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Published: September 14th 2007
After nearly two years in London and a fleeting one-week visit home to Adelaide for Andrew's brother Bernard and Amanda’s wedding we were up very early on Wednesday morning, bags packed and ready for three weeks in India. It felt a bit premature leaving Adelaide already after less than a week here but I knew we would be back in a month’s time. Long flights, plane food and watching movies on a tiny screen had begun to feel almost the norm after 26 hours from London to Adelaide and now from Adelaide to Sydney, Sydney to Darwin and finally on to Mumbai. Phew - the world is a big place!
This arrival in India was to be very different from our backpacking past. Instead of fighting the hordes of taxi drivers at Delhi airport we arrived to a surprisingly calm Mumbai airport and were whisked away to our friend's apartment by their own personal driver. We had to laugh when we walked through the arrival gate and saw an Indian man holding a sign saying 'Doobs and Catherine'! Through the familiar crazy traffic which seems to follow no rules we arrived to be greeted by our friend Karen who has
been absent living first in New York and now Mumbai for the past four years. Soon we were seated on her plush leather couch, gin and tonic and beer in hand. Now this is the way to arrive in India! Stuart arrived home from work soon after and after a good catch up and far too many hours awake we were definitely ready to fall into our very comfortable bed! This was definitely not the India we experienced as backpackers.
Next morning the driver dropped us at the Beach Candy Club where Karen and nearly two year old Harrison were at an activity group for young children. We swam in the deep, clear salt water pool and enjoyed the warm sun on our shoulders and the fresh air in our lungs. The pool was surrounded by lush green grounds and brightly coloured flowers and our lazy lunch made it seem like we were on holiday in a tropical paradise. Again - not the India I remember! Karen and Stu have a lot of help in the house including a housekeeper, nanny, cleaner, ironing man and car washer. I think I could get used to the life of an expat
in India! Of course the pay off is the long hours that Stu works and the hard work of trying to live in a vastly different culture to Australia or the States, especially with two young children, Alexander being not yet one. It is quite amazing how well they adapted to such a foreign environment and it will be a great story for the boys to tell when they are old enough.
We spent the afternoon wandering around the Gateway to India, where I was quickly accosted by a ‘priest’ who ‘blessed’ me with a red dot on my forehead and red cotton around my wrist - all of course for a small 'donation', the Taj Palace Hotel (one of the most famous and elaborate in India) and Coloba Causeway. That evening after reading stories to Harrison for a while Karen, Andrew and I headed off with Ramesh, their driver, to meet Stu at work and then head on to dinner. We were lucky enough to be dining at one of the fantastic restaurants in the Taj Palace Hotel and the food was without doubt the best Indian we have ever tasted. Of course nothing on the menu was
anything like the Indian we know and love in Australia or England. The starter plate included some kind of spiced/smoked broccoli and I had no idea broccoli could taste so good, even though I am quite a fan of the regular steamed variety. We also ate 'porcupine chicken' which is chicken cooked in a thick layer of dough, which is the then discarded, a slow cooked leg of lamb, a lovely red bean dhal and squid in a tomato sauce with curry leaves. Yum! And of course it was great to have a lovely evening with long absent friends and hear more about their amazing lives.
The next day we were to head back into the bedlam that is the India we have grown to know and (most of the time!) love. Ramesh kindly drove us to the bus station (a tiny stall by the side of the road) were we were to board our 18 hour sleeper bus to Udaipur. We had no idea what to expect from a sleeper bus but were soon to find out that what we got for our 1200 rupees (about $40AUD for the both of us) was a mezzanine compartment of our
own, just big enough for us to lie down with a glass screen to stop us rolling onto the lower floor in the middle of the night. So far so good. My second test as ‘traveller’ came at the first pit stop, which was in a huge bus park with at least fifty other buses. I was busting for the toilet and followed the directions of a friendly little water seller down to the familiar brick shed. It was a case of hold your nose, don’t breathe, definitely don’t touch anything and get out of their as fast as you can. I wondered how I coped with this for six months and wondered if maybe I was getting a bit old for this budget travelling after all. The bus journeyed on and on (with stops getting slightly less gruesome along the way). We even got brave enough to chance dinner at a roadside café, and the bus journeyed on and on….
