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Published: April 11th 2009
Pearl Palace Jaipur
This was a very nice place with many interesting features. Art work everywhere.I like deserts. The stark, harsh beauty of the landscape. The all powerful weather. When it is hot it tends not to muck about, winds blow largely unchallenged by the land and lift dust where the grass cover is gone. when it is cold the cold is deep and definite. The people who live in deserts match their environment. Tough, hard people who have to work harder than people in any other environment to survive. Some may even prosper, but it is hard to do that in a desert unless there is something under the ground that others want.
I don't know how much of Rajasthan actually qualifies as desert at the moment. We were told by a local that the average annual rainfall in Jaipur was 4mm. I am not too sure how much credence to give that figure. The vegetation in the area suggests that it gets a bit more than that. We are not talking about rolling dunes - such as the Simpson Desert in Central Australia. Large parts of the areas around Jaipur, Jodphur and Jailsamer, though are certainly very, very dry with low scrubby trees where there are any and very little ground cover.
Jaipur Streets
You find all sorts of strange things There is water available. How else could you have a city such as Jaipur with over 3.5 million people, Jodphur with over 1 million or, the comparatively little place, Jaisalmer with its measly 60 odd thousand. True, a lot of the water is piped in to Jaisalmer - one bloke told me it came from the Ganges but, again, I would like to check that before relying on it.
A man we met on the train from Siliguri to Delhi told me that if there was water in Rajasthan it could feed the whole of India and have enough left over to look after a few other countries as well. He reckoned that the soil was so good in Rajasthan that all you needed to do was sprinkle the seed, add a little rain and then get ready to harvest. This man, you will be surprised to hear that he was born and bred in Rajasthan, was convinced that the place could become the food bowl for the entire area, if they could just divert a couple of rivers. He may be right. Where there is water crops do grow and they seem to do well. The drier climate
City Palace
I think. Have to put new captions on all of these photos and may get some wrong. would mean that there are less predators about for crops and there is an excellent transport system to get the produce to market.
Unfortunately, at the moment, there is not much water to spread about for crops. As you move progressively west to Jaipur, Jodphur and Jaisalmer the land is increasingly given over to goats and sheep rather than crops. They do get millet, lentil, mustard and some wheat together with some local bean type vegetables that are grown during the months when a bit of rain might reasonably be expected - generally July and August.
As you move through mile after mile of bare ground with low, thorny bushes and some fairly typical scrubby trees it looks as if nothing will ever come back. But there is a lot of stock. Herds of 60 or 70 goats, all in pretty good nick, are common. There are also mobs of sheep, the long tailed variety - perhaps Dorper or a cross of some sort - which at this time of the year have very skinny tails. I guess they would build up some fat in the good part of the season and use it in the summer. As
Silver Urn
Maharajah wanted Ganges water to drink while traveling to Europe. Had a couple of these made. They hold 9,000 litres made out of pure silver. OTT - No way. always, there are cattle about. They aren't generally in as good nick as the goats but that may just be a function of the way they have to live. Camels are about, although not in substantial numbers. They are not wild here, of course. And there are a few donkeys to add to the mix.
We drove past some places where areas had been fenced, apparently to keep the animals out, and there was pretty good grass cover with some more substantial bushes. While it wasn't possible to tell how long they had been fenced, the difference between these areas and the surrounding environment is dramatic suggesting that better land management could assist in slowing down, or maybe reversing what appears to be a process of desertification of some relatively large areas of land. Hard to say though. We have only driven through. It may have been going on like this for years with the ground being eaten bare through the dry months and coming back better than ever with a bit of rain.
One dramatic difference from the deserts that I am more used to in Central Australia is the number of people. They are everywhere. I
have no idea how they all survive. There often doesn't seem to be much that they can grow, produce or generate. One thing they are employed on is the roads. You regularly come across large teams of people, particularly women working by hand on large road construction projects. They look spectacular. Out there in the blazing sun brightly dressed in pink, red, green and yellow saris or, increasingly, blouses and big skirts that seem to have many yards of material in them. The women seem to specialise in digging trenches and carrying the heavier loads. Men are more typically employed working with machinery of some nature, although many still work on basic labouring tasks.
