Rajastan - Forts and Palaces!

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First of all apologies for no pics - we are on a slow line and it takes ages to load - will put them on when get a spedy connection. We are both well after having colds and tummies! Having an ace time and Carol started to write a book called "I really really like it here!
Love to all and thank you for all the emails - as you read this thank lucky stars/God/Fate that we/you are not in the position of many of the people we have met on our travels who are truly poor and living in very difficult circumstances.

Carol and Ian



Jaipur

After leaving Taj Mahal and crazy traffic of Agra behind drove to Fatepur Sikri…. Lovely liveable palace with beautiful pavilions and royal rooms. Mosque and shrine of a helpful priest? Places of pilgrimage. Arrived at Jaipur in middle of the rush hour. The hotel is ok and there was another wedding going on! This time it involved camels, elephants, white horses and the ubiquitous brass band. Awesome!

After a very early breakfast, we drove to Amber Fort and rode on the back of an elephant to climb the hill. Elephant was suitably decorated for the occasion; not sure if we were! The Amber fort is where the Maharajah of Jaipur originally built his residence until a lack of water drove him into Jaipur itself. We visited his city palace later (The pink/terracotta colour of the city is everywhere). His private residence lies behind the older palace which now houses an impressive museum. The palace of the winds, famous for its impressive crown of Shiva Façade, is only one room deep, so it was nice to see an actual residence. Had a lovely lunch in the palace café. The observatory, built in 18th century, was fascinating with its huge devices built to measure time and position of heavenly bodies…. Be even better when they finish restoring it. Generally cheesed off some traders who thought that we would succumb to £2,000 pieces of carpet and jewellery……managed to resist.

Ranthambore

8am start for Ranthambore - 4 hour drive - passed 3 lorries collapsed under their loads; couple of crashes - one lorry kept up by bamboo poles to stop it falling on its side - lots of herds - once off main road largely single track - worse than road to Horkstow bridge - some like other side of Horkstow bridge - lots of lorries on road - got lost at one point - had to have track filled in for final part - ladies in groups of 3 with twig brooms and little hand hammers and saris seem to be building the roads with a man with shovel!
Very rural - lots of people walking - men in lunghis
In the evening there was live music outside by open fires with tab nabs from the bbq and drinks -Ian had g and t - Carol danced twice!!

Next morning had a very early start to go to see tigers - no luck in our group - Ian saw a kingfishers backside but that was about it - interesting though. In the evening really good food and cold bread and butter pudding with runny custard.

Deogarth

Early wake up call to leave to travel to Deogarth - the boy at the door asked to have it open and when Carol did they had a bunch of flowers and a cake for our wedding anniversary! They have been really good at The Pugmark and we have recommended it to people already.
Then a long drive of 8 hours over very rough roads - Ian had a streaming cold which didn’t help. However arrived at Deogarth and everything turned out sunny!
Fabulous place - old palace - and a fabulous suite of rooms for us.
Once we got ourselves sorted out we wandered down to the courtyard - all set for another wedding!! Band had started to play - Carol looked as though she should be attending! I had a word with the laundry chap outside the hotel 25 rupees a piece so gave him 5 pieces.
After listening to the wedding band play (an odd combination of New Orleans and Italian town band!?) went to sit to wait for the dancing show - had bottle of fizzy wine and some poppadums with a salsa of roasted peanuts, finely chopped tomatoes, peppers, onion, coriander, lemon juice and oil - delicious!
Dinner - ended up after looking at all the different places sat in the balcony overlooking the wedding!!!!! Chicken, chickpeas and mushroom mutter with Indian breads. Very memorable and special. A great evening in a stunning location

Next day lolled around on the terrace where it got rather hot but managed to find some shade. Took the walking tour of the palace and looked into corners we would not have otherwise seen. Honeymoon room, originally the crown princes room, very interesting with small illustrations from the Karma Sutra inlaid into the ceiling. The guest suite was kitted out with swing and sunken living area. Very flash.
Dinner - Wandered into the bar where the 2 brothers whose family have had the palace for the last 400 years both made a point of leaving their guests to have a chat and to introduce us to the former chief of staff of the Indian Navy-
Just had small tab nabs to eat and several hot toddies made of HoneyBee brandy and honey and hot water.
Village benefits enormously from a benevolent form of feudalism still maintained by the Deogarth family. Village was clean for India ( it was more like an Italian hill town) and people knew that their actions would eventually filter back to the family. Input into the community through a trust and regular meetings held with the villagers. Bibbi, the eldest brother of the family, told us that Magnetic Hill in Lahdak is an optical illusion caused by the position of the mountains etc….uphill looks downhill and vice -versa.