Eighteen hours is a bloody long time on a bus and we were very glad to reach Udaipur slightly later than our 5.30am scheduled arrival time. We haggled ourselves a rickshaw ride to our chosen guest house and
of course had to contend with the dodgy driver taking us on a wild goose chase trying to get us to go to a hotel where he would get commission. The memories of constantly having to fight people trying to trick you in India flooded back. We were far too savvy for him of course but unfortunately the hotel we had been recommended by a friend in London was full and we had to put our backpacks on and go on a very early morning accommodation hunt, sometimes waking the hotel owners to ask if they had any spare rooms. Luckily with our slightly increased budget the rooms were not too dodgy and before long we found a lovely room with an amazing view of Udaipur’s famous lake and the renowned Palace Hotel (not to mention the running hot water and western toilet!)
With no time to waste we headed to the rooftop terrace for breakfast with a view. Being on holiday we probably wouldn’t usually be out and about at 7.30am so it was a real treat to see the lake and hotel draped in the beautiful soft golden morning light as the town woke sleepily and the
first boats of the day glided gently across the calm water. I couldn’t think of too many better breakfast spots than this - and the restaurant served proper coffee too!
First up on the sightseeing agenda was the Jagdish Temple, an Indo-Aryan temple built in 1651. We were lucky enough to arrive just as the bells were chiming and a ceremony with lots of singing, feet stamping, clapping and gangling of tambourines was taking place. As with most Hindu temples there were little shrines scattered around the temple, all covered with the red paste Hindus put on their forehead and bright yellow marigolds. The obligatory Sadhus were sitting cross legged at the front of the temple with their orange cloth and long dread locked hair hoping to be given a rupee or two to allow them to continue on their spiritual quest. Next stop was the City Palace but before we even made it through the gate I was accosted by a group of about 20 young Indian men wanting to know my name, my occupation and if they could crowd around me and have group photos taken - on all their cameras. I felt like I was being
man handled by a huge group of fans but the attention all became a bit too much and I had to refuse any more photos after a while. Something like this could only happen in India.
The City Palace was an amazing building perched on top of a hill overlooking the city and surrounding hills. It was a real maze of small rooms, skinny low ceilinged staircases and vast courtyards framed with beautiful elaborate carved window frames which revealed views of both the Palace Hotel in the middle of the lake, the lake itself and the city. There were paintings, fountains, and intricately mirrored rooms and the complex reminded me a lot of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The same group of young boys who acosted me at the ticket window were also in the palace but I managed to escape after posing for just one more photo. I couldn’t believe how cheeky they were when they pushed another girl's boyfriend aside so they could pose alongside her - lucky for them he didn’t seem to be the jealous type.
Lunch was at a stunning lakeside restaurant set in a lush garden with views of the lake, City Palace,
Palace Hotel and a ghat where women in brightly coloured saris were pounding clothes, washing them the old fashioned way as their children ran and played around them. It was the kind of restaurant that I can imagine would set you back more than just a few dollars in Sydney or London but in India the views came with a delicious vegetarian meal for two for the princely sum of just $AUD9. After lunch we wandered over to sit on the steps of the ghats and witnessed a group of very cheeky young children trying to rouse a backpacker who had fallen asleep with his iPod on. It was very cute. On our way to an afternoon cruise on the lake a painting caught my eye outside a shop and of course Indians being the salespeople they are we were enticed into the shop for a further look. We were ushered into a back room and the door was closed behind us as we perused the lovely artwork on the walls. Our sales assistant was a real professional and worked out that I liked flower paintings so he got more and more and more out to show me but none
were quite right until Andrew spotted a lovely elephant painted in gold and silver on black silk. It caught his eye and the salesman noticed this and there was no going back. The painting, we are told (everything comes with a pinch of salt in India) was done by a very old artist who uses real gold and silver leaf in his paintings and they are so rare that one day they will be worth a bit of money. The salesman also said something about the artist using cow urine (the first batch after they had been fed many mangoes) to paint under the gold leaf for an extra vivid colour. Whether it was true or not the paintings were stunning and almost glowed in the dark when the lights were dimmed. We were shown larger and more intricate paintings but still liked a small sized painting of an elephant best and were pleasantly surprised when it cost only $AUD50 - we were expecting a lot more! After all the attention and fantastic service we received we felt it wrong to haggle (maybe we were stupid - who knows) but we left very happy customers with painting in hand and
memories of a fun hour spent in the company of salesman who befriended Roger Moore when he was in Udaipur to film Octopussy.