There are villages everywhere. They seem to be smaller than villages in other parts of the country with sometimes just a few houses and storage huts. We haven't had much of an opportunity to visit villages although we will do so when we take a camel for a ride a little later this week.
Unfortunately, our travels in Rajasthan have focused mainly on the cities. Unless you have a particular focus when you travel - looking for religious sites, shopping, trying to track down
animals or birds - you tend to end up at the sites that people in the place you are visiting consider important and significant. It does make sense that the locals will know what is good and interesting around their own patch. Here in Rahasthan the locals are keen to get you to see temples, palaces and, most of all, forts. Temples we are pretty much over. Palaces, well we have seen a few and I think we are just about finished with them too. Forts? More interesting and we have now seen a few. The Red Fort in Delhi is large and is being restored. The Jaipur fort sits high on a hill above the town. At Jodphur the for is well and truly open for tourists and at Jailsamer theirs is part of the town. We have now seen just about as many forts as we need to see I think.
Out here in Rajasthan it was tough for a maharajah - although a little tougher for his people. He might have his villages to tax but they didn't produce much so there wasn't as much revenue to rake in as there might be in a richer
Jodphur
the Blue City. Originally the colour of the Brahmins but now everyone is in on the act more productive area. To get more you really had to be prepared to go and take it from someone else. The bloke next door was handy so he was generally the first target. You either went to war with him, married his daughter or both. One maharajah of Jodphur fought over 70 battles in the 50 or so years of his rule. I am not sure if he was the one who, on returning to the fort after a battle was asked by his wife, the maharani, whether he had won or not. On being told that he had lost she decided that he could just stay outside.
One of the perks of the job or maharajah was that he could have as many wives as he wished and could top up this number with concubines. Elaborate arrangements were set up in the palaces to allow the maharajah to move about the place without his various wives knowing what he was up to. Jealousy was a real issue in the poor fellows life and it must have been a difficult management task keeping everyone under control and moderately happy. Of course, all of the wives would have been very
Dinner at the Shahi Palace
Reasonable food but a pretty hopeless system for cooking and delivery keen to get as much attention as they could. They needed to breed children, and more importantly sons, so that the wealth and happiness of their particular family could be assured. In some places there was a lot of competition. The palace at Jodphur had space for wives and concubines up to a total of about 350 so the pressure would have been on.
I know that most places have a fascination for royalty, whether it be those who used to govern, those who star in movies or those who star on the sporting field but I would not be too depressed if I never had to look at another palace, palanquin or any other folderol of the rich and famous.
We travelled from Delhi to Jaipur by train. This time we got to sit up and look around. The trip only took 4 hours. We left Delhi at 6.15 in the morning and were in Jaipur mid morning. Jaipur has a reputation as having touts that are some of the most persistent in India. We had pre-booked our accommodation and it looked like it was reasonably close to the station so had decided to walk. The only
real diffiuclty we had was that we didn't know which way to turn out of the station. Provided we turned the right way we would get there reasonably easily but we did have to make that turn. As soon as we emerged from the station they were into us. The deal is that they take you to a hotel and then get a commission from the hotel. It may be the hotel you want, but generally not. It will always cost you more because you are billed for the commission that the tour gets. One bloke was very persistent. We were trying to work out which way to go and this bloke was in my ear constantly. Finally, I turned to him and told him in very clear, very precise terms where he should go. Turns out that he either understood very basic Australian bad language or got the gist from my demeanour. Anyway his shoulders slumped and he turned and walked away. I haven't used the technique again but it is good to know that it works.