Udaipur

Had an easy drive and finally found the hotel which is a gem - 1930's royal hunting lodge immaculately kept - stone walls in our bedroom - Dining staff lovely. Got ensconced and had a sleep and started to feel better started taking anti-biotics and they seem to do the trick. Had a quiet wander around and there are the Imperial stables and stud farm - an airstrip and tower, cricket pitch and polo field. Had a tour of the stables from the head groom - grooms accommodation worse than the stables for the horses- foal one month old - absolutely charming - saw the deer being fed
This is an absolute gem and immaculately kept - you could set an Agatha Christie novel here. Actually there was a Japanese director doing the rounds and staying here looking for film locations.
Next day did the tour of the Palace and Udaipur plus a Jain Temple - good guide who had masters degree in medieval Indian history. Bitter about not getting proper guide accreditation because of his caste - there is a real issue about this and how to get a meritocratic approach. However he was very good and particularly informative about the religious bit. Lots of touristy stuff but Udaipur is more Western than other places eg police actually direct the traffic and they gave our driver a bollocking twice - he was really surprised coming from Delhi!
Current ruler came in for more stick about money not getting to the people. However, he is a business man who is providing employment and interest in Udaipur which shows in the city…cleaner and obviously benefits from the tourism.
Nice Garden of the Maids which was green and wet particularly the jungle garden
Lunch - cappuccino coffees and date and walnut cake and coffee cake in the Edelweiss Cafe German Bakery - as we sat there an elephant padded by - I didn’t realise how quiet they are!!
Saw the ladies doing the washing in the lake - life is very tough here and each day we thank our lucky stars we were born in England.

Following day we had a day off - read books around the pool and just enjoyed seeing the wildlife and horses having their faces washed - hot sun -lovely.

Jodhpur

Left the hotel fairly early and drove on wrong road for at least an hour. Eventually got on right track and stopped for short time at a Jain temple complex at Ranakpur. Very impressive as all worshippers had to remove ordinary clothing and don ceremonial, pure robes before entering the main temple. As impressive as a Cathedral with an enormous amount of intricate carving. Felt like a place of worship.
Road was reminiscent of Spain or Italy 40 years ago. Only difference was saris and turbans
In the early evening visited Jodhpur Fort which was amazing. Set on a hill, the walls are 125 metres high, it is an enormous edifice of fortified walls topped with intricately carved palace trappings in the same vein as Mogul style but much more intact. Sumptuous rooms and courtyards dripping with decorative features. Lovely displays of royal cribs, palanquins, and of course… armour and weapons. The fort was never breached and has an interesting history although the British Raj gave it its longest term of peace and prosperity. Best audio guide we have had easy to use and informative. This is a fantastic place and huge!
Went into Jodhpur for dinner. Started off looking for one restaurant but ended up in "On the rocks" which was quite charming as families and couples were all able to dine in the midst of twinkling lights and log fires. Food was filling, tasty and much cheaper than in hotels.

Khimsar

Had an easy start as only 100 kms to go! Stopped to get water and some sweeties and then a pleasant drive along good roads ie metalled and quiet arrived just after noon. Khimsar Fort Hotel very nice - in the old fort and hotel merged in with it - in a few years it will be very expensive - £87 a night at the moment. Went into Khimsar; one and a half streets and is very rural - bought peanuts roasted on a stall. Carol said not to drop the peanut shells!!! This on a street with camel cow crap plus other rubbish - however as good tourists we put shells in bag!
Very nice shops in hotel clothes shop in particular run as a woman’s collective great designs,Carol should have bought something.
In pm sat around pool in hot sunshine and ate choc truffle cake and orange pound cake with a dipping orange sauce. Luxury!
In the evening ate in the old tower of the fort. Felt like something from Beau Geste - really atmospheric and great service - pudding coconut mousse and honey fritters yum.


Jaisalmer

The drive to Jaisalmer was much quicker than we expected. Arrived at about 1 o'clock. Hotel in this frontier town looked promising. Narayan Niwas Palace had once been a significant hotel where Princess Anne etc had visited…. That must have been in the late 70's. Since then the hotel has been stripped of any furnishings worth considering and had features such as Ayurvedic treatment rooms boarded up. Mukesh had to beep the horn several times to rouse the staff to assist with the luggage. When thy arrived, the boys looked like something out of Hang 'em High. The slovenly old man behind the desk was presumably the manager, although nobody was moving much in the place and there were a couple of groups of cronies sitting around what had once been lovely porticos- garden was devoid of furniture, there was no light in the place although the architecture was very fine. The lift didn't work, the shop looked wreathed in cobwebs, The exquisite indoor pool we found by accident but it had no other facilities such as towels loungers etc. The room was a mish mash of leftovers where nothing matched and the beds looked ancient and sagged. The room heater didn't work, the bathroom was dirty and there was one towel, naturally very dingy. The restaurant was a shambles of indifference and the same group of desperados were tying to set up a couple of tables with worn out table linen. We went for a walk in the lower town and had a coffee and some lovely cakes in a "German Bakery"

