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Rajesthan |
|
Christmas 2003 |
| For the people reading this article who
are not familiar with the Indian sub continent, I will explain
that Rajasthan is situated in the top half of the country, south
west of Delhi, the border on the western side which runs across
The Thar Desert is shared with Pakistan and on more than one
occasion during the two countries long running dispute over
Kashmir this area has become a restricted war zone. Rajasthan is
widely known as the desert state, as the scenery in my first
picture illustrates so well. It is a land that is desperately
trying to forge a place in the modern industrial world and yet as
we saw so many times during our three week stay, it still
practises a lifestyle that to the eyes of a visitor from Europe,
appears to be somewhat strange and mystical and sometimes almost
bizarre. Several times during our visit we were amazed to witness
events and methods of doing things that looked to us to be almost
medieval. For the second half of December and the Christmas
holiday period of 2003 Rajasthan was to become our destination
for a what can best be described as a magical mystery bus
assisted cycle tour. During the year long wait for our visit, our
friends would ask us "where are you planning to go on you
next cycling trip?" Reaction to our answer "India"
could be divided into two distinct camps those that love the
country and them that hate it. India can be a massive cultural
shock for some people, the thought of the poverty and deprivation
experienced by many of its citizens in the large cities and
countryside, the lack of sanitation, the change of food, along
with other worries about Delhi belly and language difficulties,
can be too much to cope with for some people, so the idea of
taking a holiday in this part of the world is a non starter, many
prefer the safety of Europe or the United States for their annual
holiday. Others that we spoke to reacted entirely opposite, some
were intrigued and even envious, some were keen to know our route
and the places that we would be visiting, a few had travelled
through India themselves and told how they had become fascinated
with the diverse culture and loved the totally different
lifestyle. |
 |
| The decision to make the journey was
made at the end of December 2002 after we had seen the tour
advertised in the CTC list of world wide tours for the following
year. Our leaders were John and Pat Ashwell who made a excellent
job of the organisation with a great deal of assistance from a
small independent Rajasthan tour company known locally as Rex
Tours, (the name Rex is an abbreviation of Real Experience). A
group of seven cyclists came together for the first time at
Heathrow Airport in the early hours of Saturday December the 13th
there were four men and three women, two other ladies had made
their own flight arrangements and planned to meet us at the
Connourt hotel in Delhi. Initially the flight that had been
booked with Austrian Airlines was expected to take 14 hours, it
was very unfortunate for us and everybody else on that flight
that the pilot was taken ill as he flew into Heathrow to collect
us that morning. His incapacity had far reaching consequences
which included a four hour delay in the terminal building, a
missed connection in Austria, a night in a Vienna hotel paid for
by the airline and a return flight to Heathrow the next day in
time to board a direct flight to Delhi with good old British
Airways. Our travel arrangements continued to be disrupted for
the next two days after it was found upon our late arrival at
Delhi airport that our bikes had followed us and were all intact
but the rest of our baggage had been left behind at the London
terminal. So we missed a day in Delhi and a mornings cycling in
the countryside between Delhi and Jaipur, but there you are
that's life, the pilot could not have foreseen the onset of his
illness and on the plus side we did enjoy our unexpected night
out in Vienna which to be truthful is a nicer city than Delhi.
Experience of a lifetime has proved that it is often better to
take a laid back relaxed attitude when travel arrangements are
delayed, usually there is nothing an individual can do and having
plenty of time one can to sit back and remember the problems our
ancestors faced when travelling years ago. Only fourteen years
before I was born men were still trying to speed up the journey
to India by flying in airships like the R101. On October the 30th
1930 this prestige aircraft of the time, set off on a pioneering
voyage to India from Cardington Bedfordshire only a few miles
from my own village of Clifton. Soon after it crossed into French
air space over Beauvias in Normandy it encountered a fierce storm
and crashed into a hillside, this disaster resulted in the death
of the crew and all of the passengers. Two hundred and fifty
years before, during early colonial times apart from a hazardous
overland route, the only alternative method of travelling to
India was in a small wooden sailing ship, risking ones life
against the pirates that roamed the cruel sea and natures wildest
elements for up to three months at a time. Thoughts like these
should put a 24 hour delay on a 15 hour flight into the correct
perspective and make us thankful that we are able to travel the
world as we do in the relative safety of a jet airliner.
|
| |
| It was 4.30am on Monday the 15th of
December when we finally stepped out of Delhi airport arrivals
terminal to be greeted by Vijay who was employed by Rex Tours to
escort us throughout our tour of Rajasthan, he had been waiting
patiently with Kaylash the bus driver and Gopal the man who would
drive the truck that transported our bikes. Many thousands of
tourists now visit Rajasthan each year most of them follow the
same route around the golden triangle taking in Jaipur, Jodhpur
and Udaipur three important historical cities with many old
forts, temples and sites with lots of cultural interest. Most
visitors will fly between these cities or travel by bus or train,
our mode of transport included the simple and reliable bicycle as
a fourth method. As the cities and towns with good hotels on our
itinerary were so far apart it was not possible to cycle the
total distance so half of each day was used to cycle and the
other half spent travelling on the bus, this was a format that
was to prevail throughout the whole of our tour of Rajasthan.
