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Published: February 12th 2016
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It turns out we are leaving for our next destination (Rathambore Game Preserve) 1/2 hour later than I thought so I will quickly try and summarize my experiences at the Nagaur Festival.
First of all the 5 hour drive there from Jaipur was an experience. There are 16 in our group (including the trip leader) but we are using a full sized bus for all our transports. It was amazing to me to see the driver navigate through the crowded city streets , but even more amazing to observe the driving along narrow rural roads and through many small villages where we encountered numerous cows, water buffalo, goats etc in the road, along with carts being pulled by camels, and several caravans with men bringing animals to the festival to sell. There were also a couple of caravans of gypsy families with carts piled with all their belongings. Of course there were also countless motorcycles, bikes, rural buses, old cars and people (including children heading to school) along the road. everyone seems to know what they are doing but I still couldn't believe that we didn't see one accident! The Indian drivers are amazing, if not slightly crazy! We've also
had oedestrian lessons from our tour guide....I stick very close to him when crossing streets!
The festival itself was not at all what I expected. I was picturing colorful saris and dancing when in fact the only women we saw were from the gypsy families who had set up camp on the edge of the grounds. The rest of the festival were groups of men from rural towns from all over Rajasthan who were bringing camels and oxen to sell at the annual festival. There were some contests where the animals were "dressed" in colorful attire and we saw some horse races down the Main Street. The festival was just getting underway and we were the first grouo from OAT visiting the festival so we were quite a novelty and attracted large crowds of people as we walked through the grounds. Everyone was very eager to answer questions (none spoke English so our guide did all the translating). NMany wanted their picture taken and then asked to see the pictures on our cameras....there was no asking for money except from the gypsy children who followed us. People were just curious to look at us!
Our "camp" was definitely
upscale. I felt guilty returning to my private tent with a bathroom with flush toilets and hot water 5 hours a day when the festival at goers were sleeping under makeshift tents and under carts and cooking over open fires. The OAT camp is set up just for the festival and takes two months to set up for only 3 weeks of use. It takes another 2 weeks to dismantle it. At least it provides some jobs for the locals.
We returned to Jaipur yesterday afternoon and stopped at the home of our trip leader and met his family and then went to a Hindu Temple for evening prayer service before going to an Italian Restaurant (!) for dinner! So many unique cultural experiences!
Time to head off for our next long drive. Our hope is that we will see a tiger sometime in the next two days. I asked our guide if they had a guarantee or money back policy like some whale watching trips and he offered to stop at the Jaipur Zoo! I guess seeing a tiger is a bit of a crap shoot but there will be lots more to see.
I'm not going to attempt to post pictures since time is running out, I did post some from the Festival on Facebook.
There will be Internet in Rathambore but it often doesn't work according to our guide.
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