Jodhpur Udaipur

Jodhpur, Udaipur

From the bus with the clown-horn we took a rickshaw past the wide-streets and spiffy jeans shops of the newer part of Jodhpur up through the old city’s cobbled streets and pushed our way through traffic jams caused by cows and buffalo to our hotel. The first thing you notice about Jodhpur is the fort. It sits upon a red-sandstone hill overlooking the town and dominates the skyline. We had a fabulous view from the rooftop restaurant, where we ate that night.

We visited the fort first thing the next morning, although I got up at sunrise to take some photos from the rooftop. The fort was built in 1439 by an ancient ancestor of one of our former guides (Shakti Singh Rathore – Rathore is the surname of the ruling family). It is difficult to get across the enormity of this fort. It is built as a part of the hill, so it seems to grow out of the sandstone. As such it invokes all the awe of a mountain, but with ramparts and the largest cannons in Asia poking from them. We took an audio tour of the interior palaces and surrounding gardens, which was superb.

Inside it is a combination of intimidation and decadence. One walks up narrow, but extremely high outer passages that twist and turn at right angles so elephants could not get up momentum to crash through the doors. The doors themselves have huge metal spikes at elephant-head height to serve the same ends. Inside, however, there were many palaces, each serving a different purpose: the queens palace, kings palace, eating palace, resting in the sun palace, taking in the view palace, dancing palace etc. Most are adorned with artworks, stained glass windows and mirror tiles. All the palaces have been very well preserved, and a couple have been turned into museums, like one that had kept ancient Rajput weapons from simple swords to handcrafted, golden muskets used by warriors over the past 6 or seven hundred years. The audio-tour was filled with all sorts of juicy stories, from a guy that volunteered to bury himself alive in the foundations of the fort to overcome a curse from the hermit whose land the Maharaja stole to construct the fort, to the place where dozens of the Maharaja’s wives committed suicide by burning themselves alive upon his cremation fire because they (apparently) could not bear to exist without him.

The second thing one notices about Jodhpur (not long after the fort) is that most of the houses are painted sky-blue. I don’t know the full reason why this is the case, but one story is that when the city was being founded, the Maharaja thought it was an effective mosquito repellent and it caught on from there. The result is an extremely beautiful cityscape and the fort had great views.

After the fort we followed the old city wall for a kilometre or so, past some barren and rocky hillsides, to the temple of one king that occupied the fort. It was completed around the 1800s and made entirely of local marble. It was very hot though and after taking a quick walk through the temple, we sat outside under a tree and ate pistachios.

It was quite a walk up (and consequently back down) and one industrious tuk-tuk driver had spotted the red faces and sweaty underarms and decided to follow us, offering tuk-tuk rides to the Sadar Bazzarr, where we were headed. He followed for quite some time, every 50 meters or so the group would say ‘no thankyou’, and he would jump in his tuk-tuk, take a back route and miraculously appear at the head of our hot and tired snake. The tail was weakening, and they took the deadly first step of bargaining. So he started at 100 rupees or so, and when he was declined, he politely waited ten metres and dropped his price 10 rupees. This went on for a while until a critical mass of exhausted people accepted his custom. I thought it was a job well done. I ended up walking down anyway, but I was impressed at the driver’s persistence. We have come across o number of extremely friendly and helpful tuk-tuk drivers (although are aware that an equal number can cause problems).

Anyway, by various means of transport we arrived at the Sadar Bazzar, a bustling and scorching place filled with trinkets, lassis ( the milkshake things) and beggars. We had a lassi where the locals do (it was pointed out us by someone else) which was nice and cold. We ran into someone from Torquay and took ourselves to the brink of heatstroke chatting in the sun.

I was going to have an omelette from a place recommended by lonely planet. We arrived at the stall, which had ‘reccomended by lonely planet’ all over it in blue paint. At the front of the stall was the lonely planet entry blown up for passers by to see. It read:

‘The omelette shop claims to go through 1000 eggs a day – the egg man has been doing his thing for over 30 years. Two tasty, spicy boiled eggs cost Rs 10, and an oily two-egg omelette with chilli, coriander and bread will cost Rs 15 but’

And it ended there... the last sentence had been covered with masking tape.