After we had all been booked into the Connourt hotel half way
through the night we managed to take a few hours much needed
quality sleep before going down to breakfast and meeting the two
girls Diane and Sarah, who had made separate travel arrangements
. Instead of a day exploring Delhi plans had to be changed and
around mid morning we boarded the small bus that had been
provided and headed out of the very foggy capital along a main
state highway towards Jaipur. Vijay our guide, was eager to point
out the large brand new modern office buildings that had recently
been built on the edge of the city to house the
call centres that were beginning to be transferred from Britain
and the USA by insurance companies and other agencies to take
advantage of the much cheaper labour provided by the local Indian
workers. Jaipur is 300 kilometres to the west of Delhi and it had
been planned to travel about one third of this distance on the
bus, then cycle during the middle of the day and the afternoon
and finish the ride into Jaipur on the bus later in the day, but
because of the problems that arose when our luggage failed to
arrive, this plan was abandoned and for the first day of our tour
it was decided to complete the whole days journey on the bus. Approximately 130km from Delhi after we
had passed through a small town named Behrer, our bus turned off
the main state highway and followed a narrow minor road for
another 22km and then it came to a halt opposite what appeared to
be a cluster of small farm buildings that had been erected in a
yard. Along the sandy track that led to the stone wall buildings
with thatched roofs, a brightly coloured gazebo had been set up
by the mobile kitchen staff some time before we arrived. Laid out
inside the gazebo were three small tables each with four chairs
placed around them and a longer table that was used by the staff
to serve a buffet style cooked lunch to our group of tourists.
Our meal consisted of freshly washed salad and vegetables, a
cooked savoury rice dish, vegetable curry, sometimes meat but not
often, bananas or other fruits, rice pudding for dessert and as
if all that was not enough, chapattis and jam to fill any
space that was left. Bottled beer, clean bottled drinking water
and cans of Coca Cola and other fizzy drinks were also available.
This midday lunch was all part of the service provided by Rex
Tours on most days of our Rajasthan tour, when we had moved on
the mobile kitchen with it's staff of four, would be packed into
a four wheel drive vehicle and disappear into the countryside
until it was needed again at lunchtime the next day. This sort of
treatment was all new to Christine and myself never before had we
been pampered quite as much as this during our travels on a
bicycle. |
 |
 |
 |
|
Gopal
and his bike truck |
Sarah
with a few of the young observers |
The
farmhouse and yard |
| Along the track while we were
eating a crowd of local residents was growing larger by the
minute, the ladies and school girls must have known we were
coming as they had taken the trouble to dress smartly for the
occasion, they gathered around all keen to observe the habits of
this strange group of foreign aliens that had descended upon
their normally quiet Indian village. When we had finished eating
they were only to pleased to pose for our photos, digital cameras
are great in these circumstances, the girls were delighted to see
their faces immediately after the photos had been taken and
giggled at the pictures. The owner of the farmhouse invited us
inside to show off his very basic accommodation, a few of us
entered not knowing what to expect, although the rooms were short
of many things that we would have considered essential they were
all clean and tidy, in one section a double neatly made up slated
wooden bed stood on short square legs, there was no covering on
the floor which was a hard packed well swept dirt surface, a
single cupboard stood in another area used for food preparation,
there was no electricity for lighting or cooking, water came from
a pump in the yard, these people were fortunate to have the pump,
in many places that we visited water had to be collected from
various pools and rivers, sometimes several kilometres away from
their homes, by women who carried it back in large water vessels
on the top of their heads. At the rear of the house in a small
compound, a wood fire burning in a tiny stove that was built on
the ground, was used to cook food and bake the chapattis. Outside
in the front of the house, cows and goats that were tethered to
trees and stakes wandered around in the yard restrained from
entering the house only by the length of the ropes. Our first
real experience of Indian country life came to an end that
afternoon when we climbed aboard the bus and drove away from the
village along the flat and narrow, dusty country roads towards
Jaipur the gateway to Rajasthan for a two night visit. Travelling
long distances in a bus can make one feel just as fatigued as the
cycling does and it was a welcome relief when we arrived at our
hotel soon after the sun had set and darkness had descended. |
| |
Jaipur the ancient capital of
Rajasthan was named after it's founder Jai Sing 11 during his
reign as Maharajah which began in 1699. Constructed on a dry lake
bed it was planned and set out like many modern new cities on a
grid system with the aim of creating the perfect city for his
palace. Part of it is named "The Pink City" because of
the colour of the palace and other buildings in the old section.
