Of travel warnings and touts

PERIPATETIC

Prior to an impending trip to the United States, my sister, who works in London, was issued a forbidding pre-trip alert by her employer's travel advisory services. "Botulism warning", it read in bold, "from commercial carrot juice."

It continued "" "At least seven(!) cases of botulism have occurred in the United States. All of the patients drank 'Bolthouse Farms' carrot juice. If you have this product, throw it away." Other dire warnings followed, referring to the dangers of raw spinach. If you cannot determine the source of the spinach, it cautioned, do not eat it.

A week after we chuckled over this, I made a much-anticipated trip to Jaipur. And wished I had received similarly paranoid travel warnings. I imagine someone could've sent me this "" "Beware the Golden Triangle tout mafia. At least one in two people is beleaguered by them. Sit in your hotel and go nowhere. If you choose to ignore this warning and venture out anyway, we suggest you clam up every time anybody suggests anything for your amusement "" elephant rides, 'antique' furniture, 'authentic' thalis, dancing cobras (or girls)."

And while my emotions swung between high-pitched strained laughter (drawn from my dwindling reserves of humour) and massive annoyance, I was left worried for Jaipur's reputation as tourist Mecca.

The main city, while utterly nondescript, shows signs of economic ascendance, while the flamboyant pink walled city (with its intensifying economic activity) that earned Jaipur its sobriquet, and had me smitten as a little girl, is, 20 years later, desperately in need of a shot in the arm.

Add to that some very alarming traffic and testosterone-charged road rage, suggesting a massive influx of immigrants from good ol' Dilli (the Rajasthanis are themselves not what I'd exactly call belligerent).

But it is the touts that Jaipur stands to suffer the most from. The Internet, as I later discovered, is full of rants apropos the predicaments of visiting Jaipur as a foreign tourist, several vowing never to visit again.

More than one of those rants talks about a rather crafty scam that Jaipur's hustlers have fashioned. Capitalising on the very fact that foreigners are wary of touts, young men on motorbikes accost Westerners and proceed to sympathise with their plight, saying they are in agreement with their unwillingness to engage with locals. After tut-ing along in empathy, they invite the traveller to share a tea. Let's leave the rest unsaid....

Making my way back via Delhi I met an aunt who had just returned from Japan. She had her own tales to tell of travelling in a foreign culture. In Tokyo, she said, she saw a man walk out of the subway, place his laptop on the pavement floor, and proceed to walk a good distance away to talk on his mobile.

For fifteen minutes she watched transfixed as scores of people filed past the unattended bag and paid not a second glance to it. He later picked it up and walked away. The next day, she visited a florist where she picked a bunch of flowers as a present.

The salesgirl replaced it with another, saying it was one day old and her conscience wouldn't let her sell it. Another florist on another day sold her orchids at quarter price because, instead of lasting six weeks, he believed it would last five.

We shook our heads in collective embarrassment at our dishonest ways with our visitors.