In the warm glow at the end of a hot, sunny, blue-skied day we boarded a boat for a relaxing and very scenic cruise around the lake including a pit stop at an island containing a glorious 16th century palace with sculptured gardens and fountains, four enormous and beautiful marble elephants marking its entrance and lovely views across the lake. So far India and the Indians seemed a lot more laid back than we remembered and we finished a very busy but relaxing day at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the ever-present lake view with the sparkling lights of the Palace Hotel opposite us and candlelight between us.
After a lovely lie in and another relaxing breakfast on the rooftop restaurant with that stunning view we headed out into the busy, but not too busy local market. It was Sunday morning so things seemed a little sleepy but we did have a bit of an unpleasant encounter with a group of young boys who grabbed Andrew's wrists and were pulling him to and fro yelling something
we couldn’t understand at him. They eventually stopped when yelled at by a passing adult, no harm done. We wandered the streets of the bazaar selling brightly coloured sari material, shoes, a million and one different metal containers and street food. However the highlight was the fruit and veg market with its brilliant colours, lively atmosphere and plethora of vegetables many of which we hadn’t seen before. We haggled with a rickshaw driver and made our way to Ahar, a small park containing more than 250 restored monuments to past Maharajahs dating back to the 15th century. The row after row of white, round-roofed marble statues made a beautiful sight made all the better by the brightly coloured bougainvillea dotted throughout the park, the lack of other visitors and the monkeys playing in the distance. After lunch, where we watched a mahout and his elephant negotiate a narrow road in the centre of town, we walked over an hour around to Fateh Sagar, Udaipur’s other lake. There were lovely views of the surrounding hills and this was a real weekend holiday haven for the locals. We wandered up through some beautiful gardens, lush with many varieties of flowers to Moto
Magri where there was a huge fountain (idle because of the drought) and a statue to Rajput hero Maharaja Pratap. It was a pleasant and peaceful hilltop park with views that went on for miles. We finished off the afternoon with a visit to the calming Saheliyan-ki-Bari, a serene manicured garden built in 1710 for the 48 female attendants who where part of the princesses' dowry.
We were lucky enough that night to attend a performance of local dance, music and puppetry and we were so glad we did. Sometimes these things can be cheesy and touristy but this was just beautiful, entertaining and authentic. And the setting helped too - the audience perched on cushions around the perimeter of an atmospheric courtyard of an 18th century haveli where the performances took place. Most of the dances comprised of a lot of twirling which was beautiful to watch as the girls brightly coloured and jewel encrusted wide saris swung out in an arc of colour as they spun around and around. There was a quirky puppet show, a dance where the ladies balanced pots of fire on their heads and the piece de resistance - an older lady dancing
with ceramic pots on her head, adding more and more as the performance progressed until at its height she was balancing nine pots on her head as she stomped on broken glass. Her balance and poise was incredible - as Andrew said ‘Cirque de Soleil eat your heart out’ - and all done with an infectious smile on her face. I was seated next to a friendly man from Pakistan who had been to Adelaide for a medical conference in the past and told me about Pakistani and Indian culture. I remembered that meeting such great people is one of the joys of travel. All in all it was one of the best evenings I have spent in a long time and I could hardly wipe the smile from my face. I had been feeling a little jaded that afternoon not really excited by what I was seeing and a bit unsure if travel still held the same fascination for me but this chance performance and meeting revived my enthusiasm and excitement.
