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Published: December 21st 2007
Hotel Heritage Mandawa
Roof of our Haveli Hotel in MandawaMandawa
Day 1 & 2 - Rajasthan Tour
The sights out of the car window on the way to Mandawa were made up of desert, huge carts piled high with bales being drawn by camels, goats being herded across the road by a women in brightly coloured saris, stray cows and dogs roaming the streets eating rubbish. Family homes being a mixture of tents, cloth held up by branches and concrete block houses.
Riding towards us were 3 people on a motor bike, the only unusual thing about this was one was dead; stiff as a board lying horizontally across the seat. A man in his thirties, our driver commented - alcohol. Apparently in India ARAK kills thousands of men a year. The Government distilled Arak is safe, but obviously that is too expensive for some, so they buy home brewed.
Arriving at Mandawa we saw blue sky and clouds for the first time since arriving in India, sand roads filled with bicycles, people, camel carts, donkey carts, cows and dogs. No horns! Population 20,000. You get the occasional whiff of the open drains, the waste lying stagnant, baking in the sun. The main street is filled
Mandawa
Children play on their roof tops with large carts covered in vegetables and fruit, and raised shops selling everything and anything, each with a limited amount of stock. An overwhelming sight at first, but when you get out there and let your feet mingle with a mix of sand, dirt, camel, cow and dog pooh, smelly waste and rubbish, its not that bad! Females draped in bright vibrant saris, males wrapped in blankets over their trousers and jerseys, to keep out the cold. A few mainly older, men wear the traditional gear of long flowing whites with turban. The air is filled with dust and dirt, with a lack of water and facilities to wash; the clothes are grubby and the children’s hair tangled. Mosque music plays from across town at intervals during 24 hours, starting at 5.30am! We found it to be a really quaint town and as we moved further through Rajasthan one of our favorites.
Sights The first morning we got into our car with our driver for a day of sightseeing. This town is part of a larger Shekhawati region which has lots of little towns, so you base yourself here to visit them all. We get in the car and
then next minute driver says “guide coming with us”. Guide, what guide, no no no not more tipping. Are we going to have to pay for a guide every second day! How much then - “No problem, your choice, what you like, you depend”. But the guide was fantastic and we end up probably over tipping him (NZ$20), but he spent nearly 8 hours with us. He took us for lunch, and taught us how to eat without utensils and only using your right hand, the left is for wiping your bum! Food was great, you mix your rice, dahl, potato mix and curries altogether and wipe it up with bread and eat, so like 10 pieces of bread later! Or you can be Carl and just use your hands!!
Every town you visit the children come up and say hello and wave, and ask for a pen. Apparently the tourists give out pens or sweets. Well at the first town we visited one child walked with us around the first town for ages and all he wanted was a pen, I had nothing for him. So the next town I brought pencils and gave them to the little
children we came across. We visited many many Haveli. Haveli are houses that were built by rich merchant families a few hundred years ago, back when the towns were on the trade route. They have centre courtyard, open to the skies, with the edges little living and utility rooms, bedrooms upstairs and playground on the roof. But they are famous for their decorative design and paintings. The outside and inside walls and roof are painted intricately about religion or life events. Plus we visited many temples that all date back hundreds of years. Haveli and the temples do not look like they have been maintained since they were deserted and poor families have now moved in, living off the tips foreign tourists leave when they visit. They have little in their houses, cold concrete walls and floor, mattresses to sleep and sit, open fire for cooking, no washing machines, fridges, ovens, showers, baths - just basins. Their main focus being to educate the children, that is put them through College.
Our guide introduced us to Masala Chai and we love it. Chai is tea, its like a strong white tea in a small cup with a strong taste of
Haveli
Us with people who live in Haveli ginger. Tastes like gingernut biscuits. Really really nice and as you need to boil it for like 5 minutes it is really hot. Everyone drinks it here.
After our tour and the guide left we went for a walk down the village street looking for Bungli restaurant as the food and ambience in our Hotel last night was not good. Got picked up by a 10 year old in the street, we were looking at a restaurant sign and he says “Closed” I take you…..so ok we followed and yes he took us to Bungli, his family owned the restaurant. It was clay walls and floor and a tarpaulin, but the tables clean, the good great and we were entertained by his Uncle - The Magician (see picture). Bowan, the 10 year old boy told us about his life which existed mainly of cricket and school, and his maths exam the next day. He was delightful; I cannot get over how street wise and independent these kids are, but nice with it.
People will say hello to you in the street, shake your hand, stop for a chat, they all know New Zealand and Kiwi due to the
Another Haveli
See Lynne has shrunk huge cricket following. They always start with “where are you from” and it’s hard to know if they just want to chat or are touting. You have to be careful you don’t offend them by saying “No Thanks” instead of “NZ”.