So I enquired, what was under the masking tape. He said:

‘oh, this is an older version, Lonely Planet has come out with a newer version, and here it is’. He handed me an A4 sheet in 14 point times new roman text that read:

‘The omelette shop claims to go through 1000 eggs a day – the egg man has been doing his thing for over 30 years. Two tasty, spicy boiled eggs cost Rs 10, and an oily two-egg omelette with chilli, coriander and bread will cost Rs 15.’

What was the missing line?

‘its not ideal for a queasy stomach’

What I don’t get is why you would leave the ‘but’ there.

Incredible India.

We took it pretty easy on the rooftop that afternoon, as we were both quite sunburnt and tired. The food was pretty average at the restaurant and the menu was incomprehensible (not because of any language difficultly, but because some meals could only be ordered in conjuction with other meals, it was, for example, impossible to have just a naan bread, one must also order mixed vegetables).

Kate and I did manage to take a rickshaw out to some gardens 8km out of town. It was a pleasant walk under the shade and past some 16^th century tombs (these old ruins are all over india). The park was frequented by more monkeys than people.

That evening we went out to a fairly up-market restaurant with a disco inside. Our group leader Vinit spoke about his charity he has just attained registration for with the government. A one week process, has taken over a year because he has refused to give burucratic bribes. In the end it wasn’t Vinit’s ethics that won out but an influential phone call, who knows how long it might have taken. He went on to describe the corruption which plagues charities and schooling. In particular he spoke of rural government run schools, where teachers have given up on attending, because they have not been paid in 3 years or more. He was for more upbeat about government schools in urban areas, however, where the quality of schooling has apparently increased dramatically. He described the regular creation of charities as a means to launder tax-free money. And although there are established government watchdogs, it does not take much for them to turn a blind-eye.

I ate chicken for the first time in India. Wasn’t fussed. Prefer Lamb Roast.

A couple more things about Jodphur, apart from being the usual cacophony of rubbish, dust, markets, beggars, cows and choruses of ‘hello... hello’, Jodhpur was also striking because of its sounds. Although there are many Muslim areas in India, this was the forst time we had heard morning prayer. At 5am, before the sun is up, the musical chanting of morning prayer is broadcast over city. It is quite loud and, in the still, dark morning, rather eerie.

When the sun come up, however, the muslim prayers are drowned out by discotheque Hindi music blaring over the entire city, apparently from speakers in the temple.

The next morning we were up early to travel to Udaipur. On the itinery we were catching another local bus, but at some additional cost, the group opted to ‘upgrade’ and take private taxis. Private taxis’s are like taragos in make and quite comfortable on long trips. Taxis are best to take in groups though as the costs are far more than other transports. You are free to stop at your choice of toilets and sights, however in giving us the choice to stop a 5 hour trip turned 12 (with a short stop for a flat tire included). During the trip we visited the rural outskirts of Jodphur this included a potters village, a weaver’s village and a farmer’s village and one of the biggest examples of Jain architecture. Our visit to the three villages gave strange perspective on the very simple abodes we observed – little material observations such as a round faces and thick waists on the family members and the occasional solar panel made clear we were visiting those with wealth - a selected few who had been lucky enough to have made it on the tourist track. The whole area is in dire need of rain, being October the season has now passed and those without the luck of additional support will struggle into next year. At the farmers village they offered us opium, which, was, of course, declined in place of chai. Opium farmers are given government approval to grow a certain amount of opium for sale to pharmaceutical companies and of this a small portion for personal use, the retunrs on clean sales however but many exceed this and sell it on the black market. As with many things, even if one is caught, a little dosh can smooth the situation over. It was a glimpse into the bare life of people in rural india. We purchased a handwoven wool rug from a famous cooperative which has clientel from royalty to rockstars and even the odd economist – every shop where applicable keeps a plastic binder at arms length of newspaper and magazine clippings. The weavers’ plastic binder had photos of Prince Charles and Joseph Stigitz, i think The smashing Pumpkins were in there too. This kind of marketing is used by shops big or small. As mentioned above with the egg man the most lucraitive promo is achived through a Lonely Planet (and its variations i.e. ‘Lonly Planet’) mention. Painted signs and printo9uts are displayed loud and proud on shops fronts and if you don’t know the publication you may have been reviewed and recommended in a tag such as ‘recomend by book’ will suffice.

