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Published: January 13th 2015
Our next stage of the trip was a two week taxi tour with Ashoks taxi tours. A few of my friends had highly recommended this trip and said it was a highlight of their time in India, As did the trip advisor reviews. It is a trip where a local drives you around rajasthan, showing off the beaten track sights, local cuisine, and generally chats away to you about Indian culture. We could not wait.
Day One....
Having slept like a dream in ac tier one on the train we were kind of alive and awake at 8am to meet Danielle and Rhys at the New Delhi central train station. As per in India, things never go quite to plan. We did find Rhys and Danielle quite easily, as I said to Craig just look for white people (there aren't many) and we saw two sets of white legs sitting on the floor and bingo it was them. Finding our taxi tour driver was a totally different matter. We were told Raj would meet us off the train...nope that didn't happen but no stress im sure we will find him. After ringing Ashok (very expensive phone call using my
UK mobile phone) we were told there were two entrances to the train station and we were at the wrong one (surprise). We then needed to head to the VIP parking section of a huge carpark and look for a white car with an Indian man in it. This was a challenge...where's Wally on an Indian tour! All the cars were white and this being India all the men were Indian. We couldn't find VIP parking and after two hours a sweaty, non smiling, non apologetic Indian man came up to us. Raj we could only presume. We tried to make a joke of things but that went down like a led balloon and despite lots of smiling there was only a sad face from Raj.
We spent the day in the lovely air con car, very pleased we had gone with the bigger model of people carrier as we all had two bags each and would have felt squashed into a little Tate indigo XL we initially were going to be getting. We spent about 6 hours driving today. One of us was in the front to try and make conversation with Raj, who still hadn't really explained
the mix up at the train station let alone say hi and generally make simple conversation. Not to worry we chatted away (mainly Danielle and me) for the duration of the trip and it was great to catch up as last time we had seen them it was at the wedding of the year.
Our first stop was Mandawa and Raj took us to a heritage hotel to stay. In theory the tour is said to work that Raj asks us how much we want to spend each night and takes us to a couple of places to potentially stay so we have a choice between a cheaper night or a splurge. We were just driven to the heritage hotel.
To be fair it was nice and very heritagy, we managed to get a cheap room and were even shown the honeymoon suite which would make a great party room. The walls were totally covered in red mirrors (yes, even the ceiling) and it was a bit creepy but also quite cool. We had a wonder around the area, it wasnt that friendly, but we did find a lovely spot to watch the sunset. We were told it
was build in one thousand and ninety three but we are sure he meant 1993.
Later when we returned for dinner we were given a puppet show which was another random experience. The puppets were handmade by a local whose whole family is a line of puppeteers. After the somewhat, interesting performance which consisted of chopping of queens and elephants heads accompanied by scary schreechy music Danielle went and had a go whilst I had a look at how beautifully made the puppets were. The puppeteer was so friendly, after we gave him a tip he did decide to hang around longer, which made us feel bad to give him some more money - we had just been had. It made us feel naive about the nature of his friendliness. Lesson learnt.
Day Two.....
Another thing about the taxi tour it that you agree with the driver on what time to leave the next day...this didn't happen but the hotel staff helped us out and said normally taxis leave at 10am. Okey doke. We filled up on the all you can eat breakfast and said morning to Raj. Raj didn't really say much back but he seemed
Junaugh Forta bit happier than yesterday.
It was at this we (as a team) decided to email Ashok and ask if he had a list of hotels they tend to take people to so we knew what our options were so Raj didn't have to explain. We also asked if there was an itinerary of what we were doing day by day as Raj did not communicate with us for whatever reason.
Today we were driving to Bikaner. This was another couple of hours drive spent chatting away, about 190km from Bikaner we stopped for some lunch in the middle. I couldn't work out what there was on the menu and took a maverick choice ending in disaster. I had a plate of curd for lunch...filling...not. But the boys found an Indian sweet shop...things were great again. The sweets are called Nankhtai, which is like Indian short bread, delicious!!! We thought these sweets were so nice we thought to cheer Raj up we would buy and give him some. This was a massive fail. Raj took one look at them, didn't say anything and gave them to the beggars who had been hassling us for money since we had
arrived at lunch. Raj is turning into a challenge to crack. Right where this fail occurred was the Karni Mata temple. This means rat temple. From now on those tasty Indian sweets are called rat sweets. The story of the temple goes that Laxman, Karni Mata's stepson (or the son of one of her storytellers), drowned in a pond in Kapil Sarovar in Kolayat Teshil while he was attempting to drink from it. Karni Mata implored Yama, the god of death, to revive him. First refusing, Yama eventually relented, permitting Laxman and all of Karni mata's male children to be reincarnated as rats. The story behind rats at the temple is different according to some local folklores. Local folklores say that 20,000 strong army men deserted a nearby battle and came running to deshnoke. Upon learning the sin of desertion, punishable by death, Karni Mata spared the lives but made them rats and offered the temple as the future place of stay. The army of soldiers expressed their gratitude and promised to serve Karni Mata lifelong. The temple is famous for the approximately 20,000 black rats that live, and are revered in, the temple. If one of the rats is
killed, it must be replaced with one made of gold.