I have found the dress difficult, as I did not come prepared. You cannot show anything between your head and carves, being a woman. So I have had to buy a shawls to wear over my tops.
Well another day tomorrow and we are off to Bikaneer, 4 hour drive, 200 km night 2 of 24 nights with a driver. So far so good, cheaper rates than internet and Lonely Plant for hotel, cheap lunch, guide, well I am not sure if we said yes to that or not, sometimes you just say yes. So we will see.
Accommodation Review Well our first night in Rajasthan and we are staying in Hotel Heritage Mandawa (a restored Haveli), it is beautiful. Very different, unique accommodation experience for us. Our bathroom is new so nothing to report, but the room I would describe as ornate, big, couch, desk, coffee table, mattress to sit on floor. Like most
hotels in India they dont tend to keep walls, floors, corners, roofs, doors very clean. But this was OK. I would not recommend eating at this hotel the restaurant, it was a set menu and mediocre taste, and we were joined by uninvited musicians who expected tips for violently interrupting our meal time. We had to creep back to avoid the man selling puppets inside the centre court.
Hotel Heritage Mandawa You can contact our guide from Hotel Heritage Mandawa, his name is SHAMBU PAREEK, what I liked about him is his good English and he had a sense of humour.
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Bikanner
Day 3 & 4 of Rajasthan Tour
Well we left the clouds and blue sky behind and drove back into the pollution filled mist again. This place is the pits, it is just disgusting. It’s like there was this big rubbish dump and someone built a town on it. Open sewer drains along the small alley ways lined with shops and houses. As Carl said you could have shit and then run outside and watch it stagnant in the open drain outside your front door! Rubbish piles everywhere, cows and dogs roaming the
streets sifting through the rubbish piles. We ride past the “lake” which is actually an open sewer pond, the smell makes you want to vomit. People have stalls alongside it, they are just so used to the smell, they don’t notice. It is a disgusting place.
Sights The only reason to stop here is to see the temple where people worship rats - have you ever heard of anything more - lets just say - interesting. It is based on a legend and the village people believe that when you die you come back as a rat in that temple. So they worship, house and feed the rats. We had to take our shoes and socks off! The dirty temple was filled with rats running around, luckily it was morning and cold so many were underneath the temple. Apparently in the afternoon the entire floor can be covered with rats - its like YUK!
We visited a camel farm here as well, it was great. We arrived in time to see a couple of hundred camels come back from a day out in the open. They all know which pens to go back to, pregnant females in one
pen, mothers and children another, females, males…it was amazing. Also saw a male camel do his mating call……back legs out straight and this horrible big gland flops out the side of his mouth. The guide wanted to know if we wanted to watch 2 camels mate. Do we? “It takes a long time, but reduce the time by giving him a helping hand”. “No we don’t thank you”!
Accommodation Review This hotel was our saving grace, we hid in the hotel when we were not out with the driver sightseeing. It was a light, bright and clean room,great food at the restaurant, sat TV, 2 sheets and we even have a window. Only 1000 rupees (NZ$34.00) per night.
Hotel Harasar Haveli We have not seen many foreign tourists at all except in the hotel restaurant, we wake up in the morning and all the driver cars are outside, but during the day and sightseeing we seem to miss everyone. We have not seen any unescorted tourists yet, they all have drivers or on a bus tour.
Driver Update Driver chose both the hotels in Mandawa and Bikaneer and we got them both for our price
Hotel Heritage Mandawa
Front of hotel - all painted of 1000 rupees (NZ$34/US$25) after minimal negotiation. Both were in the Lonely Planet and we only confirm once we have seen the room and agreed price. The guide was definitely needed around Mandawa villages, and only needed to pay 150 rupee for the richshaw tour around Bikaneer. We are happy, driver is happy as some hotels don’t have very good driver accommodation, or good car parking, the car his livelihood.
It has taken us 2 weeks to find internet access that enables blog uploads without pulling your hair out, so will upload another tomorrow and probably one the next day as well so I can catch up. Xmas will be in Pushkar for those of your asking........no meat......no alcohol!
DONT FORGET you can double click on the photos to enlarge them.
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mona perdue
non-member comment
Mandawa haveli
I love your descriptions of Mandawa. We stayed in the same hotel and the food was the worst in four trips to India. We'd been warned about buffets and this one was inedible except for the desserts. We are still nearly stamping our feet when laughing about the "entertainment". Breakfast was horrid, too. How can anyone spoil breakfast? They managed. We got up early in the morning and watched the town wake up. Interesting!