Soon after we had finished breakfast on the morning following our
arrival we were joined by an official Jaipur city tourist guide
who had been hired by our tour company to show us around the old
city and the Amber Fort and relate all the relevant tourist
information and historical details. Our bus trundled off soon
afterwards into the wide streets of Jaipur that were literally
jam packed with honking motor vehicles, rickshaws, bicycles and
carts pulled by oxen and camels all struggling to go about their
daily business and fighting their way through the chaotic morning
traffic. Occasionally we would slow to a near stand still as the
driver would manoeuvre around a cow, that wandered
sanctimoniously into the street, the cows all seemed to be well
aware of the sacred status that had been bestowed upon it
centuries earlier by the Hindu gods. These protected beasts lived
on food given to them by the people of the city, nobody ever
appeared to own them or assume responsibility for their safety,
they just wandered around wherever they wanted to go, knowing
that if anyone should harm them the person responsible would be
punished by Hindu law. Cows in India always appeared to me to be
very scrawny animals with very little meat on their carcass
certainly not enough to provide a respectable size Sunday joint,
ribs and bones stand out nearly protruding from the hide which
loosely hangs on their bodies. Along with the cows, small pigs
roamed the streets performing the task of a street cleaner,
foraging with their snouts in the litter and rubbish by the
roadside and cleaning up any scraps of food that had been left by
street traders or fallen from the carts. A stop was made in the Pink City for a
photograph of Hawa Mahal Palace of Winds then Kaylash drove the
bus on to the Amber Fort. A visitor to Venice knows that it is
nearly obligatory to take a ride along the canal in a gondolier
before leaving the city, the same "must do pressure"
can be experienced by visitors to the Amber Fort to ride on an
elephant up the narrow road to the fort entrance. Our elephant
ride was duly organised by the tour guide, two people sat each
side of the great beast in a wooden chair that was strapped on
it's back, the Indian elephant driver sat with his legs
straddling the neck. As we approached the top of the road and the
entrance to the fort a group local professional photographers
moved forward to record our elephant ride for posterity on 35mm
colour film, these photos were hurriedly developed with a one
hour express service, the resulting prints were then used to
identify their subjects when they returned so that the high
pressure sales techniques usually associated with the sub
continent street traders could be applied.
 |
 |
| The Hawa Mahal
(Palace of Winds) Jaipur. |
Elephants
waiting at The Amber Fort
|
| The local guide who had been
assigned to us for the morning was an amiable fellow with a mind
that was full to capacity with historical facts and architectural
details, which under the terms of his employment he was required
to transfer during the next two hours across to the minds of his
small band of attentive followers. Dates of battles between
religious and tribal armies, names of long dead heroic Maharajahs
and mughal emperors, graphic details of construction methods,
lectures on period décor and architecture were all
forthcoming to be absorbed enthusiastically. He spoke of one
ancient Maharajah who had lived some 500 years ago who managed to
accumulate during his life time 25 wives and 350 concubines. It
was while he was showing us around these ladies living quarters
that I began to wonder how this old king had kept all these women
happy and contented, it must have been a truly exhausting task.
It is strange how the guides more titillating narrative remained
embedded while unfortunately like many other people I would
imagine, I have always suffered from a life long inability to
absorb masses of information in such short a time scale and I am
ashamed to say, that most of his deliverance travelled in a
straight line through both ears without stopping to register. It
is only right however that I should applaud the man's effort
which was always very professional and at times also entertaining
even though most of it was forgotten before we climbed aboard the
bus to move on for lunch in a local restaurant. |
| |
| Around 4am during the second
night of our stay in Jaipur a vehicle occupied by two men that
had been driven all the way from Delhi airport finally arrived to
deliver the missing bags to our hotel. It was a great relief that
we were able to complete the assembly of our bikes on that
Thursday morning by screwing on the all important pedals that we
had been waiting two days for, we also had our cycling shoes and
clothing. Our first real experience of cycling in Rajasthan began
five kilometres from the busy city of Jaipur on a quiet country
road after Kaylash stopped the bus and Gopal unloaded the bikes
from his truck. We then cycled for the rest of the day along
narrow roads through small villages and towns, untroubled by
motor vehicles. Vijay and John had compiled a ring bound A4 size
book. Inside was printed each days itinerary, a detailed route
with distances between places and a map for each days route. The
road was flat and straight when we started our ride that morning,
way off on the horizon I could see it extending for mile after
mile into the desert landscape that was only made more
interesting by the presence of short stubby acacia trees that
grew in the sand for as far as the eyes could see, like a never
