After staying at very western hotels in Kolkata and Delhi, we chose to have a different experience in Jaipur. This hotel is run by a retired Indian admiral in his own residence so itโs more like a B&B. We had a very comfortable stay and felt connected with the local culture through the admiral and his staff.
One interesting thing was on our day of departure, we wanted to take a photo with the admiral and invited our driver, Chaman, to join us too. Chaman insisted on taking the photo for us instead of joining us. He told us afterwards that the old class system in India is still prevalent today and he thought it would be disrespectful for him to appear in the same photos with the admiral, who was two classes above him. We were shocked and sad to hear such an archaic system still has this kind of impact in the 21st century.