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Published: February 20th 2010
Day 6 - 9 (Udaipur)
The bus journey from Jodhpur to Udaipur is a collaboration between fun and scary: Fun because towns and markets are being passed more intimately than they were on the train, and scary because the bus driver is an absolute nut job. He overtakes, narrowly missing a shattering collision between a heavily populated bus and a huge truck, wheels just along the edge of the tarmac, and almost wanting to skid into a ditch. Something tells me I’m going to have to get used to those things before I can really enjoy the journey, he does this journey all the time, it’ll be fine.
The drivers beautiful bus horn is possibly the most awesome car horn I’ve ever seen, it has 6 different buttons resembling differing pitches, when performing different types of manoeuvres he’ll produce various patterns of pitches and tempo. I wondered whether other road users need these and whether as part of the test (if there is one) to become a truck driver in India you need to be able to recognise the different songs coming from the other vehicles on the road. I doubt it, I think they all just play whatever they’re
feeling at the time, I think Indian men believe that their horns match their masculinity and if you removed the horns from all the Indian vehicles then two things would happen: the first is that there would be a hell of a load of crashes, the second is that the Indian men would all become very sad and feel emasculated.
The journey took 8 hours in total (6 hours my ass), most of which I listened to ‘The xx’. We met a cool Swedish guy named Andy who’s soloing India for 4 months, He’d come from Jaisalmer and we both agree that the 10 minute sprinkle of rain would’ve caught the current people doing the camel safari a little of guard - Not many people pack waterproofs in the desert and there’s little shelter. The bus passed through some very poor districts developed through the business they get from passing bus customers. I saw a really grumpy and furry piglet which made me laugh, I couldn’t get a picture in time though unfortunately. In the last hour or 2 of the journey the scenery was bizarre, mile after mile of marble traders, genuinely fields of white blocks, slabs, tiles
and sculptures. Simon pointed out a fairly good question as to how these marble traders actually move the blocks, They surely needed machinery but hard as we tried for mile after mile we couldn’t see a single forklift or anything. We saw hundreds of brands and as we passed them the economist in me was tempted to save these guys a fairly poor career, why did the last guy who arrived here decide to do so? They knew that they’d have hundreds of more established firms through from local to international as competitors, they could surely see the huge stockpiles of the marble so it obviously can’t be flying off the shelves so to speak. All the undercutting of competitors would be impossible as they’ll already have stretched profit margins, it’s not like they’ll be able to do anything cheaper than a huge international brand could. Fools, to put it bluntly, they’re doing nothing good for themselves and their actions are only benefiting the consumer. But hey, if I need marble, I know where I’m going.
Udaipur is a really nice place, the most romantic city in India (I’ve always got Simon) which is probably a fair label. Narrow
market streets filled with bright clothes outside tailors shops (you can get some awesome suits for £100) smother the area which overlooks the awesome city palace. We split up from Andy as we found a nice place overlooking the City and Lake palace, it had hot water, free wi-fi, and rooftop restaurant all for 2 quid a night, Sold. The free wi-fi bit was awesome as I could chill out in the rooftop restaurant whilst typing up my travel blogs. The shower is awesome, basically a power shower and the room was pretty nice although no TV so we still can’t observe the predictably terrible Indian advertising. We spent 2 days in Udaipur just relaxing, typing, exploring and shopping.