This was intense. First we had to take our shoes off, then walking in the smell gets you. Rats and piss and poo. I've only ever had a hamster and if you didn't clean her out it was a little bit smelly..this was another level. There were rats everywhere! You had to be careful not to step on one. This was even before we went inside the main temple. I lasted about 2mins before I decided enough was enough. I had narrowly missed stepping on a couple of rats and the stench for me, was too much. I also didnt have a spare gold rat to give incase l did infact kill a rat, so l took a breather. After this I made myself go back in for another gander. Yep, still the same smell and rat obstacle field, and we couldn't get too close to the shrine as we weren't Hindu.
After cleaning our feet with wet wipes we headed back to the car and raj drove us to Bikaner and raj again took us to a hotel (without discussion) which was a little overprice. However, we
manged of get the price down to a reasonable price. I swear, within 5mins of checking into the hotel the hotel manager told me there was a phone call for me. Who could it possibly be? Ashok the boss man.
I had to reiterate everything to ashok and after the phone was down he must have been onto raj who came to us shortly afterwards and said we were going to do more surprise sightseeing. Ok...strange...something must be wrong with Raj or he is not doing his job or were we in the wrong. Again, we werent told what we were going to see , just driven and let to wander round. We saw the royal family crematorium and then dropped off at the city.
We walked around here for absurd aimlessly looking for food. Admitting defeat we headed back and ended up having a great curry meal at our hotel. If only we had known.
Day Three.......
We spent the morning at the Junaugh fort. We decided to get cultured and took the audio tour which was very good. The fort is beautiful and we all really enjoyed it. It has been well resorted and
had some cool artifacts in it such as the kings specialist made spoon which accommodates his moustaches so food doesn't go in his mouth when he eats, as well as lots of paintings, the elephant garage and an impressive armoury.
Today we continued driving and drove to Jaisalmer. This took 5 hours driving. The landscape totally changed here and the dessert started to sweep in. I took the front seat next to Raj to try and communicate with him but despite using my best conversational skills came to no avail. We arrived close on sunset and did what you do in Jaisalmer, went on a camel safari, this was up to the sand dunes to watch the sunset. The other three really enjoyed their camel ride. Me...not so much. I grin and beared it for about 10mins and thought enough is enough. I was terrified the camel was going to start galloping at any moment and was anxious waiting for it to happen. I've decided riding animals with four legs is not for me. At least I tried! Ha. So l walked along and got my daily workout done hiking up the dunes. I do quite like camels, they
have very distinct personalities, and they were dressed very pretty (not their choice I'm sure but they seemed happy enough and didn't spit which seemed like a good sign). We watched the sunset over the dunes and it was gawgous. We also did some running down the dunes which was fun. Danielle face planted poor thing when she got to the bottom but it made for a great photo.
After sunset we headed back (I walked) and Rhys came flying past having asked for the camel to run. It was funny to watch and he managed to not fall off.
After this was had a very tasty Indian meal serviced under the stars and a cultural dance. Danielle and me were grabbed to get up and we did some Indian dancing. Again we were stared at until we gave a tip which made us feel uncomfortable. Us being British couldn't not, but some up Europeans (we think German) stood their ground and didn't pay up. Fair play.
So we had three options for sleeping...1) in a hut 2) under the stars on by bed with duvets 3) on the floor of the dessert. We choose option 2
and that meant sitting on the back of a cart pulled by a camel into the middle of the dessert. What we had been sitting on doubled up as our beds and we had a couple of duvets each. This was great!. Our view was with the stars of the night. I manned my fleece and piled under the duvet and was snug as a bug. We stared at the stars for a while and sleep time came without a problem. I remember vaguely stirring and being cold but I just snuggled in my duvet and was back to sleep pronto. When I stirred again it was time to start thinking about getting up. It was the sound of the dysfunctional camel that got me moving. The camel seemed to have a prolapsed stomach which he kept bringing up and putting a show of it out to everyone, it made a proper awful noise whilst doing it so obviously we had to get up and get a better look. I don't know what was happening with the poor old thing. Sleeping under the stars was great experience ticked off. I highly recommend sleeping under the stars. We felt safe with
our trusty guides and strange mouthed camels close at hand and I've not seen so many stars. It wasn't too cold either so we did sleep well.