ending plantation. Sometimes the road surface was very good and
at other times very uneven and breaking up. I had never before
considered front suspension to be a very important upgrade on a
road bike but there were a few times during our travels through
India when it may have proved to be a comforting addition. All
direction signs at roadside junction were written in the Hindu
script so there was no possibility of us recognising the names of
the places that they pointed to. Our route sheets proved to be
very useful as they informed us which way to turn, but very often
Vijay or Kaylash would be waiting by the junctions to make sure
that nobody made the wrong turning. Main roads in India can be
very straight and long and often very boring, with a lot of heavy
traffic to contend with. A great deal of research and planning
had gone our days cycle rides, to make sure that we avoided the
main road and kept to the quieter country roads where the traffic
was lighter. In fact the only danger came from colliding with one
of the many trucks driven by camels. We stopped for lunch with
the mobile canteen crew, who had somehow persuaded the owner of a
large house to allow them to serve the food in their front
garden. During the afternoon we stopped once more at a roadside
stall in a small village for a cup of sweet tea that had been
boiled up together with the milk and sugar in a big urn. On our
first days cycling we completed 102km, the road surface had
improved as had the scenery by the time we climbed up the hill
through the ancient village of Roopengarth to our resting place
for the night in Roopengarth Fort, which at one time was used as
a military fortress to dominate the surrounding countryside, but
these days it serves as an up market tourist hotel. |
|
 |
 |
| One of the
many camel trucks. |
Girl driving a
water wheel. |
| After dinner that evening we
were entertained by a travelling Indian transvestite with a
performance of traditional Rajasthani singing and dancing while
sitting around a wood fire that burnt in a large metal barrel on
the roof of the fort. December nights in Rajasthan can be almost
as cold as they are in England and the warm clothing that we had
been advised to take proved to be essential. The following day we
cycled on for another 58km to the outskirts of Pushkar, a city
that is famous for it's camel fair that is held annually during
November. Camel traders arrive from all over India and the
neighbouring countries for this event. A room for one night in
the smart hotel with a lakeside restaurant where we enjoyed a
very leisurely lunch break, rises from $40 to $200 during the
weeks that the camel fair is taking place. In the afternoon it
was back into the bus for a transfer to Kumbhalgarh, another
village with a fort, our hotel had been purpose built into the
hillside, once again it was quite a plush affair where we were to
stay for two nights. On Friday morning we enjoyed a 68km ride
along a valley road with a good surface through mountainous and
fertile countryside, it was then that for the first time the we
came across the waterwheels that are driven by oxen to pull water
up from deep wells, which is then piped and ducted across fields
of rice and sugar cane. This ancient method of irrigation is very
environmentally friendly with no expensive pumps or fuel
required, just people power of which there is no shortage in
India. Vijay had told us that Rajasthan was enduring a serious
drought, having had no significant rainfall during the last three
years causing real problems for farmers and local water supplies,
which are both poor at the best of times. Along the road we passed
children who always cheered us, herds of goats, cows wandering
about and more camel carts, the lorries and buses were masters on
the country roads, they assumed a right of priority and to
challenge these larger vehicles would mean certain death, they would
blast their horns and steam past, the best policy we found was to move
quickly out of their way. After a tea stop in the village of Saire we descended for 16km to
Ranakpur for lunch in the tent and an afternoon tour of the
Adinatha Jain temple . |
| |
| Jains are people who formed
their own Indian religious sect around 600 BC, they went their
own way and diversified from the Hindu beliefs to develop their
own faith. They did not like the Hindu caste system and didn't
believe in reincarnation, they preached a policy of non violence
to their fellow human beings and animals, thus leading to a
strict vegetarian diet. They also liked to practise the art of
constructing magnificent marble temples, that are so full of
intricate painstakingly carved marble pillars, statues and
shrines that one wonders how men could have the patience and
imagination to complete such complex works of art. The temple of
Adinatha was started in the 15century and took 60 years to
finish, it has 1444 carved columns no two of them are the same,
restored to it's original splendour in the 19th century, with
thousands of visitors every year passing through it's entrance
it is now regarded as one of the wonders of the world. There is no
charge to enter but one has to pay to take a camera in, |
 |
 |
| Outside the
Jain Temple of Adinatha |
Carved columns
inside . |
| how many tourists travel without a camera, you may
ask, but there you have it, a cunning plan to get around the
thorny problem of entrance fees to a holy site. It was far to
late in the afternoon to cycle back to the hotel, so we relaxed
sitting in the bus that was driven very carefully by
Kaylash,
up the long climb back to Kumbhalgarh.