After our last breakfast on the rooftop terrace overlooking the lake (a treat of banana pancakes, a common item on the menus in India that I'm sure
the locals rarely eat) we met our private driver for the day who would be taking us to Kumbalgarh Fort and the magnificent Jain temples at Ranakpur before dropping us at our next destination, Jodhpur. Now don’t worry we haven’t gone too up market - hiring a driver was just the easiest way to get to these remote sights - and the effort was well worth it. The drive for starters was fascinating, through back roads and rural villages where men with turbans carried pots on their heads, sari-clad women hand picked wheat from the fields and children sat on old wooden wheels coaxing buffalos to pull the wheel which powered an ancient irrigation system. When we rounded a corner and the enormous, imposing fort came into view it was such a shock it took my breath away. We didn’t know too much about the place we were visiting which made the discovery all the more memorable. The fort was set at 1100m high and the walls covered over 36km enclosing around 360 temples, as well as palaces and gardens. We followed the path up to the top of the fort which seemed to climb endlessly upwards with false top
after false top. When we finally reached as far as we could go we looked out over miles of barren rows of hills and were amazed at just how far the fort walls reached and how many temples there were. I felt like I had landed somewhere along the Great Wall of China. After hours of happy exploring we continued our drive through more rural villages to the Jain temple at Ranakpur. The temple was built in 1439 out of white marble and contains 29 halls and 1444 intricately carved pillars, no two of which the same. It was the most beautiful temple I think I have ever seen and left me feeling very peaceful and keen to practice more yoga! The Jain religion is a mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism and the head monk gave us a small tour around the complex. He and some of the other monks also posed for photos with tourists (for a small donation) and I found it a strange mix of religion and commercialism. After over three more hours of driving and more horn beeping than I wanted to hear in a lifetime (horns seem to be used as a substitute for following
lanes in India) we arrived in Jodhpur. Unfortunately we arrived in the middle of a festival and the old town was choked with people, rickshaws, cows and bicycles so much so that we literally had to fight our way through. After all this our chosen accommodation was full and we had to trek through the hot, smelly, noisy, polluted, crowded streets laden with luggage. Lucikly the hotel we had been referred to was vacant and despite being a little more than we intended to pay we ended up at the top of the hotel in the Maharaja Suite which was a huge room decked out in traditional Rajhastani style with a balcony and amazing views of the Meherangarh Fort which overlooks Jodhpur. The hotel also had a lovely family atmosphere and we were given some of their special festival dessert - a bit like sweet rice pudding with saffron and tiny grapes. It seems the aggravation was worth it.
The next morning we made the most of our luxurious (although very inexpensive by western standards) suite with a lazy morning followed by breakfast on the roof top terrace overlooked by the fort. The fort was our first stop for
the morning and we walked through the streets in the busy old town, then up the steep hill to the imposing entrance. Once again the views from the high point above the town and surrounding plains were beautiful and I could now finally see why the called Jodhpur the blue city - from this height the number of blue buildings was overwhelming and it gave the city a character all of its own. We spent an enjoyable few hours exploring the fort with the help of a very interesting audio guide and learnt a lot about Rajasthani painting, dress, transport and how incredibly well the royal family lived. It was a very atmospheric place, helped along by some sitar playing buskers and demonstrations of how to tie a turban.
After visiting a peaceful marble memorial and its lovely garden we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the busy local markets around the clock tower - a very English architectural featur that seems to be in many Indian towns. Our impression of India this time around remained that it was not as busy or as daunting and the locals were a lot friendlier than we remembered. We spent a
lovely evening in a garden restaurant set in a complex of bars and restaurants that did not seem at all like india but was full of locals. The tables were well spread out in a lovely garden and candlelit and would have been very romantic if not for a giant screen blaring out the World Cup Cricket. Nevertheless it was an entertaining and relaxing evening observing some local culture (which included the pristine, white picket-fenced images of India shown in the television ads, which made us wonder where on earth this part of India was and if the locals really believed that there was such an oasis in their country) and the barbequed chicken and veggies stuffed with paneer were delicious!
