As I stepped inside the Agra train station in Northern India, I found myself faced with a “human carpet”: hundreds of people were sleeping on the floor and wrapped like mummies in blankets. I tried to walk through without interrupting anyone’s sleep.

I looked up at the schedule; my train to Jaipur was delayed by one hour. I sat on a bench and tried to kill time by looking at the pictures I had taken.

Something was pushing against my arm, and I turned. An Indian lady with glasses and a red and white silk sari was staring at my camera.

“Do you want to see the photos?” I said, holding the camera close to her and the other Indian woman with her. She smiled and took the digital camera from my hands, looking at it as if it were some sort of artifact from another world. I showed her how to click through the pictures. She seemed thrilled.

“Taj Mahal!” she shouted.

“Yes, a very beautiful building,” I responded.

“Friends?” she asked, pointing at a picture of me with a young British couple I had explored with in Agra. Then there was a photo of me with a man. “Married? Husband?” inquired the Indian woman excitedly as she looked at the photo of Richard and me.

Richard was a fellow traveler I met in New Delhi who I would use as a “fake husband” throughout my trip in India. When I met Richard, I never thought those photos with him and stories of our “marriage” would be so much help in a country where being single at my age—almost 30—was inconceivable.

Since she was so excited, I responded the way she wanted me to: “Yes, that’s my husband!”

How was I supposed to explain being a solo female traveler without speaking the language, anyway?

She smiled and said something in Hindi to her friend, who nodded with approval.

“Children?” she pressed.

“Not yet. I am too young!” I replied.

She looked at me and continued speaking in Hindi. I had no idea what she said, but I nodded anyway.

“Where husband? Love him?” she asked, furrowing her brow with concern.

I imagined she thought I was traveling alone because I was having some “marital” problems.

“Richard works. He is in Delhi while I travel. Everything is okay. Love him very much,” I replied, smiling and putting my hands over my heart. She may not have undertood my words, but I was sure she and her friend could understand my physical expressions. They were glowing, seeming relieved that everything was okay with my “husband.”

The women stood up. Their train had arrived. The first woman grabbed my face with her hands and gave me a kiss on the forehead. Her friend gave me a strong hug.

I watched them disappear into the massive crowd and try to squeeze into the already-crammed train.

Finally my train arrived. The trip took more than five hours—not counting the delay—before I reached Jaipur, the capital of Rajastan, which is also known as the “pink city.”

Outside the train station, hordes of taxi drivers assaulted the arriving tourists, including myself.

“Come to my limousine,” said a short, Indian man with a trimmed moustache.

It was a cheesy line, but he got my attention. I jumped in his tuk tuk, which was quite nice by auto-rickshaw standards. It was clean, had leather seats, and was covered with a bright-colored tapestry.

The driver, Ali, introduced himself to me, saying, “Look! Many travelers are happy with my service. That’s me!” He proudly showed me a book with notes from people of different nationalities thanking him for his transportation and guide services.

“My name, photo, and email are going to appear in the Lonely Planet book as a recommendation in the Jaipur section. Very happy!” he continued.

“Congratulations, Ali! That’s awesome,” I said.

As we approached the center of Jaipur, the city looked like a street zoo. Elephants, cows, monkeys, goats, dogs, and horses mixed with the rickshaws, bikes, and cars cluttering the bazaars and dusty, noisy streets. Death-defying pedestrians and starving children walked among these animals, sometimes competing with them for “food” in a mountain of trash. 

I got out of the rickshaw and got a closer look at the beggars, many of whom had deformities to their limbs that were hard to look at. I wondered if they had been born with these deformities or if some of them had deliberately mutilated their bodies to cause pity, attract sympathy, and earn more money from begging. There was no age discrimination: kids, babies, women, and men of all ages begged. Some news reports said about twelve thousand “handicapped” beggars lived in New Delhi, India’s capital, alone—and the trend was rising in other major Indian cities, too.

The poverty on the streets contrasted with the huge forts, magnificent palaces, and lines of beautiful houses, all painted rose pink in 1876 by order of Maharaja Ram Singh, who wanted the entire city to be pink because it was associated with hospitality.

“Here it is!” Ali stopped in front of the entrance to the monumental City Palace.

“Thanks, Ali!” I said, paying for the ride.

“Are you sure you don’t need a tour? I can take you around for not many rupees!” Ali insisted.

“No, Ali, thanks. I will be okay. Good luck with the book!” I replied. I didn’t know how much I’d wish I’d taken him up on his offer for a tour!