The city Palace is awesomely extravagant with some amazing art and architecture but the real beauty is the Lake palace which is in the bond film octopussy. We booked our bus to Jaisalmer whilst shopping. We’ve both bought some wicked Indian bags with the idea of walking into our uni dorms later this year with our stuff in that and people looking at us like - what the hell is that? As I bartered the 400 rupee bag down to
200 with this legendary plump and hearty Indian bloke wearing a huge white cowboy hat, a woman from Coventry observed. When she was done observing she decided to get in on the action attempting to bring my price back up, WHAT? She wasn’t happy with the deal we’d just arranged and told me I should be ashamed for not spending more pounds in India, she thought I should pay him 250 at least. I argued back that the seller enjoys bartering, I probably could’ve got him to 170 and that if that was the case then 200 is a fair price for me and him, and that therefore 250 was too much to pay for this item. She wasn’t having any of it saying I should ashamed for being so stingy, my money is worth more to him etc etc. SHE, SHE is the type of foreigner encouraging the touts, beggars and salesmen to treat foreigners like millionaires. She really annoyed me, I may be English but I’m also a student and that extra 80p I saved can buy me some supernoodles. Rant over
One morning me and Simon decided to check out the maharajas classic car collection consisting
of 22 cars, some of them were unbelievably cool, like a 1938 7 seater Cadillac with a v8. Sweet. All the cars looked mean as hell (apart from the two moris miners). We got food at the garden hotel restaurant as part of our ticket, a veg thali. We had no idea what this was and as we got served by who I can only assume is both the waiter and the chef he left 2 large metal dishes with 8 different dips of varying size, he then left us for 10 minutes with a little pot of yoghurt , a sweet chickpea dessert (incredible) and a small plate of cucumber and tomato slices, was that it? We got more and more confused 5 minutes after wiping the plate in front of us clean, he then came back and filled the 8 different dips with varying foods. Good food, such varied tastes and textures, I munched that down before sitting back content. Simon had had about half his thali when the waiter returned and heaped him more rice against Simon’s persistent resistance. He didn’t leave until he explained that Simon should mix the sauces to get the most out of
it, he watched over expectantly but Simon was full. He tried and failed and when the waiter returned another 5 minutes later he was disappointed that Simon hadn’t managed anymore. Simon’s genuine effort to eat more was entertaining to watch, I could’ve helped him but decided not to because I wanted to see the waiters’ reaction. That was fun.
At one point we were walking down one of the many market streets when we saw a huge group of 20 or so school kids all crowded round something, we edged close to see what was causing all the hubbub when we realised it was a Swedish man by the name of Andy getting them to teach him Hindi. Brilliant, I think he was happy that we’d saved him actually and we all headed to explore the 7-piece city palace.
The city palace is a multiplex of mansions and palaces, each time a new maharaja took charge they built another part of the palace until it’s the 7 piece architectural beauty it is now. It’s like if someone had designed and built a liveable crystal maze, which reminds me - there’s a room in that palace made entirely of crystal,
Walls, chairs, tables and windows - unfortunately it costs 5 quid to get in and you can’t take pictures. I didn’t go in. We wandered aimlessly and without a guide around the palace, the rooms, art and sculptures are beautiful although a little freaky at times. I do love how one of the maharaja’s had a fitting on his horse so it looked like it had an elephant trunk, hilarious rather than intimidating I thought. I started covertly taking pictures of things, trying to avoid the camera charge. In one of the last rooms we visited I got caught taking a picture of an awesome painting of a peacock which cost me 200Rs but het, what can you do?
We also managed to see a sunset over Udaipur from the towering hill overlooking the city. We got a 63Rs chairlift up to the top and admired the beautiful city in its entirety beneath us. The lake, city and monsoon palace all looked amazing. The city palace showed a satellite picture with each of the lakes catchment area, it’s amazing that without todays imaging technology that they’ve created such effective and sustainable lakes where only land was before. Quite inspiring
actually. The Indian sun did its usual trick and disappeared behind some mist before it actually set so we still haven’t seen the dull read glint of the sun disappearing behind the horizon.
We’d booked our bus from Udaipur to Jaisalmer via Jodhpur (again), when we’d checked out of our room on the morning of the 12th we’d planned to package our bags and some other things to send home, but there was a colourful issue with that plan. That day was Shiva’s birthday and the streets were littered with marigold threading women, brightly decorated arches erected over the streets and crowds of people entering the Shiva temple right by the city palace that we hadn’t noticed before that moment even though we’d walked past it 6 or so times before.
Before we could send the items home we had to package them, as we walked towards the city palace post office where we planned on getting it done an elderly man came out of his house and textiles workshop to ask if we needed it wrapped, impressed with his assumption we bartered him down to 150Rs to package the items for posting and to sew the pocket
of my trousers back together. I’m so glad we got our package wrapped by this elderly man and his friend/ brother. The one who’d called off in off the street was wearing a very dull stripy jumper which contrasted with his bright toothless smile and joy; this was clearly a happy man. His brother wore very dull clothes again, he reminded me uncannily of a sad chimpanzee, His lips were pouted constantly and this elderly man with a wrinkled round face was almost cute with how clumsy and forgetful he was.