On Monday the 20th we cycled for 68km to the outer
fringes of Udaipur through more rural and mountainous scenery
descending once again for the last 16 miles. On the way I
photographed a man with truck being pulled by a camel I gave him
a 50 rupee note, not because I had intended to, but because I had
no small change and felt that I owed him something for posing, he
must have thought that he had won the lottery that day, if a man
earns 10 rupees a day working in rural Rajasthan he does well,
that was a good weeks wages I learnt later! At 3pm in the
afternoon we booked into the Udai Kothi Hotel, Kothi means
mansion in Hindu which was not an understatement, once again it
was all very grand and plush, with an outside swimming pool and a
restaurant on the roof, offering stunning night views of the
illuminated Palace on the lake.
|
| |
| Once
more a rest day from cycling had been planned into the itinerary
to allow time to look around the city and visit the sites of
interest. Saheliyon ki Bari when translated means 'Garden of
Maidens' sitting just below the Fataeh Sager lake, it is an
ornamental garden with a lotus pool, fountains and a rose garden
as well as carved marble elephants with water running down their
trunks. It was designed by Maharani Sangram Singh 11 in the early
18 century as a pleasure garden and summer retreat to allow the
ladies of the Palace and the 48 young maids that formed part of
the queens dowry, escape for a while from the restrictive court
lifestyle and the men that surrounded them. A reservoir that was
hidden by four black and one white marble cenotaphs was supplied
from the lake, to feed the five fountains that were imported from
England. The ladies were allowed to visit the garden to enjoy the
limited freedom of an afternoons break from the obsessive
formalities and monotonous procedures of palace life. They could
talk and laugh in serene and tranquil surroundings, walking
around the neatly laid out terraces and the pools where fountains
shaped like birds had water gushing from their beaks, the walls
of the garden were decorated with exotic fruit trees and roses.
Having once been employed as plumber I could appreciate the
complexities of the water works, that were of special interest to
me, they were an amazing achievement in 18 century India. It was
very unfortunate that because of the three year drought the
fountains were unable to work and the pools were almost dry.
After the visit to the gardens we were escorted to Udai Palace by
the local guide who had been assigned to us for the morning for a
tour of another splendid ancient Palace, when we had finished we
walked back through the narrow dusty city streets to our hotel
crossing a wide bridge that spanned a dried up river bed, on the
way. The afternoon was spent relaxing by the hotel pool and
enjoying a plate of chips and a chocolate pancake in the
restaurant, a welcome change to the diet of vegetable curry and
chappatis. I have always enjoyed Indian food in the restaurants
back home, but after a week of curry every day I was beginning to
suffer with the condition known as curry fatigue along with it's
well known side effect, the dreaded Indian loose bowel syndrome. |
| |
| On
Monday the 22nd of December our magical mystery tour
continued with an early morning bus ride to Amarpura a village
50km away from Udaipur, where we began an 80km cycle ride to
Dungapur. One of the big advantages of going on cycle tours with
an organised group is that the local tour guides were able to
arrange visits to places which allowed us to interact with local
communities in a way that individuals travelling alone could not,
so adding a lot more interest and giving more insight into the
local culture. An example of this happened around midday when we
were 25km into our cycle ride, the escorting bus and truck had
stopped in the road outside the entrance of a primary school,
during the day they would stop now and then to allow the party to
regroup and make sure we had not become lost on the road and
replenish supplies of fresh water. On this occasion Vijay had
spoken to the school master who had agreed to take us into the
school and give us a short talk about the Rajasthan education
system. Vijay and the schoolmaster lead us over the stony sandy
ground, away from the road to a square white concrete building
with a flat roof that was about the same size as a double garage
on a modern British house. The interior looked very bare there
were no desks or chairs, I assumed that the children would sit on
mats on the flag stone floor, there was a blackboard on the wall
and a few other charts, there were no books to be seen, the
children did their writing on small slate boards. All of
the children waited outside in the grounds while we were inside their
classroom , some of these children would have walked up to 8km to
attend, (no 4x4 Chelsea tractor school run for these kids). While we
were in the single classroom a man |
 |
 |
| The school building |
Inside the class room |
| walked from
the gate by the road, carrying on his back a 50 kilogramme sack
that was full of a ground wheat meal, he dropped it onto the
floor in the corner of the schoolroom. Vijay explained that it
would be made into a porridge and used to feed the children, it
was supplied by the local authority to ensure that the children
received at least one substantial meal each day. It was also an
inducement to encourage the parents to send their children to
school. Education is not compulsory in Rajasthan, it was not long
ago that only 20% of children went to school that figure has now
improved to 50%. There is very little work in the countryside for
educated people so once they have achieved a basic education they
tend to move away to the big cities to find work, earn more money
and improve their life. This breaks up the traditional extended
family lifestyle of country people making them fearful of loosing
their children if they send them to school, some prefer to keep
them working in the home or attending to the crops in the fields
or sending them out to collect firewood or carry water. The one
free meal a day policy has been used to help overcome the parents
fears and reluctance to schooling.
