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If the tour of Rajasthan we'd booked with Smyle wasn't a complete rip-off, there were certainly some generous profit margins being worked into their sums! The hotels we stayed at were not all too the standard we'd expected and our driver just seemed to be booking them on the fly, much as we could have done ourselves, probably for half the price we'd already paid. The 'sight-seeing' included sales pitch also seemed a bit dubious, as what it actually meant was that our driver would drive us to all the sights, but we'd still have to pay on average Rs250 per person to get into most temples, forts, etc. Over the 12 days, this amounts to a considerable extra cost. Luckily for Smyle however, we had an excellent trip - our driver was so polite and friendly - so we’re not bitter!
Our decision to hire our own driver became even more beneficial to us as, for the first week of our tour, we were blighted by rioting and roadblocks. 20 people died. Had we been travelling by bus we’d have been left stranded, probably completely lost as to what was going on. We spent several long days in
the car, endlessly trying to reach our destinations, but in the end with a few minor alterations to our route, we made it through, thanks mainly to our driver’s persistence and the up-to-date info being phoned through from Smyle HQ!
The trouble was caused by ‘Caste Wars’. Caste is a hierarchy class which determines what role you play, what obligations you have, in Hindu society. Some of the lower oppressed castes are saved jobs in government, given university places etc to help them out. One of the groups who narrowly missed this special treatment was ‘campaigning’ to be included. Catch 22 for the government as if they heeded to the demands, they’d be less for the existing groups and they were threatening to riot as well. Very messy!
Rajasthan is a very interesting Indian state. There is a strong adherence to tradition here, which many Indians elsewhere in the country may find backwards, but for us it was very educational, and so different to home, which made it interesting. And then there are the hundreds of palaces, forts and temples to visit as well. The highlights…
Of course, the Taj Mahal (not technically in Rajasthan!) is top
of the list. We visited early in the morning which was the right choice as we were amongst the first there. Its an image we’ve seen a thousand times in magazines and on TV but in real life the Taj is just immense. Agra, the surrounding town, is a dump though. There are so many power cuts here. We’ve turned vegetarian since arriving in India due to the supposedly poor standard of meat out here. The mid 40 degree heat and lack of electricity are doing nothing to boast our confidence!
Jaiper - the capital of Rajasthan - was at the centre of all the troubles and we spent some time here stuck in our hotel. Its not the nicest part of the state but the Amber Fort was pretty impressive. Not so impressed by our elephant ride here though, as our driver refused to let us off until we’d given him a substantial tip. We refused of course. We had a whole herd of people following us around here as well trying to sell us stuff, which was funny…at first.
Within the city there’s an astronomical observatory built by a Jai Singh in 1728, which was very
interesting. Many of the odd shape buildings and contraptions were his own design and were used to tell the time, date and even predict the monsoon.
As part of our tour we went to eat at place called Choki Dani. Its basically a fairground where you can watch shows, ride camels, elephants etc. We gave the rides a miss but we did watch a puppet show, some traditional dances (i.e. on nails, swords…whilst balancing pots on the head) and Vicki had her hands painted with pretty patterns using a semi-permanent natural substance called Henna. The food at this place was excellent - it was something called Thali, which is basically lots of small pots of different Indian dishes, eaten with various breads. Really should do something like this in the Indian restaurants at home as it is delicious.
We ended up in Bikaner earlier than expected thanks to our re-route, and we thought this would be just an overnight stop (some of the driving distances are huge as it’s a large state) but we were pleasantly surprised. Our hotel here was the best we stayed in. We had the best room in the house and the rooftop restaurant
had a view over the whole city. We did the standard fort visit, but it was our visit to the old town that was most interesting. Only accessible by tuk-tuk, due to the narrow streets, we visited some of the old Havelis (means house) where the rich people of the city used to live. Seriously run down now though, but the buildings were amazing. The quality and detail of their design was unlike anything we’d seen in India to date. The people here were particularly friendly as well, not so used to tourists and all stared and waved as we passed by (like being famous).
Jaisalmer, in the Thar desert, one of the driest places on earth, was one of our favourite places in Rajasthan. The fort is set on a hill top, and unlike others, its still occupied. This city does have a reputation for touts, but thanks to the fact that not many other tourists had managed to make it here due to the riots, we were about the only tourists here and so were pretty much left alone as we wandered around the ‘golden city’ with our guide.
For our second day in Jaisalmer we
headed into the Thar desert and some serious heat! Our tour included a camel ride out into the sand dunes which despite the heat, was very enjoyable. Camels do stink though.
After a short stop in the blue town of Jodphur, Udaipur was our last stop of note. Its much greener than the rest of the state - we even had some rain to cool us off. We stayed at the Hill Top Hotel, which had an excellent roof top restaurant where we ate every night of our stay here. Udaipur has the standard forts and palaces like the rest of Rajasthan, but some of these are ‘floating’ in the lake. Our Rough Guide (bring back the Lonely Planet, all is forgiven) explains that Rajasthan has been suffering a prolonged drought in recent years and the lake had dried up, but thankfully last year there were heavy rains, which temporarily at least, have topped the water levels up.
A seriously whistlestop tour in 12 days. We saw so many amazing sights and ate some delicious food - we are definitely loving Indian veggie food. We even got used to, and maybe enjoyed a little bit, all the pointing,
waving and asking for photos and autographs from locals!
So back in Delhi, the heat wave continued. Apparently the temperature is 49 degrees c but feels like 55!! We’re off the Himalayan foothills to cool down!!
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John
non-member comment
Looks as if you could have beneficially spent the whole year in India. Applied for a job as Tea Plantation Manager there once - I think on the whole I'm glad they saw no advantage in employing a physicist who didn't even drink the stuff.