We placed the items in the middle of the room and he pulled out a kingfisher water box, as he packed these items in I sat outside with the forgetful man as he concentrate hard to fix the hole in the pocket of my Indian trousers, As he did so he fumbled clumsily and with the fabric then slowly he sewed along the ripped seam (I’d say slowly and accurately but he wasn’t very accurate), he did so using an old sewing machine which had to be kicked into action and then the spin was maintained by rocking a small peddle with the foot. After he’d fixed the
trousers I entered the other room with the now packed kingfisher box and I noticed they weren’t fully fixed, but I didn’t think to trouble the man. The man with the toothless smile who’d called us off the street left to enjoy the festivities outside on his porch overlooking the street and a Shiva monument surrounded with candles and marigolds. The forgetful man sat on a stool armed with a measuring tape and some white cloth, he proceeded to measure several dimensions of the box, they weren’t simply the height, length and width but were complex, and as he pulled the tape measure up to identify the number by his finger he paused and concentrated hard on remembering the number, mumbling to himself all the while, I think he forgot each of them once and with a puzzled and bemused look on his face he proceeded to remeasure the dimensions, bringing the tape measure close to his eyes and staring at it as If he wanted the number to jump of the yellow tape and sit on his knee for future reference. After he seemed happy he’d remembered all the measurements he fumbled for his scissors and started to skilfully
cut the sheet of cloth that would envelop our package eventually. His scissors were huge, silver and rusting a little, I wondered how long they’d been using it. Every time he’d finished a cut he would place his scissors down unconsciously, inspect his work with the tape and then fumble around for his scissors to resume his work, he searched for them on shelves and on the floor until he finally found them in the 4th or 5th place he looked and this process was repeated 4 times. It was actually quite sweet, I know that sounds like the wrong word but he went about looking with such childish and impish curiosity and bemusement that almost made it comical but I didn’t dare laugh, a couple of times I did pass him his scissors to save him 20 seconds of looking. The last time he put them down we were sure he’d lost them for good; he looked on the shelves, under the cloth and stool and sat there like a grumpy child would if you denied them sweets. They were somehow on a shelf behind him, it was impressive he’d even put them there, he would’ve had to have
done a full swivel but I was sure he hadn’t. We left him to his measuring cutting as we ventured outside and onto the porch to observe the street in front of us.
Seemingly, out of nowhere, very loud bangra music began to play, it was the volume of Reading festival from the middle of the arena. When we investigated the source of the sound It became apparent that it was coming from huge speakers just round the corner from us. The music was good and I really want some of it on my iPod, purely so we can watch the Indian subcontinent pass by with the official soundtrack. After another 10 minutes the slow man came out and started to sew as if he was slowly defusing a bomb. Another 5 minutes passed of his tender stitching and loud bangra he re-entered the textile room/ house and we left them to it. When our curiosity at their extended absence became strong enough we peered round the door to see the melting wax and pressing it into the ends of the skilled stitching, after doing this 6 times we exchanged money for parcel and headed to the city palace
to get it sent home.
The problem was that all the post offices were closed on Shiva’s birthday and as such we had to go to a DHL courier which was more expensive but also more convenient than lugging the parcel to Jaisalmer with us.
We wandered through town to absorb the festivities and we decided to enter the small Shiva temple, a friendly Indian gentleman guided us round, stating he didn’t want any money from us, he informed us that on Shiva’s birthday priests give out free bhang/special lassis (even to children). As we exited the temple he told us not to tip the shoe porter as we shouldn’t do it (contrary to what lonely planet says) as he’ll just go spend it on drugs. He then revealed his hidden agenda and he took us to his art school across the road attempting to sell us his albeit good but expensive silk paintings after demonstrating how he did it. He wasn’t happy when we left empty handed.
Back at our most loved rooftop restaurant we observed the Israeli travellers playing with ridiculous amounts of weed, a mound that would just fit on an A5 sheet of
paper. The restaurant manager and the chefs were all joining in. They ended up getting very drunk and stoned and dancing merrily to music which I enjoyed watching whilst typing up a blog.
Time passed and unfortunately it became time for us to board our bus to Jaisalmer.
This blog’s probably a little long already so I’ll start from there next time.
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Luke
non-member comment
That english woman sounded like a dick but you were absolutely spot on so fair play. Sounds like good times bro, cant believe its 2 years since I was doing the same... so glad you're getting to have the same experiences! 2 years ago today I was in Udaipur funnily enough! May give u a ring in a lil bit, keep enjoying!