|
| |
| Later
in the afternoon we cycled along the side of a lake to the Hotel
Udais Bilas that had been built on the opposite bank to the town
of Dungarpur. It did indeed seem like a real palace to us, our
room for the night was enormous, we reckoned it had more floor
area than the whole of the small cottage that we call home. That
evening, dinner was served in the banqueting hall another massive
size room, that had animal heads mounted as trophies on large
wooden plaques with the place and date they were killed written
beneath them, these were hung all around the walls like they
would have been in an old hunting lodge. It seemed quite bizarre
to sit eating a meal with the eyes of long dead tigers, gazelles
and other big game animals staring down at us from above. It made
me think that I should become a vegetarian. The following day our
bus was held up for a while at a border crossing as we travelled
from Rajasthan into the neighbouring state Gujarat. States in
India, I learnt that day, are governed quite independently |
 |
| Hotel Udais Bilas |
| from the central government, each one raises their own revenue
and has different tax laws. Vijay had to pay a border tax for our
party before we were allowed to cross over. There were long
queues of lorries waiting to cross on this busy highway. A major
road building project was being undertaken to alleviate the
congestion, earth movers and excavators had been at work along a
long section upgrading the road. An afternoon cycle ride involved
an 18km climb up to the top of Mount Abu the site of another
renowned Jain temple. The marble used to build this temple was
carried for 500 kilometres on the backs of elephants over a 1000
years ago. Christmas Eve was upon us, we had another day split
with an early morning bus ride and then a 60 kilometre cycle
ride. Sometimes the road surfaces that we cycled along were very
good and at other times very bad, I was pleased that I had made
the right decision to fit the fatter 37mm tyres to the bikes
before we left. Groups of children would form up in lines by the
roadside and call out 'ram ram' (hello) as we passed by. The
scenery changed becoming a little more boring as the roads became
flatter and straighter. In some places they were covered with
sand that had blown across from the adjacent dessert forming sand
dunes that were difficult to ride through. We were on the edge of
the Thar Dessert that stretched out for miles with the thorny
acacia trees the only vegetation in site. Traffic on the roads
was still very light with only the occasional bus or lorry coming
past, we quickly learnt to keep out of their way as they were the
masters of the road and reigned supreme slowing down for no one.
Our approach to Dhamli Fort was made along a 7 kilometre stretch
of an unsurfaced sandy desert road. Dhamli Fort is the home of
Indri Singh and his Canadian wife Margaret who greeted us at the
gate and would be our hosts for a quite unusual Christmas Day
2003.
|
| |
| Indri
was the owner of the fort, a fairly large village that was
adjacent to it and thousands of acres of dessert land that
surrounded it, in our terms he was The Lord of the Manor and it
had been this way for him and his ancestors for centuries past As
we were to witness when he took us on a conducted tour of the
village on Christmas Day morning he certainly commanded a great
deal of respect from the local population. Whenever he was
greeted the person would place their hands together in front of
their chest and bow their heads down in the traditional Indian
manner. He took us into several of the village houses that
morning, in one an old lady worked on an old fashioned spinning
wheel turning cotton into yarn that she was also able to weave
into cloth, on a loom in the same room that was just as old as
the spinning wheel. We saw millet being ground into flour, by
young boys hand turning large grinding wheels and an ox driving
another ancient wheel to do the same job. We saw young girls
cooking chapattis on a wood burning stove. In the village temple
the funeral of a women was taking place Indri invited us all in
to watch the ceremony. Most of us backed off feeling that it
would be far to intrusive on the families grief and we waited
outside. Many people were arriving at the Hindu temple to pay
their last respects. A man sat in the entrance crying out loud in
a show of public grief, I was informed that he was the dead
woman's husband. Many women arrived singing as they entered all
dressed in bright Rajasthan clothes. A mysterious liquid was
being passed around by the mourners on a small silver dish which
they poured into the palm and then drank from the hand. Indri
explained to us as we moved on to another part of the village
that all the blue houses that we could see were occupied by the
people of the Brahmin caste, who sit at the very top of the Hindu
caste system, they are the priests and professional people, their
houses were painted blue to emphasise their status. The other
part of the village was some distance away in a more rural
setting the small loosely tiled houses seemed to have a bit more
space, each one had the usual cooking and sleeping areas but no
separate rooms as we know them, some members of the family would
sleep outside during the real hot weather. A compound was used to
keep the families animals usually goats and cows.
|
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| Spinning and weaving |
Grinding millet |
| It
was back to the Fort for lunch and then a visit to The Horse
Temple had been arranged for the afternoon, that was 3 kilometres
away across the semi dessert. I had never visited a Horse Temple
on Christmas Day before, it is not the sort of thing people do on
such an important anniversary back home in England where the
usual ritual is to fill oneself with turkey and Christmas pudding
and then settle down to watch the Queens speech and an afternoon
of seasonal specials on the television. So I was filled with
intrigue and a feeling of excited anticipation at the prospect.