Situated in the center of the walled city, the City Palace is really a complex with several palaces within. As I stepped through a beautifully carved marble gate, I found myself in another world, one very different from the chaos I had just come from. It was clean and quiet. Exquisite buildings of white, pink, and soft yellow colors with delicate Hindu chhatri (small cupolas), impeccable gardens, exquisite courtyards, and elaborate gates and arches surrounded me. The home of the royal family now houses an extraordinary museum with rare costumes, weaponry, charts, manuscripts, jewely, paintings, embroidery, and silk saris among its exhibits.

Leaving the palace, I stumbled upon the Jantar Mantar, an observatory with astronomical instruments that looked like bizarre outdoor sculptures. Fourteen large geometric devices—one of them 90 feet tall—were built in marble and solid rock. I climbed onto one of the structures, from which I had a panoramic view of the city and the hills surrounding it.

I left the observatory to visit Nahargarh, a fort located on the edge of the Aravalli Hills, a strong defense point of the pink city.

A tourist guide at the City Palace had told me that the fort was about a 30-minute drive from the city center. I had to take a tuk tuk that would use a zigzagging road to the top of the hill.

It was time to get tough and negotiate with the taxi—or in this case, autorickshaw—drivers.

I approached some idle tuk tuk drivers hanging out near the observatory. “How much will you charge to take me to Nahargarh and bring me back?”

“Five hundred rupees!” said one driver.

“Are you kidding me? I could go to Agra, or even New Delhi, for that much!” I said, half-joking.

“Give you good price. Three hundred rupees!” shouted another driver.

“Well, gentlemen, I don’t have that much. Who would take me for 150 rupees?” At only three American dollars, it seemed a small price, but it was reasonable according to the tourist guide I had talked to and my guidebook.

“Okay, okay, come!” A young Indian man showed me the way to his tuk tuk.

I jumped in. After five minutes, the young man dropped me off at what seemed to be the bottom of a mountain in the middle of a slum.

I realized then that he had only taken me to the entrance of a road that led to the top.

“No, I want to go to the top,” I said, mimicking driving with my hands.

“Only way!” he said, pointing at the road.

I didn’t know if he was ignoring my request intentionally or if he honestly didn’t understand what I was asking. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to travel this road by car. I didn’t have time to argue or find another driver, so I decided to hike to the top. But I wouldn’t pay him until I returned.

“Chor chor,” the driver said, waving his hands as if he was trying to tell me how to get people away from me. I didn’t know why I would need that . . . not yet, anyway.

I passed a few rundown houses and found the full, zigzagging path to the fort. I could only see a couple boys far off on the road.

I was alone. This was a slum. There were no tourists. I evaluated the risk. I could get robbed. I was afraid, but it was almost too late to turn back. I was going up!

But before I did that, I took the one thing out of my bag that I could use as a weapon: a small, insect-repellent spray. If I got attacked, at least I could spray it into the eyes of the attacker and run away. Most importantly, no matter how scared I was, I couldn’t look vulnerable. I walked with confidence, holding my mosquito repellant bottle tight and looking everyone I encountered straight in the eyes.

A teenage boy and his friend were coming close to me. I turned back and stood still, defiant. I slowly moved my hand up and was ready to point the anti-repellent at them, but the boys froze and quickly ran away. Perhaps they thought I was a mad foreign woman with some sort of weapon.

I started laughing, partly because I did find the situation funny, but also because I was nervous. The road was clear, and I walked faster. The farther I went, the lonelier the path was.

After a 20-minute hike along the dirty road and a lot of sweating, I made it to the fort at the top. I realized then that the driver was lying. Cars could get to the top—a taxi was parked nearby. The driver who had lied to me wasn’t going to get any money, because I was not going down that scary path again no matter what.

As tense as the hike was, it was worth it. The Nahargarh was built in 1734 and provided a panoramic view of Jaipur and the surrounding hills. The fort had rooms with beautiful, well-preserved flower paintings. I climbed a few stairs and saw that several Hindu chhatri decorated the top of the fort. I sat alone between two small cupolas, overlooking the beautiful pink city during sunset.

When I left the fort, I kept an eye out for a taxi to bring me down to the city. But the taxi I had seen at my arrival had disappeared. Going back down that deserted road at night was not an option.

I looked around and saw two young Indian couples leaving in a sedan with a personal chauffeur.

I approached them. “I am so sorry. I came to the fort by a lonely path, and I am afraid of going down alone now that it is almost dark. Could you please take me back to the city?”

One couple got straight into the car.

