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Between the Monk's chant and the peacocks bark, it's impossible to sleep past 5am here. I have officially fallen out of love with Jaipur. And the city's early risers, hell-bent on waking the rest of us, is just one of the reasons why.

There seems to be a fair number of low-level hustles going on, especially with the Uber drivers. It works like this: you order a ride, and the driver responds with a text - an upsell disguised as a favor.

He (and it's always a he) insists that you won’t be able to get back from your destination without him. He offers to wait and drive you back - for roughly double the fare.

When you reply that you'll manage just fine on your own, he doesn’t back down. He doubles down. You'll never get back he warns. Meanwhile, you're still in the street waiting for him to arrive.  

Yesterday, I got so tired of the Uber driver texting to ask how I was getting back that I finally snapped. I told him I wasn’t coming back - that my friend and I had a suicide pact and were planning to jump to our deaths.

Two seconds later, he texted. The same offer.

In the ten minutes he’d been blowing up my phone, the little car icon on the Uber app hadn’t moved a bit. I cancelled the ride and took a tuk-tuk.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Earlier that same day, another Uber driver actually got argumentative with us, insisting we couldn’t possibly make it through the day without his services. He raised his voice, got in our faces, and acted like we were making the biggest mistake of our lives.

I’m pretty sure we could live our entire lives without him.

Finally, one of the last rides of the day was in a tuk-tuk. The driver was perhaps a bit more grizzled than most - like life might be more difficult for him than others. 

Anyway, he quoted us a price, nodded like he knew where he was going.... and proceeded to get lost. When Kumar pulled up Google Maps to help, it became clear the man was completely incapable of following a moving dot on a screen.

He pulled over once - to ask a street food vendor directions. It didn't seem like the move, but it was painless enough.

Ten seconds later, he pulled over again, took Kumar's phone and approached a couple security guards with it. They exchanged something in Hindi for several minutes, all the while staring at Google maps - like it was some ancient scroll.

Then one of them waved Kumar over. When he didn't budge. They rushed the tuk-tuk, where we were still sitting and launched into some debate - in Hindi. Pointing at the screen and the street and throwing their hands in the air. 

This went on for a few minutes, before I'd had enough. I grabbed Kumar's phone, thrust 100 rupees at the guy and marched off. 

Those three were still going at it, when our taxi arrived. 

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