We had been told that we would be travelling to the temple on
horse back, but when the time came to leave only three horses
were available, so the majority of us made the journey on the
back of a truck. I could hear chanting and the drums beating as
we climbed down from our vehicle and made our way to the
entrance. The temple had an open plan design with just a back
wall and 6 concrete columns supporting the roof, an area in one
corner had been squared off with a partition of iron railings.
Inside were a group of musicians and a priest who was loudly
chanting, while conducting a ceremony to chase out the evil
spirits that were believed to be responsible for the sickness in
a small child's body that was being held out in it's mothers
arms. Another cleric possessed the powers to tell peoples
fortunes with the assistance of a few grains of corn that he
placed in the participants hand. In separate area a group of men
wearing large white and red turbans and dressed in flowing white
Rajasthan robes squatted on the floor around several hubble
bubble pipes, I was not sure what they were smoking, but if the
smell was anything to go by it was not ordinary pipe tobacco
that's for sure. The silver dishes that we had seen in the
morning were being passed around again, I learnt this time that
one of the ingredients of the mysterious liquid was a form of
opium, which is strictly speaking illegal in Rajasthan as it is
in most countries but as its use is so wide spread and it has
historically formed part of the culture it is almost overlooked
by the authorities. Needless to say we declined all offers and
only drank the chai tea that was being brewed in another part of
the temple, chai is the hot and sweet tea that we had before, it
was the only acceptable drink that was available for us to celebrate
Christmas that afternoon in The Horse Temple. I never did understand why
it was called The Horse Temple the only connection was the three horses
that had travelled with us, but that doesn't really tie up. |
| |
| It
was unfortunate for Margaret, Indri's wife, that the local lady
who she employed to cook for her had to take time off while we
were there, to cope with a family crisis. A big traditional
Christmas dinner had been planned for the evening, Margaret was
an excellent host in many ways but sadly her domestic skills did
not extend to the kitchen, cooking for 18 people it seems was to
much of a challenge. It must have been a real disappointment to
our hosts, when after all their efforts the meat that was carved
off the chicken on the long festively decorated table by Indri
and served to his guests, was found to be as tough as the tendons
that had kept the birds legs and wings working as it had moved
around the yard outside for the previous ten years. A second big
disappointment came with the first mouthful of potatoes which
were still nearly as hard as they were when first introduced to
the cold water in the cooking pot. Our leader Pat was judged to
be the hero of the day, when it was revealed that she had
secretly transported a Christmas pudding all the way from England
for the festivities and ensured that it was cooked nicely all the
way through, rescuing the meal from what had been a near
gastronomic disaster. So
ended a most extraordinary Christmas Day, on Boxing Day morning
we all enjoyed a good breakfast and then said goodbye to our
hosts, then cycled away along a hard packed sandy track for 2
kilometres, where we reached a road with a tarmac surface. Long
sections of the straight road that was lined with cacti hedges,
had begun to break up making it a very bumpy ride once more, in
other places sand dunes created by the sand blown over from the
dessert covered the surface and gripped the wheels like a brake
slowing the pace. We managed to ride for 72 kilometres during the
morning before making a planned rendezvous with the mobile
kitchen crew, who had set up the gazebo by the side of the road
on desert land and cooked an early lunch. |
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| The
hubble bubble smokers |
Women
and children of Dhamli |
|
Our destination for Boxing Day night was Jodhpur, during the early
afternoon we completed the journey on the bus. A local guide who had
been hired by Rex tours, was waiting patiently at our hotel to take us from the city along a 5
kilometre meandering road that climbs steadily for 150 metres up
to the top of a hill, where overlooking all the city and all the
surrounding countryside, he had been employed to conduct a tour
of the majestic Meherangarth Fort. Founded in 1459 by Rao Jodha,
who the city of Jodhpur was named after, it is probably the most
formidable of all the fortifications in Rajasthan and has been
the sight of many battles during past centuries. Still run by the
Maharajah of Jodhpur, it has been added to over the years. Inside
the sprawling site are several courtyards and palace. Seven gates
in the outer walls allow access, the main entrance is Faterpol or
(Victory gate) which commemorates the defeat of the Mughals.
That's enough of forts and palaces for this report, interest was
beginning to wane we had seen so many during the last fourteen
days. Shiv rural camp where we were to stay the next night was a
bit different, built with aid money it consisted of several very
basic thatched huts each with a sleeping area and a toilet and
showering facilities. It was set up by the man who owned the Rex
tour company, the day to day running was financed by income from
tourists like us and various charities, it's aim was to help the
local poor nomadic people better themselves by providing
education and support. Several Danish students were staying at
the camp who were voluntary workers employed during the day at
the small local schools helping to teach the children English.