Day Four...
We spent the day in Jaisalmer fort and got a decent room near the entrance. After some food and a wash (having slept under the stars) we headed to the fort for a look around. We were all feeling a bit tired and forted out and with some great news from home reaching us we decided to chill out and find a roof top bar and have a few drinks and some more nice food. We had a good time and chatted to one of the workers at the about Indian culture and his life which was really interesting..really friendly guy.
Day Five.....
Again we weren't too sure of checkout time so when for a safe 9.30, had our breakfast and waited for Raj in the reception. After 30 mins we were a bit worried as to where Raj was. Danielle went outside to check and there he was waiting for us. Oh dear things weren't going too great. We were lacking communications and some initiative from
Good sign
Jaisalmer Raj. We piled into the car and drove to our next stop Jodhpur. We stopped at a reasonably priced hotel where we got the price to our budget and headed out for a wander. We headed to a recommended restaurant (the hotel owners brothers anyway) and had some more delicious food. I love every day being a curry day. We were a bit pooped still so (hungover) so decided to have an admin day and spent he afternoon in the restaurant. Danielle and me talked more and both got henna tattoos. Mine on my wrist and hand and Danielle on her ankle. Both looked great and intricate. After here Danielle and me went to the old market for window shopping which led to more tatt being bought and me personal shopping for Danielle. At the market we saw the clock tower and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. It was here we bumped into our friend Lucas who did the Poonhill trek with and generally hung around with in Pokhara (Nepal). He was doing the taxi tour with some other people, as Craig and me had so highly recommended it. Lucas told us about how
much fun his driver was, how chatty he was, how off the beaten track he was taking them, the food they were trying etc etc. oh no. Not only had we recommended the tour to Lucas, he was paying the same price and getting the tour we had wanted and had planned for months! We were pleased for Lucas that they were having a great time. But let's be honest, Raj was definitely being rubbish with us. After another team meeting we decided to write an email to Ashok and tell on Raj. We know India is India, but to meet people doing the same thing as us and getting a totally different experience is not good enough. If we wanted a guy to just drive us around we would have got one and for a much lesser price. Email sent and we headed out for food and an early night.
Day Six.....
We woke to have an email waiting for us from Ashok. This said email stated that Ashok would be coming to meet up to continue the tour. We we not looking forward the driving with Raj. However, things weren't really uncomfortable as Raj didn't talk
to us anyway so we didn't know if he was annoyed with us or not. We headed out at a set time we had arranged with Raj as we were booked to do the flying fox experience. Our taxi was spotless and gleaming...we could only presume the boss man was en route. The Flying fox experience meant zip lining amongst the Mehrangarh fort. Excited and quite scared at the same time..how are safety standards for zip lining in India. Only time would tell.
We had an ace time and were sad when it finished. There were about 6 zip lines in total and they went over the courtyard of the fort as well as over the moat. You got a great view of the surrounding city and the thousands of blue painted Brahmin houses. The Brahmin people are individuals from the Brahmin castes/tribe who have taken on many professions such as priests and scholars to warriors and business people. In Ramayana in history, Brahmin sage Parashurama is an avatar (divine incarnate representation) of Lord Vishnu, who takes up arms against kings to deliver justice. Sage Parashurama is portrayed as a powerful warrior who defeated the Haiheya kshatrivas twenty one
times, was an expert in martial arts and the use of weapons, and trained others to fight without weapons. The Brahmin paint their houses blue so people know that they live there and as a status thing as they are proud to be this caste.
After the zip lining we had a walk around the fort which again, was impressive. They definitely know how to build forts in Rajasthan. After here we were driven to the Umand Bhawan palace museum which is a fancy palace still used by the royal family. Us muggles can look at their collections of fancy cars and the museum. If you could afford it you can spend the night in he palace which is rather fancy. We also went to the Jaswant Thanda which is memorial for the Marharaja of the Jodhpur state built in 1899. Raj also drove us to a semi plush restaurant (luckily not too expensive) called on the rocks where a local recommended some good food dishes.
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Momma Toni
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Great photos thanks!
Hi the photos of the forts look really beautiful and very impressive! i wouldn,t have been able to tolerate the rats all over the place and certainly not the smell as i have a heightened sense of smell so i would have been retching!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, sleeping under that huge star filled sky must have been awesome i would love that, raj the taxi driver sounded like a right wet weekend kind of a guide! no good at all not much of a sevice offered there and then having to pay him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not good enough and a pain in the ass! i absolutely adore indian food so mouth watering jealousy from me! lots of love Antonia xxxxxxxxxx