The Pearl Palace in Jaipur was worth the walk. It is among the best that we have stayed in for cleanliness,
Gates at Fort
Have lost the name of the fort at Jodphur but these gates had spikes to keeping butting elephants - and loser hubbys - out. comfort and service. As an added bonus, throughout the place there were sculptures, paintings and other objects. The rooftop restaurant provided excellent food in a very relaxed atmosphere and the staff were friendly and professionally. The team in the restaurant were from Darjeeling. They work there in the high season and then move to Jaipur when its high season is on.
The Palace in Jaipur is ornate, bejewelled and everything you want in a palace I suppose. Next door is a place that is a lot more interesting. One maharajah with more money than he knew what to do with and an interest in science and astrology developed a number of sites around India where
From Jaipur we travelled out to the Ajmer Fort which is one of the most spectacular around. We could have travelled up the hill to the fort by elephant but they are very definitely animals in the wrong place. Elephants live in jungles, not in deserts and these ones looked decidedly the worse for wear so we drove and walked up to the fort. It was interesting with a very good palace inside it. We had an excellent guide on this occasion and
the tour was worthwhile.
Our train from Jaipur to Jodphur was another night sleeper train. This one was to leave at 11.30pm. We rolled out to the station at about 10.30 after killing time around the hotel for the evening. The train was a couple of hours late and we spent time in both the waiting room and on the platform. Unfortunately, Tony had picked up something and was crook for most of the night and he had a particularly uncomfortable time of it. To add to the difficulty we had tickets that indicated that we were on a waiting list. The tickets had been confirmed but we didn't have tickets that indicated this. We couldn't tell, therefore, which coach we were to be in - just the class. When the train came in it had one carriage of our class up one end and another down the other end. It was a very long train and we had no idea how long it would stay at the station. We made it to the coach, climbed on and parked ourselves in a compartment operating on the basis that it was better to be on the train than off it.
For Janet
a bit of stained glass In fact, we actually had sat in the compartment we were allocated so all was well.
Off the train in Jodphur and in an auto rickshaw to Yogis Guest House. Again the touts were into us. Our promised pick up was not about - although we found out later he was in the area - so a phone call was made to the guest house. It was interesting to see all of the other mobiles come out as soon as Tony said his name and the name of the guest house. Everyone was after the possible fare. 30 seconds after Tony hung up a bloke walked up and said 'You are Tony and you are looking for an auto to take you to Yogis?'.
Yogis was typical of a lot of the guest houses/ hotels in Rajasthan. The places are converted houses or havelli which used to house large families. Standards vary but they typically lots of stairs and a rooftop restaurant with the rooms arrayed around the other levels. Yogis had three levels of rooms and a restaurant. It was OK and, if we hadn't hit the Pearl Palace first, we may have been impresed. But it
Many Courtyards
Designed to keep groups separate - men, women, concubines, wives etc. It was tough being a maharajah was OK.
We travelled from Jodphur to Jaisalmer, a distance of a little under 300 kms by car. This was a more expensive option than using the train but it was more convenient and, the truth be known, it is possible to become tired of sleeping on trains. We will have plenty more chances to experience trains.
In Jaisalmer we booked into the Shahi Palace, another havelli. Again a nice enough sort of place built out of sandstone with beautiful views from the roof top restaurant. The fort here is built of out of sand and sandstone. It is basically being gradually dismantled by the joint effect of use of parts for building materials and through the action of overflowing water from drains and sewerage. A very impressive fort, although not as impressive as Jodphur, and the largest sand fort around but dispappointing because, unless action is taken soon to manage it differently, it wont be around too long.
We are off to do a camel safari, of a sort, this arvo heading off to sleep overnight on a sand dune. We will come back after that and get onto a train for 30 odd hours back
Peacocks in the Desert
and doing pretty well it seems to Delhi. There we will do some last minute shopping - there must be some of that - posting of stuff back home to reduce the load and then on a plane to Istanbul.
A post on Delhi will come incorporating both the first and second times. Bye for now.
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anonymous
non-member comment
The Hilltop Fort outside is AMBER FORT not Ajmer which is the name of a town close to Pushkar