Mukesh drove us to a desert village of mud huts and camel rides. The idea was that we rode off on a camel into the desert before returning for some sort of dinner and dancing ladies. The dancing ladies were probably the same ones who were painting murals on the walls as we arrived. We decided to simply drive further into the desert scaring Mukesh when we jumped out of the car to tramp up the best dune we could find. He was bothered about "jungly animals" as he so charmingly expressed it, but as we didn't see a tiger in Ranthambore, there was not much chance of coming upon one in the desert! Sunset was ok but we have better ones in Horkstow.
On our return to the hotel we asked to see other rooms. They were all the same rubbishy set up. We asked to see a suite and explained to the manager precisely why his hotel fell way below the standards we had encountered all over India. He offered us the suite but said because it is a 6,000 rupee a night suite, he would have to charge us an extra 1,000 rupees this was his discounted rate. We moved our stuff up after causing general consternation to this raggle taggle bunch, but walked to a Haveli (old merchants house) for dinner, saw their rooms and got them to take us back to the hotel at 10pm. The driver and a young helper argued about the cd music and were like Cannon and Ball. The youngster carried our luggage down after wrapping his head in his scarf so nobody would recognise him. They'd have a job in the semi darkness of this neglected palace but it turns out that it is owned by the cousin of the family who own the Haveli we are moving to! On the way back, the youngster jumps into the driving seat insists that he knew what he was doing. We took off for Ghandi Chowk like Starsky and Hutch. Eventually the driver managed to persuade him to switch on the headlights. They switched places before we got to the hotel so that his boss wouldn’t catch him behind the wheel of his precious car. Profuse apologies from the so called staff of the vacated hotel but somebody is being extremely dishonest as it's tariff is higher than the exquisite Deogarth Mahal!!!! We came to the conclusion that the hotel has been stripped by the owner who rents it out to those who think they can run it as a business. Hmmmm!
Haveli, although cleanliness of the bathroom is not quite to western standards, has a charm all of its own. The staff has been charming and I'm sitting next to a fountain in an inner courtyard writing this. The room is very "take me to your Kasbah" and we are so pleased that we moved. Price per night? 1,900 rupees which is less than £30.

Met Mukesh at old hotel… he thought that he'd lost us. He'd found a guide who was excellent and had a tour of the interior of the fort. Very impressive with super Jain temples complete with priests telling people about this strain of Hinduism. There is a real feel of tolerance here. Most people are Muslim, but there is absolutely no segregation… each enjoys each others festivals and they all attend each others family events. The Haveli look very comfortable places to stay. Gargh Jaisal a haveli hotel belonging to one of the guides friends, was quite lovely with each room themed in a different Indian colour. Rajasthan alive and kicking in Jaisalmer. The shopkeepers see lots of French (80 of visitors are french!), Italian, German, Australian tourists and are quite witty. They invite you into their shops with "please come inside and give me the opportunity to rip you off" or " Let me help you to part with your money" Inside the fort feels calmer and more secure than outside the walls. The guide explained that everyone inside the walls knows everyone else and when there is a wedding in Jaisalmer, it is normal to have 400+ guests invited throughout the 7 day event.
The cattle wander the streets eating up anything they find but apparently wander back to their owners in the evening where they are tethered over-night. Using them as disposal units has it's drawbacks….ooops, didn't watch where I was putting my feet just then!
The shoe shine boys in Jaisalmer are all deaf and often dumb. One attached himself to Ian yesterday and today until shamed by the state of his shoes, he gave in. We attracted a crowd of onlookers and commentators as Ian had the best shoe shine imaginable. I started to video the event and the boy became a bollywood star insisting that I video him and Ian together. Small scruffy kids, men with nothing better to do, our guide and even Mukesh joined in the circus. It was good street theatre and he went away with much more than the 20 rupees we'd promised him.
A final look at more haveli, each one more elaborate than the last.

Laid low in the afternoon with nothing stronger than water and a snickers bar for Ian.

Bikaner

Had a reasonable start as 330 kms to Bikaner - all desert scrub but a good road - ie English B road - made good time to arrive at 2pm. Lovely hotel again 1930’s Raj style - huge bedroom and seating area, separate dressing room and large clean bathroom. Immediately we both had a bath and a good scrub! Felt better and toddled out to see the town - v interesting and the fort was excellent with the guided tour. Probably some of the best rooms we have seen to date. All in all a good day AGAIN!

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Comments

[sue underwood]

Jaipur
Just loved your comments re jaipur, as I went there earlier this year, and you bought it all back . It sounds as if you are loving it so much....will you want to go back to the UK?! We are just getting ready for Eid here, as I expect much of India is as well. It would be great to hear what the preperations are like over there. There's a frantic buying up of goats here.... take care Sue x