A slim, young Indian man with honey eyes, tan skin, thick eyebrows, long black locks, and glowing white teeth briefly stopped and looked at me curiously. He held the hand of an Indian woman who wore an elaborate silk, salmon-pink sari.

But then, he continued walking to the car. She followed him but didn’t take her eyes off me.

My heart sank. I might not have any option but go back down the scary path.

I started walking toward the road, hoping my mom had lit a lot of candles to the saints to protect me. She always did that when I traveled, and I would certainly need some serious protection now.

“You can come!” the young man shouted from the open window of the sedan. He got out of the car.

“Sit in the front, please,” he insisted. He squeezed into the back with his wife and the other couple.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. You have truly saved me today!” I said.

“My wife told me to take you,” he said, smiling at her.

“Oh, thank you! You are very kind,” I said. “My name is Daniela.”

“My name is Suresh,” said the man. “This is my wife, and these are my friends.” Suresh looked familiar . . . and then I realized he looked just like Walt Disney’s Aladdin!

“It is not good for a woman to travel alone, Daniela. You should take care!” Suresh advised, as if he were my older brother. His wife agreed.

I didn’t want to argue about whether women should or shouldn’t travel by themselves, but I explained to them what had happened with the driver on the road.

“Chor means thief!” said Suresh when I told him what the driver was shouting before I started down the road to the fort. So my instincts were right!

I tried to change the subject. “That’s a beautiful sari,” I told Suresh’s wife. According to Suresh, that type of sari was only worn by women from their caste. The hierarchical caste system in India ranks people into five different social groups: Brahman (priest), Kshatriya (landowner or warrior), Vaishya (merchants), Shudra (artisans or farmer), and Harijans (or untouchables). Indians are born, marry, and die within these classes. Although it may seem discriminatory, people accept it and treat one another differently depending on their caste. Although India is a democracy, the caste system retains a role in modern Indian society.

“What do you think of the caste system?” I asked Suresh.

“It was very important, but we married for love,” said Suresh, although I had never questioned their marriage. 

Suresh pointed out a large palace surrounded by water. “That’s the Water Palace; it is not open to the public.” He showed me a couple more sights as we continued down the road back to the city center.

The driver stopped in front of a shop and bought of two bottles of Coca-Cola.

“Coke?” asked Suresh.

“Yes, thanks!”

“Some more?” he pressed.

I hadn’t finished my glass before the chauffeur was pouring more. They wouldn’t stop serving me (and themselves) until both bottles were gone!

I thought they were going to drop me off there. Since they were not going to Jaipur, Suresh had agreed to take me close enough for me to hop a bus to the city center. We were already off the hills and on the outskirts of Jaipur. There were plenty of busses and taxis around.

“You are a friend. We will take you into the city. No problem,” said Suresh. The driver drove onto Jaipur’s chaotic main street.

The car stopped in front of the Hawa Mahal, a palace from which royal women of the court used to watch everyday life without being seen. The façade had a pyramid-shaped structure with small windows framed in carved arches. Nowadays, monkeys jumped all over the magnificent building that had become a landmark in the city.

“Thank you so much, Suresh. I cannot thank you and your wife enough for what you have done for me.”

“No problem, Daniela. It was our pleasure. Take my numbers.” He handed me a paper with his email and two phone numbers.

“Call us if you need anything. We will pray for you and your safety,” Suresh said as I exited the car. After saying goodbye, I wandered around the Old City.

Old men’s bright turbans mixed with the colorful saris of women of all shapes and ages. Hundreds of shops—from furniture and food to statues of deities—lined each side of the main road. The annoying sounds of honking horns were alleviated by the fresh smell of orange flowers and spices.

I heard the tum tum tum of drums in the distance and let my ears guide me to the source of the music.

It seemed to be coming from the top of a two-story building. The door was open, and I walked upstairs. A Hindu temple was on the top floor! I found a golden altar for Rama, the seventh reincarnation of the god Vishnu. Devotees sat at the entrance, wearing nothing but white cloth wrapped around their waists. They had long white beards, and their faces were painted white and red. These devotees had left everything to dedicate their lives to worship with their singing and music.

I explored the small temple as the devotees continued to sing and play their instruments, unbothered by my presence. I found a spot overlooking the street, from which I could see the pink city brightened by the sunset, the fort at the top of the mountain, and the lively bazaars.

I closed my eyes, enjoying the music and the Hindi chants and mantras. It made me feel at peace.

And that was exactly what I would need. My journey in India wasn’t finished yet, and a 17-hour overnight train ride to Amritsar, the land of the Sikhs, was waiting for me.