They also cooked our meal that evening and sat with us later
while we were entertained in the camp café / dining room
by a group of traditional folk musicians and dancers from a tribe
of nomadic people who were living nearby. Our final days cycling
took us from Shiv Rural Camp to Jaisalmer on a very hot day along
a very straight and sandy road that crossed part of the Thar
dessert. At times it became very a boring ride there were no
other towns or villages along the 120km stretch only the stunted
trees , cacti and sand. The mobile kitchen team who had returned
to their base were no longer there to feed us at midday, we had
all been issued with a packed lunch which I suspect could well
have been the cause of the problems that I would have to contend
with the following day. On the left side of the road, some 45km
to the west was the Pakistan border, it was in this region that
the tanks and armies of India and Pakistan have lined up against
each other several times since the partition of the two countries
in 1947. |
| |
| My
first morning at Jaisalmer was marred as I have suggested in the
previous paragraph, by a sudden attack of the Indian sickness
that became manifest in my stomach at breakfast and persisted for
most of the day, rendering it very important that I stay within
close proximity of a clean flush toilet and thus disqualifying me
from a visit during the morning to the mighty Jaisalmer Fort that
rises up on a hill from the centre of the Thar dessert to
dominate the surrounding area. Unfortunately Indian sickness is
well known to be a common complaint amongst travellers from the
western world and it can lead to serious consequences, in my case
it forced me to spend a whole day relaxing in the confines of
the hotel complex and provided spare time for reading and allowed
me to catch up with writing my notes. It was during the later part of the morning
on the next day which was also the penultimate day of our holiday
in Rajasthan that we departed in the bus that was once again
being driven by Kaylash, back to Jodhpur only this time to the
railway station. I was starting to worry about Kaylash who had
been like a faithful servant driving us everywhere, he never made
me feel nervous or uncomfortable with his driving on the contrary
he was always very careful and considerate, but he did drive for
long hours at a time and I worried that he may nod off at the
wheel due to lack of sleep. He told me that after he had dropped
us off at the station he had been instructed to drive on to
Jaipur to pick up a party of Norwegian girls who he would be
driving around for another two weeks. At the railway station we
were all safely packed into a first class sleeper carriage of the
overnight train to Delhi after saying our goodbyes to Vijay and
Kaylash who waved at us from the platform as we chugged off into
the night. I have always enjoyed train journeys especially in
foreign countries and I had been looking forward to this one.
|
| |
| Trying
to sleep on a train is for me a similar experience to sleeping on
a jet airliner, to be truthful it is nearly impossible, what with
the noise of the engine and the clickity clack of the wheels to
contend with, the best that can be achieved is a prolonged spell
of light snoozing. Such was the state of consciousness that I
awoke from early on that New Years Eve morning, the fog had
stretched out once again well beyond the suburbs as we approached
Delhi, slowing the train considerably. Looking out from the
window of a train one often has a view of the backside of a town
or city, unlike looking from the streets where one sees the more
carefully designed front facades of the buildings, from the back
one often sees the bare truth and real living conditions that
people have to endure. I have never seen this theory more starkly
illustrated as I observed on the sides of that railway. A long
stretched out shanty town that extended right into the city
centre had grown up over many years. People were living in
ramshackle shelters constructed of materials that had been
salvaged from builders skips and rubbish tips, old sheets of
corrugated iron, plywood or polythene formed the walls and roof,
while rough bits of timber and old bits of pipe and metal bars
bound together with wire and rope made the supporting structures.
Oil lamps provided light while small fires warmed women and
children as they squatted outside cooking breakfast for the rest
of their families. Built so close together there was hardly room
to walk between the dwellings that came nearly up to the railway
line with no fence for safety. Peopled wandered back and forth
over the railway as if it were a pedestrian precinct. There did
not appear to be clean water supplies, electricity, toilets or
drainage systems, rubbish was burnt. During the hottest days of
the summer months temperatures would rise to above 40o
celsius, when it does rain it can be torrential, to me such
conditions would be unbearable. Children are born everyday into
this life of squalor and deprivation many die as babies or in
their early infancy of diseases that are caused by this lack of
sanitation and health care, the level of poverty experienced by
these people that we witnessed living alongside that railway made
the even the poorest people in the UK seem almost wealthy. I
wondered if some of them were the Dalits or untouchables, the
poor unfortunate victims of the unfair Hindu caste system, who
are born into the lowest division where they are condemned to
live a meagre existence doing menial and manual tasks that no one
else will do for very little money. Or begging on the streets,
with no hope of being allowed to move up through the social
classes, thus perpetuating the eternal poverty, that has plagued
so many people of India from the beginning of time.
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|
People of Rajesthan |
