Liketytrip

We left cosmopolitan Mumbai and plummeted back into the India of yesteryear. Rajasthan is awash with colourful buildings and turbans, vibrant saris, golden deserts, plodding camels, ancient forts and Maharajas. Our souls instantly became calm again and we were mixed up in a whirl of ancient history.

First stop Udaipur with its stunning Lake Palace Hotel which seems to float upon the water. The narrow cobbled streets were pretty and wound their way up and down the local terrain. Whilst there were still plenty of wandering cows and motorbikes to dodge we loved this sweet town. Views to the Lake Palace Hotel were aplenty; the hotel is a rather swanky affair and was used in the Octopussy movie (so any discerning backpacker guest house showed re-runs of the film every night).

We made ourselves busy wandering round the City Palace on the mainland for a few hours. And whilst sitting on our hotel rooftop admiring the sunset across the lake, another guest arrived who we instantly recognised from the Swarambayath Stupa in Kathmandu. He wasn’t hard to forget. The first time we saw him we thought he was a Bollywood star; intricate facial hair, cowboy boots and an air of superstar about. I had sneeked a picture of him at the time and we later asked a few Indians if they recognised the person in the snapshot but we only got blank faces (unfortunately we sent this pic home on a cd). This time round, Guy bounded over to say Hello and We meet again! It turns out he was Frederic Cartier from the one-and-only diamond jeweller Cartier family. And before we knew it we’d been asked to join him for drinks that evening at a local restaurant. How could one refuse?

We donned our best smiles and rocked up. Frederic was already with a couple of other men (a German antique dealer and an American professional photographer who were also out in India to make a buck). What an evening… what a strange man! He was very entertaining, constantly getting excited about finding diamonds, jewels and paintings to sell at Christie’s and even more so about what a reputation he seemed to think he has in India. “They call me the Maharaja of Paris!!” he kept spilling, “They love me!!”. He recounted one story of him having been on the front page of the Times of India newspaper and also how people fall over his feet to greet him. We managed to wake up the whole sleeping city and our hosts at midnight when we were sped through the streets in his customised rickshaw, sound system blaring, and screeched to a halt outside our guest house. The next day we did a comprehensive Google search but there seems to be no mention of him whatsoever…

On to Jaipur, the Pink City. It’s a grimy town that doesn’t live up to its reputation of being a Pink City – it’s more orange. It’s also pretty noisy and there’s a hefty amount of shouty touts to deal with. There were a couple of high points; firstly, the World’s Largest Sun Dial which is so huge you can climb all over it, and secondly the City Palace which deserves a visit. Have a read of our post A Day in the Life for an account of what we mean by India being difficult and unpredictable; we had one of our bad days here.

Quickly on to Jodhpur. Another wonderful city with hilly narrow streets, cows, motorbikes and little shops. It’s the Blue City – most of the buildings are painted a light china blue which is apparently used to repel mosquitoes (though I still got bitten a few times). The City Palace looms above you, not only is it built on a hill, but it’s also got vertigo-inducing walls. We had our best Audio-tour experience here, the current Marharaja knows how to keep the tourists happy and we’ve finally found an Indian piece of history which has been well looked after! So many of the places we’ve visited are sadly strewn with litter, the walls covered in red tobacco spit and graffiti. But here love and care has been given to the protection of the fort.

We spent A LOT of time in the local market wandering amongst the street-sellers. Bananas, chai, glass bangles. And we chatted up a family, called the Dyer family, who aptly made and dyed turbans. There were 20 of them in total; mother, father, sons, wives, children who all lived in the same family home. And we stumbled across the same wedding parade two days running, the street was awash with colourful saris, banging drums and singing.

A trip to Rajisthan wouldn’t be complete without a camel safari, so it was off to the desert for us! We’d been given the name of a man, called Badel, who owned a nice guest house in the small desert town of Khuri just outside Jaiselmer. A gentle and friendly Badel, and his semi-resident English lady Rosemary, greeted us from the bus. He lived in one of the better-off houses in what was otherwise a very remote and local village. There were other purpose-built tourist huts but there didn’t seem to be any tourists to fill them even though this was supposed to be the high-season. This was a blessing though as we felt even more remote. Staying with the family was a great idea too and we chilled out with their three sweet children of 4, 7 and 12 – but I was surprised when the 4 and 12 yr olds didn’t know how to do star-jumps… I thought that came naturally to a kid?! Badel’s wife remained meekly in the background doing all the cooking whilst Badel spoke softly to us at dinner.

With camels at the ready and a new friend called Alex along for the trip, we left the village behind us and plodded off on our rather uncomfortable camels; Guy falling off to one side and me in a rather un-ladylike straddle. After a few stops to sort ourselves out we compromised on positions and started to enjoy the barren-ness of the desert around us. Our guides were great, they had a really fun sense of humour even if we didn’t understand what it was they chatted and giggled about all day. They spent ages cooking us breakfast, lunch and dinner whilst we spent that same time lazing away in the shade of nearby trees. Ahhh… It amazes me how they can prepare a meal from scratch and get no sand in it whilst we struggle on an English beach with just one sandwich! That night we tucked ourselves in to our cosy down sleeping bag, pulled the woolly blanket over us and peeked out to the stars above. Stunning. Whilst it wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had, it was magical to wake up and see that the position of the stars had moved round a little bit further each time my eyes opened. And in the morning, we realised our guides had laid out our beds in the perfect position for our own private sun-rise display.

We’d had three days of non-stop curry and our tolerance was wearing thin, it’s certainly not our favourite food in the world, so we topped ourselves up on western food back in Jaisalmer. A visit to the fort was also on the list. If it wasn’t for the noisy motorbikes and wandering cows, you could be forgiven for thinking that you’re in a little French village. Or perhaps you’d think you were in a medieval one as we stumbled across a building/renovation site where they were mixing lime cement using a circular pit and a camel as the power. There is one important difference to this fort compared with others we’ve visited in that so many of the local people live within the city walls; there are shops, museums and houses all muddled together in higgledy-piggledy streets. And that’s Jaisalmer’s downfall; it’s sinking. Water drainage is a big issue here as the fort wasn’t originally designed to house such a vast number of people. So being good little eco-tourists we didn’t eat or stay inside the fort, instead choosing to view it from our nearby guest house rooftop. And in the spirit of spreading information we’d like to point towards Jaisalmer In Jeopardy who are striving to protect the site from eating itself alive.

Finally Rajasthan came to and end and we had to bid farewell to this wonderful state. We could have spent so much more time here meandering around with the Kings and Queens. But another amazing state is calling, Punjab with Amritsar and the Indo-Pakistan border closing ceremony!
See the pics