P'tit Tour au Rajasthan (1ère Partie)

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FRENCH

Nous avons débuté par Jaipur et un petit séjour à l'hopital pour Jason, qui, je dois dire, m'a fait un tout p'tit peu peur. Heureusement les docteurs se sont bien occupés de lui. Et au bout de quelques jours, sa chambre était devenu le lieu de rendez-vous où tous les médecins, infirmiers et infirmières se retrouvaient pour bavarder avec nous, regarder le résultat du cricket à la télé, prendre un café ou un thé avec quelques biscuits ou encore assister aux quelques tours de cartes que je connais.Mis à part l’hopital Soni à Jaipur, nous avons également visité la fameuse ville rose... où la vie n’est pas rose quand on y vit. Très sale, des détritus partout, les rats grouillent le long des rues. Le Hawa Mahal et les havelis, autrefois majestueux, s’effritent miette par miette. Un énorme potentiel de beauté... mais dont la réalisation est rendue impossible par trop de misère. Le City Palace est en meilleure condition... et juste à coté, le Jantar Mantar, un observatoire en plein air construit par un certain souverain du nom de Jai Singh, est original et intéressant à voir... Il y a de la beauté à Jaipur, mais elle a tendance à se trouver en dehors de la ville rose. Je pense entre autre au Rambagh Palace, l’ancienne demeure du Maharaja de Jaipur, construite il y a 150 ans de cela et maintenant convertie en hotel de luxe. L'architecture, les jardins, les fontaines sont grandioses. A l'intérieur, du marbre sculplté avec tant de details autour de chaque fenêtre, les cristaux des lustres, l'opulence du décor... On se croirait dans un conte des 1001 nuits (je sais, vous allez me dire que les 1001 nuits, c'est en Arabie... Mais le style est proche, non?).Il y a aussi le Birla Lakshmi Narayan Temple, splendide, tout en marbre blanc (et oui... Encore du marbre...) et construit par une riche famille de Jaipur, la famille Birla.

Pushkar, petite ville magique construite en bordure du désert. On peut y compter des centaines de temples (je ne les ai pas comptés mais apparament, il y en a plus de 400) parsemés comme de la poussière d'étoile autour du lac sacré.Les soleils couchants, quand on est assis sur les grandes marches qui bordent le lac, sont superbes.Je me suis adonnée à un peu de peinture miniature (art typique du Rajasthan)... un petit stage de 5-6 jours durant lequel j'ai peint un éléphant (symbole de chance), un cheval (symbole de force) et enfin un chameau (symbole d'amour!). J'en profite pour faire un petit coucou à mes 2 profs (Krishna et Chandra) ainsi qu'aux gens rencontrés à Pushkar: Simon (Canada), James et Lisa (England), Oskar (Venezuela... On en voit pas beaucoup) ainsi que Jean-Marie et Thomas (France!). Pendant ce temps, Jason est resté à Jaipur et nous a produit quelques pots supplémentaires... La poterie, nouvelle passion de sa vie?
Mes 2 semaines d'aventure en solitaire (on a décidé d'innover un peu pour voir comment c'est de voyager tout seul...) ont continué par...

Bundi, on y va pour son fort... qui a bien besoin d'être rénové lui-aussi.

Chittor, on y va également pour son fort mais c'est bien plus impressionant que celui de Bundi. On y accède en empruntant une route en zigzags (style étape de montagne du tour de France) en passant sous 7 grandes arches. Quand on arrive en haut, des temples, des palais, des tours (dont celle de la victoire) et une vue imprenable sur le... Rajasthan!