Unfortunately we were not able to enjoy too leisurely a morning in the Maharaja suite this morning (but even if we were we would have surely still be aroused at 5am by the call to prayer from various mosques in the city which seemed to be blasted into our windows from all sides). Our guide Mr Babinda Singh (as he introduced himself) was picking us up at 8.30am for a tour of the Bishnoi Villages outside of Jodhpur.
The Bishnoi people believe in strict vegetarianism and respect for the environment and will not even eat vegetables that grow under the ground as they believe the harvesting of them is cruel. We were pleasantly surprised on this tour with the amount of wildlife we were also to see - it flourishes in this area due to the Bishnoi's great care and respect. Within the first hour of the tour we had already seen numerous peacocks and antelopes, a desert rabbit, gazelles and of course a lot of cows, goats and buffalo. Before the hour was out we also saw water buffalo and turtles - I felt like I was on safari. It was lovely to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city and into nature and the tiny sleepy villages where life seemed so simple. Water is still collected from community wells and carried by the ladies on their heads and firewood collected by hand. It was also really interesting to see all the different dress of the village dwellers which was dictated by their caste. The Bishnoi ladies wore beautiful bright red saris which looked stunning against the monotone desert landscape and the men wore
all white, with a variety of different turbans marking their caste. Our first stop was the home of a Bishnoi lady and her two children. We were invited to share in a traditional opium ceremony (it tasted awful) followed by some much more appetizing chai. After I was invited into the house where she dressed me up in traditional clothing including a bindi on my forehead, which to my amusement was done with bright pink nail polish. I then learnt to grind millet by hand which was a very good arm workout. It did feel a bit contrived but it was fun and taught us about their lives. We also visited the homes of a potter and block printer, which are traditional handicrafts to the area and performed by a particular caste (the potters caste, printers caste etc). I have always wanted to try pottery and got my turn on the hand spun wheel. I can’t say I was a natural but who knows with a bit more practice! A personal demonstration and a chat with a lovely local convinced us to buy a beautiful block printed sheet of material - although we are still not sure what we are
going to do with it! Lunch was in a little round mud brick hut and cooked over an open fire - a yummy curried curd and beautiful hand made millet chapatti as well as some seeds from a local tree that I really was not to sure about. Being taken to so many handicraft centres and once being given the hard sell was a bit of a blight on the morning but we really enjoyed the tour - our guide was fantastic and taught us so much, as well as being a genuinely lovely man, all the locals were friendly and happy to pose for photos and it was very refreshing to be out in nature again - it was a morning well spent.
We spent the afternoon visiting the incredible Umaia Bhawan Palace and museum. It was built in 1929 and took 3000 workers 15 years to complete. It is a very strange palace, traditional Rajistani style on the outside, Art Deco on the inside. Half the palace is now a hotel where just a few days prior Liz Hurley celebrated her marriage ... if only she had known we were going to be in town! On the
way back into town we visited one of the vast jam-packed antique shops where traders from all over the world come to stock up for their shops. I walked around imagining how great these things would look in our house - if only we stayed still long enough to decorate one. We rounded off the afternoon with a delicious, thick creamy makhania (saffron lassi) whilst people watching at the bustling clock tower markets. Then it was time to waste a few hours until we boarded an overnight train to Jaisalmer. Indian train stations always bring out the worst in me - I hate the hundreds of sets of prying eyes watching you incessantly- and rudely never looking away. I started to get very annoyed and moved away when people sat too close or stared for too long. I tried to remind myself that it was all part of travelling in India though and a result of our very different cultures, which makes India so rewarding to visit in the first place.
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Alanna
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Pics are amazing!
Fabo kids!