Guidebooks are great resources and they give wonderful advice, but sometimes it's important to just ignore the guidebooks and say "yes".
Lonely Planet guide warns that rickshaw drivers will want to be your guides and take you everywhere. So. my first instinct; when Abir met us at the train station, instantly told us that we reminded him of his mother and father, and offered to bring us to all the best places in Jaipur; was to say, "no thanks". But Abir's insistence and our politeness threw us together for the next day. He said he would be at our hotel at 11 and we would go to the Amber Fort. And we did, along with his brother-in-law Sabir. Sabir laid it on pretty heavy and had all types of activities planned for us. We tried to hold firm and slowly we found a place in the middle that we could agree on. So, Abir, coached by the experienced Sabir, was our personal tour guide for the whole stay in Jaipur.
Yep, we did it all wrong. We didn't agree on a fee in advance. We didn't insist that they do it our way. We just politely followed orders and had some great experiences as a result. When we went to the Monkey Temple, Abir introduced us to these two sweet little boys that were perfect guides and body guards for the wild monkeys all along the walk up the hill. We had chai with the locals and they were much more comfortable chatting with us, since we were friends of Abir and Sabir.
Along the way we got to know our guides and hear all about their lives in India. One of the traps I wanted to avoid while traveling was to get stuck in the "tourist" role the whole time. It's a tough role to escape since we are totally dependent on the tourist trades to get around. I had been feeling like a total tourist up until we got to know these folks. Abir showed us his family's business and, yep, we bought stuff from them, probably for more than we should have paid, which was still about 1/8 of what we would have paid in the USA. But we also got to know his family, have tea with them and share meaningful "broken English" conversations about America, India, politics, religion, family. Abir was sweet. He was about 20 and he had just started learning the trade of being a tick tick driver in India. This would probably be his only career and from the look of things. It was a pretty good job. We got to watch him be gently coached by Sabir as they drove us from site to site. I could tell that Sabir was truly interested in Abir's welfare. These weren't sneaky guys trying to take our money. They were hard working guys trying to earn our money. Sabir was smart and he had good business sense. He had a book of testimonials from other passengers that he shared to show us that he was good at his trade. It was great to watch Abir eagerly try to emulate his brother in law. John just told me that his fondest memory of Abir was when he finally got us to ride with him at the train station, he walked in front of us, arms outstretched, shewing away all the other rickshaw drivers. It is definitely a cut throat competition.
But I was determined not to get taken advantage of again, so when we arrived at the train station in Agra, I was all ready to lay down the law with the next rickshaw driver. When Mukul met us, he announced that we were his guests. That he would bring us places and show us the best shops and all that jazz. I guess I'm just a wimp because every morning, Mukul was at the Hotel Saniya and ready to bring us around. Thanks to my wimpiness, we had another great experience. Mukul taught us some Hindi. We joked about George Bush and Barack Obama. He drove that rickety Tick Tick the 30 kilometers to Fatephur Sikri. He showed us the best FREE place to watch sunset around the Taj Mahal. He recommended GREAT restaurants. We saw the town where he grew up and I got to learn a lot about Indian foods and schools and all kinds of interesting stuff that doesn't even get mentioned in the guidebooks. He also drove a Tick-tick like a NASCAR star. John and I exchanged several wide-eyed "oh-my-god-did-you-just-see-how-we-just-missed-that-camel" looks.
At the end of our stay in Agra, we hadn't paid Mukul a rupee. When we asked how much we owed him, he said whatever we wanted. He would be happy with just 100 rupees. He was very happy with what we paid him and we were happier with our stay in Agra than if we had followed the advice of the guide books.
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