pear, and they seemed very amused at the ten or twenty words of Hindi I've picked up so far.


As we were walking on from Gular, some wood workers called us over and suggested we take a picture of them working. I obliged, though the man in the picture seemed a little embarrassed. Further along the road, a nice man pulled up on a motorcycle, and was very insistent that we should take him up on the offer of a ride. We zipped along through the lush farmland, watching the women look up at us from harvesting wheat by hand. Children ran out of the houses to wave and yell hello, and it felt like our adventure was turning out all right after all. When we got to Abhaneri a few minutes later, I thanked the man profusely for his generosity, and was about to offer him something for the gas when he held out his hand and said something I couldn't understand. I gave him a confused look, and he said, very distinctly, "fifty rupees." Now, Rps. 50 comes to about $1.25, but you have to keep in mind that a proper auto-rickshaw from the town would have cost about Rps. 25. He continued to insist, and a 13-year-old came over and started heckling us in English, suggesting he should demand even more. We gave him the money, not wanting to make the village angry, and went to see the step well, followed by the young heckler.

The well was amazing. It descended the full depth of a normal well, but in a steep cascade of stone steps, so that people could bath as well as draw water. The elaborate hand carving seemed completely out of context in the thatched huts of the modern village.

The sun was starting to sink towards the horizon as we turned back towards Gular, wary of any passing motorcyclist. No one offered us another ride, but my faith in the kindness of strangers had been shaken. It happened again later when we visited a mosque in Fatehpur Sikri, and a man started to lead us around like one of the many aggressive tour guides that descend whenever we approach a site. When we explained we had no interest in a guide, he took great offense and explained that he worked for the mosque. I apologized and explained how easy it was to make that mistake. He then followed us out and around the courtyard, insisting we visit a certain shop. Ah me.

Walking towards Gular, the children we had seen earlier came running out again, spouting what at first sounded like gibberish. Then it turned into a resounding chorus of "Pens!" "Chocolate!" "Five rupees!" and more strangely "Shampoo!" Apparently that is what tourists mean to them. Each group would eventually relent, when they reached the end of the invisible leash tying them to their houses.

After a long stretch of undisturbed walking, we saw some children come out on a crossroads a way ahead of us. Then more. And more! There must have been 20 children standing there, waiting for us with more shouted demands. We kept walking, but more and more came running out until they formed a mob all around us. I couldn't help but think of the monkeys the night before, and the feeling they would carry us off.

Eventually the mob mentality did turn ugly, and they started shoving, then throwing dirt and rocks. We kept stoically walking forward, not wanting to do anything to turn their parents against us as well. At last an old man walking th opposite way scolded them, and they gave up. We made it to Gular covered in dirt, just before dark.

The two buses back were packed like sardines, and almost completely devoid of light. Five men started asking a lot of questions, and kept laughing and talking about us in Hindi. When they asked where we were staying, my instinct of niceness overrode the what might have been better sense, and I told them. They left us alone then, and August saw a most disturbing turn of events: First one eyed me up. Then he gave some money to thuggish looking one, who started eying August up. Then they made some phone calls.

When we got off the bus, there was an auto-rickshaw waiting, and it was a choice of getting in, or standing around with the guys from the bus. We took the ride for a high price, but couldn't help worrying he was in on some plan arranged by phone. We got out as soon as we saw a landmark we recognized, though it seemed later that all he was scheming was to try and get us to go to his friend's hotel. However, our paranoia didn't cease until we were back in the hotel room, with the door firmly locked. We never got a knock on the door in the middle of the night, but I did jump a little extra high when we opened the bathroom door and a rat scurried behind the toilet.

I hope this story doesn't worry any of you that I'm not safe here in India. We were never in any real danger, never stepping out of well-populated areas. It was more a feeling of disappointment. That was a day that shook our faith in our ability to trust in strangers, but I think the effect will be short-lived. Just a few days later a nice young man gave us a ride across town when he saw that the auto drivers wanted to cheat us. It was a sort of antidote to the experience from before.