ANGLAIS

Ah Rajasthan. Land of deserts, nomads and multicoloured houses.
Jaipur old city was kind of pink but more orange and quite broken. After eating, what we thought was well for a few days I took to bed with severe sickness. After just one night of you-can-probably-guess-what we visited a doctor who promptly sent me zombie-like to the hospital where they established I was suffering from gastro-enteritis, dehydration, hypotension and by the second day mild blood poisoning due to the parched state of my kidneys. To cut a long (8 day) e.coli story short. There were a lot of drips, trips to the bathroom and James Bond movies. For Nathalie however there was a lot of running around. Firstly to sort out our medical insurance claim and secondly to find 'clean' food. You may or may not be surprised to know that the food served in the Soni hospital canteen is not prepared hygienically and is unsuitable for foreigners with stomach problems. Nathalie therefore had various near-impossible missions to distant supermarkets, fancy hotels and to Subway to get some suitable nourishment. Thankfully we were entertained by a stream of doctors and nurses who kept passing by to hang out. They brought, tea, coffee, Indian sweets, info on Islam and other wisdom. All in all we were attended to by Jains, Muslims, Hindus and Christians. Who says that religion is divisive? Aside from that Jaipur was a place of muck and brass and clay. There was the cowshit house/shed versus the Rambagh Palace's golden goblets. When Nat headed for Pushkar, I spent a week trying my hand at making pots, bowls and cups out of clay, which was fun, frustrating and therapeutic in turns. My mentor at the Sukriti studio was Satinder. Our conversation didn’t extend much beyond “Your country?" "Your country, you big money?" “Your country, you family?” “You marry?” and stuff. He was very confused that I was in Jaipur and Nat in Pushkar but explaining the ins and outs of travelling together wasn’t possible. As I covered myself in clay, Nathalie was enjoying a well earned break and expressing her artistic side. Love, luck and power were all represented in watercolour Rajastani style by a camel, elephant and horse respectively. In Jaipur I was befriended by some gem dealers. Infamous for scamming tourists they were friendly but didn’t want, or didn’t have enough time, to try to persuade me to buy any worthless gems or to help them export them to the UK. Instead we hung out. Partying involved sitting in their back office for 2 hours listening to meaning of life monologues, as different dudes from the ‘business’ came and went. My favourite was the story of my hosts deep and passionate love, respect and devotion to his German girlfriend, who was a tourist but now just happened to be in the gem business too. During her temporary absence this respect and devotion meant entertaining two tourists with his ‘banana’ as he put it. The story only improved when one of his partners piped up that he was married with two toddlers. I supposed if you have enough love, respect and devotion to give, why not spread it around. Then we were off to a club where the only other customers were guys doing the hyperactive-marionette-with-bad-motor-skills dance that seems popular with Indian males and also involved hip thrusting each other. I was witnessing one of the many disadvantages of the separation of men and women in certain social situations.

Bikaner was without the apparent fanfare (or tout hassle) of Jaisalmer but was a great place to do a mini (2 day) camel trek. In anticipation of other camel trekkers' arrival at the Camelman's guesthouse I spent a few days exploring. All over Bikaner there were hundreds if not thousands, of the hundreds of thousands of Ram devotees who'd been walking the length and breadth of India, trudging along the roadside on their pilgrimage to Ramdevji. At Karni Matamandir there were rats in the temple, (what was I gonna do) as well as a fair few of their winged cousins. On the bus on the way to Kolyat there were the twenty something homeboys who offered tea and sucking tobacco as well as a troupe of female kabbadi players. At Kolyat there were charras smoking teens by the holy ghat and Ram devotees washing, resting or getting medical attention. I could that walking hundreds of kilometres under the hot sun in flip-flops is hard going.

On the camel trek with a cook, a guide, two Irish girls and four camelmen we headed into the desert, though there is a lot more green in the Bikaner desert than I'd expected. As my camel had its young calf tethered to it for the duration I was trusted (or was it the camel), not make a run for Pak. Oh the freedom of sitting atop a camel (tethered to its calf) in the serenity of the desert. The freedom to stop at every tree or bit of brush that we approached for some camel snacking. The freedom to have baby camel try to run every which way it liked.

Our guide though not the most gregarious or informative seemed earnest in his friendliness and in the evening warmed up considerably after a couple of clandestine toots of the 7 year old rum the Camelman had generously provided us. We learned when his tongue had loosened enough for him to burst into song, that he was a musician/composer from a long line of musicians, who was now feeling the weight of responsibility of being the head of the family after his father's passing. After wiping away the tears that had formed in his eyes he also explained that he doesn't usually drink, that it was only the 4th time in his life and he'd decided to join us in a few pegs because of the harmony he felt with us. It was poignant yet felt a little strange. My cynicism was slightly piqued when he then went on to mention that he was not a rich man and that not only was a motorcycle out of his financial reach but a bicycle too. I was surprised but maybe I shouldn’t' have been. Perhaps 2 months in Inde has not taught me well enough the little money even people with jobs have? Or perhaps it's just a bike comes way down the priority list? Either way, after another rum and a smoke it was dinner time. Food was prepared by a 16 year old cook who came from a long line of cooks and 'dinner under the stars' was such an attractive proposition that some random tourists drove all the way into the desert to sample it. Lucky for our little party they brought with them extra food and musicians, so the evening was spiced with mutton curry and tribesman wailing soul stirring Ragas. We continued our trek the next day with more undulating desert, rocking and rolling about on the camels and waving at children.

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Photos

Jaipur - The man said it brings good luck... The day after, Jason was in hospital.
Le monsieur a dit que ça porte chance (chillis et citrons)... Le lendemain, Jason était hospitalisé.

Jaipur - Bye bye Umesh! Bye bye Ashish! It
... and you know why. Great to know you!

Jaipur - We went to the Pink City...
... and all we found was a cow chewing on some newspaper.

Jaipur - Jason sous le signe de la Vierge à Jantar Mantar
Jason under the Virgo sign @ Jantar Mantar