Advertisement
Published: November 28th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Fortunately my nose had stopped running, but my head was still heavy and my throat sore. A conversation with the owner enabled me to understand why there had been no hot water yesterday morning, and why I was unable to flush the loo last night. It seems as though there are scheduled power cuts between 9 and 10:30AM, and 1:30 and 3PM, every day, plus the water is turned off between about 10PM and 7AM. Hence I need to get up between 7 and 9AM in order to have a hot shower.
I noticed that the family dog had been chained up, and the owner explained that this was because he was a little "enthusiastic" around new guests. Not wanting the poor beast to lose its freedom purely on my account, I said I'd be happy for it to be unchained, and so it was. Needless to say, "enthusiastic" proved to be a euphemism for "horny as hell", and after my leg had been given a brief but vigorous pounding, the dog was wrestled off me and chained up again.
Unrelated to this, I was told that the name of the hotel came from the owner's village 250 km
away to the north, meaning "music of the clouds". Maybe not the words I would have chosen to add to my slim knowledge of Hindi, but one day a sentence will be strung together.
Though I was still not feeling 100%, I was definitely well enough to do some sightseeing so off I went to Junagarh fort. It's not as imposing as some of the other Rajasthani forts, but the paintings and ornamentation inside turned out to be spectacular. For the guided tour, I was attached to an Indian group, who I subsequently found out to be members of a wedding party (this being an extremely auspicious time of year to get married). A few of them spoke some English, so we exchanged pleasantries and I was told that I looked like the guy who presents the Indian version of "Who wants to be a millionaire?" I'd seen the show a couple of nights ago, and can only assume the resemblance lies in the fact that he's quite tall and my 4-day stubble could be mistaken for a goatee at 50 yards. Or maybe they meant I also look as though I'm in my 60s.
On leaving the
Junagarh Fort
Ceiling detail 2 fort, I allowed myself to be suckered into a wander around the Old City, by a chap who satisfied all my criteria for being a tout, but for some reason I left it for 30 minutes before reading him the riot act. Repeat after me - anyone who offers to show you around is a tout, whatever they might say. Anyone who gives you a 10 minute history of an obscure building is a tout. Anyone who encounters you on the street and says they just want to practise their English is a tout.
While walking back to the hotel, I saw an advert for some sort of underwear with the tag line "Prepare to be assaulted". I also found some loo roll, making this a real red letter day. And on the subject of underwear, I submitted x pairs to the tender mercies of the dhobi-wallah. I will not reveal the value of x, for fear that people might think my hygiene standards are low. Carrying 4 months' worth of clothes and gear in a 50 litre rucksack is not easy ...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.395s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 34; qc: 160; dbt: 0.2371s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Jay
non-member comment
Hi , Thanks for the Blog. Very interesting. I am an Indian residing in the US . I am sorry to see people harassing you constantly. I dont know if you plan to be in Kerala during your trip , but South India is a lot more decent compared to North India that even south indians have a culture shock coming to North india.