Misty Mountains and Dusty Desert

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The bus climbed a steep winding road as we left the hot plains of Rajasthan and headed towards my next stop, a village called Mount Abu. A place completely different from anywhere else I’d been in India and I’m very glad I decided to visit. Mount Abu is the highest point in Rajasthan and as we climbed the temperature steadily dropped to a comfortable 22 0C. The hills were covered in tall trees and black-faced monkeys sat in groups along the roadside. Before long it started to rain and then we were in the clouds, misty swirls everywhere and the edge of the cliff disappeared into grey. Once in Mount Abu a short damp walk had me booked into a room and fed with a good lunch at one of the restaurants in town. This place feels quite magical and in the evening the air filled with sounds of birds, crickets and frogs, strangely muffled by the mist.

I booked myself on a bus tour of Mount Abu the following day. I was the only non-Indian on the tour and unfortunately I don’t speak Hindi, so much of the explanation was lost to me. I sat through what felt like interminably long introductions of each site we visited but fortunately the sights made up for it. It seemed that having a foreigner on the tour was quite a novelty too and so I had to play “celebrity for the day”, posing for photographs and shaking hands. Not unpleasant, just kinda weird.

The reason I came to Mount Abu was to see the Dilwara Temples. These are without a doubt the most extraordinary thing I have seen anywhere in India or anywhere else. These 5 shrines were built between 1031 - 1490 AD and from the outside do not appear to be particularly interesting with their slab walls and dark grey domes. On the inside though the walls, pillars, floors and ceilings are covered in the most intricate and delicate marble carving I’ve seen. The first shrine alone is estimated to have taken 3000 workers 14 years to complete. In each shrine there is a central altar with some deity in the middle and surrounding this are cells with Buddha-like figures in them. Pictures fail to really convey the quality of the work but I do have some postcards that I bought while I was there but have yet to find a scanner to upload them to this blog. These temples alone have made the trip to Mount Abu worthwhile. Other sites on the tour included some small Hindu shrines, a new-age spiritual university who believe that world peace can be achieved by accepting and unifying the teachings of all religions, and various scenic viewpoints. Apparently you can see the India-Pakistan border from Guru Shikar (1721 m above sea level) on a clear day but all we saw were clouds.

The next day I was back on another bus journey, this time to Jodhpur. Getting a window seat on Indian public transport is not the promising seat you would ordinarily look forward to. The Asian male is a peculiar creature; spitting publicly, enthusiastically and frequently. The habit of spitting in particular is, to me, the most repulsive and unnecessary activity. This habit is worse perhaps in India than some of the other nations due to the common practice of chewing paan (a spicy sweet mixture that often includes tobacco). When you get a window seat (either bus or train) you can almost guarantee that some cretin “upstream” of your seat is going to let loose a juicy spit-wad out of their window and it’s going to come flying through your open window (the windows are always open since there is no air conditioning). If you’re lucky it hits you on the arm or shirt, but if you’re unlucky it smacks you right in the face. Lovely, it just really makes your day. Also, if it should start to rain then streams of water will start to waterfall down the side of the bus (that’s on the inside) and all over the passengers in window seats. Now before you write me off as a racist tyrant, let me assure you that on the whole the Indians are a very friendly group of people. The woman seem to always be immaculately presented in spite of the heat, their brilliantly coloured saris breath life into this landscape. The men can be a little overbearing at times in their enthuisiasm to sell you something but hey, it is India.

It was a dry, hot, and dusty ride to Jodhpur - the most westerly city I intend to visit in Rajasthan. It’s almost getting to desert territory now; bridges span large sandy expanses that may occasionally hold rivers or perhaps flash floods. The terrain is flat and dry with small shrubs. Along the roadside brightly coloured open sided tents provide shade for stalls or pilgrims making their way to the next shrine. Once in Jodhpur I can see an impressive structure perched above the city, what has been described as Rajasthan’s most magnificent fort, Meherangarh. The foundations chiselled from bedrock, the red sandstone walls appear to grow seamlessly from the hillside. Built in 1459 AD it has never been defeated in battle, providing security for the maharajas of Marwar for centuries. The streets around my hotel were a maze of narrow paths that seemed to frequently turn and double-back on themselves. Each time I managed to find my way back the hotel I quietly congratulated myself, although I knew that it was more luck than skill. Another thing I liked about this area was that the shops were not catering to the tourist market. Small stalls selling spices, foods, sweets, clothes and cooking utensils.

From the fort walls, which house many old canons, you have fantastic views over the city and surrounding country. Inside there is a museum with another great audio tour. The palace courtyard walls are carved with fantastic care and dedication while the large rooms are covered in colourful decoration. I stopped at the fort cafe for lunch, a tasty spicy vegie burger and an ice cold beer. A few hundred meters from the fort is Jaswant Thada, the memorial and tomb to Maharaja Jaswant Singh. Constructed from that favourite building material, white marble, it stands peacefully alone in a red-brown landscape.

The next day I visited Umaid Palace on the other side of town. This was the last palace built by the maharajas of India just before India gained independence in 1947. It’s a massive 365 room mansion that took 15 years to complete. Being relatively modern it lacks the beauty of the older buildings I’ve visited. It is now mostly used as a luxury hotel with a small museum and one wing still used by the royal family. The museum had a quirky collection of clocks but apart from that not much of interest. Unfortunately you don’t have access to the palace unless you are a guest of the hotel (somewhat beyond my budget at US$200-500). Afterwards, at the suggestion of my rickshaw driver, I headed to Mandore which used to be (i.e. before 1459 AD) the capital city of this district, situated about 9 Km from Jodhpur. The large gardens contain several cenotaphs (tombs) constructed from red sandstone and are covered in carvings a bit like the Jain temples in Mount Abu. Although this was a place I had not intended to visit, I felt that the trip to Mandore was worthwhile, well done Mr Rickshaw Driver.

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