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Published: April 12th 2008
Since my last entry we have completed a whirlwind visit to Rajasthan - 8 nights in all, 3 of which were spent on overnight trains - and had 2 nights in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I am exhausted and swimming with images - good and bad of this strange country. Jolanda and I have decided that everything in India is bizarre and irritating - and pretty much every experience is one or the other, and most are both!
However, to return to where I left off....arriving in Jaiselmer in the Thar Desert. Jaiselmer in a word is magnificent!! The Jaiselmer fort, where about 15,000 people still live, rises like a giant sand castle out of the dessert. The whole feeling of the place is that of an outpost - almost wild west - town. Both the fort and the town around it have narrow, winding, cobbled streets. Motorbikes, rickshaws, cows, pigs, dogs, and little stalls and shops all vie for space and attention. Cow dung is everywhere! The gutters, which are really an open sewage system, are used for just about every ablution. Despite this, there is none of the unbearable sewage stench we found in Delhi.
The people in Jaiselmer are pushy, eager to sell you anything and happy to rip you off. But we liked them nonetheless. They will eventually take "no" for an answer, and they laugh easily and warmly.
We spent our time wandering in the fort, palace and havelis of the towns glory days. We shopped and ate and did the requisite camel tour. But mostly we just soaked it in. We would happily have spent a week in Jaiselmer, but in two days it was time to catch the train again.
For this trip we had only been able to get second class tickets instead of first class. Officially this means that you are in an air conditioned sleeper with 6 beds per compartment instead of 4. Unofficially it means that yours will be the only white face in the car, and probably the only woman. It also means only squat toilets, no curtains for privacy and alot of very noisy men laughing uproariously long into the night. This was not a great night's sleep - made worse by the fact that we arrived in Jaipur at 5am!
After Jaiselmer, Jaipur was a bit of a shock. Jaiselmer has a population under 60,000 while Jaipur's population is somewhere between 2 and 4 million depending on who you talk to. We were back to congestion, pollution, people everywhere, and NOISE. I don't think I've explained about the Indian love affair with the car horn. Because the roads are so frantic, use of the horn is considered a good thing as it provides a warning to the driver in front that you are behind them. As a result absolutely everyone uses their horn all the time. The experience of driving through the city in a rickshaw with trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles, cows and camels ready to take your life at any moment is made almost unbearable by the ceaseless noise. You feel like you are going completely mad - actually it feels like you have already gone completely mad!
Fortunately we stayed in a lovely (and very quiet) hotel in the suburbs of Jaipur with a beautiful courtyard and swimming pool. This made for a bastion of peace to which we could return when the city got too much for us.
We saw EVERYTHING in and around Jaipur. Glorious palaces, temples and forts....to the point where we were completly forted-out!!
Jaipur, by the way, is known as the Pink City (although we thought it looked more Orange than pink). Apparently the town was painted pink by royal order, to honour the visit of the Prince of Wales a few hundred years ago. Interestingly, the shops all now have overhead signs in a similar black on white design - and this was done to honour a visit by Bill Clinton when he was president. So, this is a town that takes visitors seriously!!
We only had one night in Jaipur - but two very full days, and I must admit we were happy to see the back of it when the overnight train to Udaipur pulled into the station.
We loved Udaipur. This is the "white city" and home of the famed Lake Palace Hotel. It's a relatively small city - under 900,000 - and they seem to have figured out that tourists will be happier and will stay longer if you don't drive them completely insane. We stayed in an area called Lal Ghat - and at least here the local community has banded together to enforce a policy of low tourist harrassment. Not only is it beautiful, but it's wonderfully peaceful and the people, hotels and shops are a joy. We never wanted to leave!
The highlight of Udaipur was the start of the festival of Gangaur. This is a festival where young women pray to the Gods for a good husband. We went down to Gangaur Ghat to check out the action. We arrived early - but already the place was a sea of colour. Women in beautiful saris everywhere - from 1 to 100 years old. All laughing, dancing and having a damn good time. As time progressed processions of women would appear with these brightly coloured statues on their heads. We never got to the bottom of what this was all about - but it certainly got everyone feverishly excited. When it finally got so crowded that short people like me couldn't see anything anymore, we retired to a rooftop restaurant. From here we could see (and hear) various ships filled with minstrels and dancers - and the main ship with the "main man". Again, we couldn't quite get to the bottom of who the "main man" was supposed to be - but I imagine he represented a good husband. We were mystified as to why the main boat never managed to make it to the Ghat where the women were celebrating - and wondered if this was some way of playing hard to get. As it turned out it was simply that the water was too low for the boat to reach the action.
All too soon it was time to leave Udaipur. This time we splurged and had purchased airline tickets back to Delhi. They are building a new international airport in Udaipur and it is impressively modern and clean - how exciting that it will be possible to come to Rajasthan and avoid Delhi altogether!!
We had arranged for a car and driver to pick us up at Delhi Airport. Despite our betting to the contrary - they were actually there to pick us up (I say "they" because there were actually two of them). Here began the road trip from hell to Agra (short for aggravating). This was not the best part of our trip....but I'll leave that for the next installment.
Sorry - still no pictures. I now have them loaded onto a CD - but this computer is just too slow. Have waited half an hour and still haven't managed to download one photo. Ahhhhhhhh - this place drives me crazy!! Must head out now and face further irritation. Either I will learn patience here or have a complete break down.
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Emma
non-member comment
chaos
sounds like complete chaos, but that you are having a lovely time. In fact, it sound a bit like 800 Tooronga Road - male dominated, chaotic, a bit smelly and no one can work out what's going on and who is supposed to be where!!! Look forward to the next instalment, Em xxx