We reached Udaipur in the late evening after travelling all day, and visiting a Jain temple. Women were not supposed to enter the temple if on their menstrual cycle because the temple was to remain ‘pure’. There also was a stone elephant that, with 100% success we were told, granted you a wish if you crawled under it. The temple was extremely beautiful with nearly a dozen domes and hundreds of pillars all individually carved. Jain people do not believe in the killing of any animals (or people, or destroying things generally), so someone asked the question – ‘didn’t you have to clear the forest to build the temple?’. No they did not. A special god came down from heaven and parted the forest, so not a microbe was harmed. ..

Udaipur is in the hills. Within minutes you pass from shimmering desert to temperate rainforest and granite peaks. The air becomes cool and damp.

Udaipur is a city built on a lake and surrounded by hills. It was chosen many centuries ago as a city site because of its defensive merits. Udaipur is also the place where octopussy was filmed and every restaurant in town screens the movie at 7pm.

The main feature of the town is the lake, and the three palaces, two of which are on the lake. You may have heard of the ‘lake palalce’ – its pretty famous and goes for a cool US$3500 a night. The Kings palace – that runs down to the ghats (the steps approaching a lake) – still houses the royal family. The ghats are filled with women washing saris and men bathing (apt symbol of gender realtions in India, and elsewhere). There are also many temples down by the lake, including one very odd little one. In the hollow of a tree was a little marble knob (there really is no other word for it, but it was like a cylinder with a rounded, smoothed end on it) that is, according to the story, one of twelve parts of a Hindu god’s penis that was severed and dismembered by an embittered wife. However, these penis-stones contain a certain power it is said, so people worship them.

Acutally there is an interesting myth behind the fertility of the Punjab. According to the story, one god (I really can remember all there names, there are 300,000 of them) propositioned the female god of the Himalayan hills. She refused, and as a result the male god roped her up and dragged her body down the hills into northern india, leaving her body parts to enrich the soil.

In another story, the ganges is the menstrual cycle of one of the hills gods.

Most of India has this constant background smell. It not unpleasant and not pleasant either. Its a mixture of the incense from the shops, sewerage, dogs, cow poo, sweat and baking rubbish. Udaipur is different. For the most part it is very clean, compared to the rest of india. People are out every morning sweeping and tidying their roadsides and Udaipurians are apparently very proud of their cleanliness. The exception, unfortunately, seems to be the lake where great clumps of water bottles, coke bottles, plystyreme, ceremonial flowers and spent coconuts get entangled in the algae. But even then, there are bands of volunteers (of which our group leader is a part) that go out on selected Sundays, wade into the river, and pull out tractor-loads of rubbish.

Anyway, the cleanliness gives Udaipur a completely different olfactory setup. Instead of the background pungency, you can walk around most of the town without noticing any smells. But from time to time there are these gagging sour patches that smell like stale urine.

Udaipur is also quieter. I went and sat down beside the lake for a while one afternoon and noticed the absence of car horns.

Our first day in Udaipur was a full one. First we visited the King’s palace, and while it was very old, I was getting a little palaced out. We then took a walk down to the lake. After lunch we headed up to the Monsoon Palace – a perfect hillside spot for the Royal family during the heavy rain season. The view was quite spectacular o9f the lake and the 5 star hotels which sit in it with high financial walls surrounding them. We watched the sunset and some group members express great disgust at the fading native animal information posters inside the main hall which advertised Udaipurs rich ecosystem now extinct and dangerously numbered. I never knew India had Lions? This evening Vinit invited all 12 of us into his family home where we were treated to traditional south Indian cusine – everyone was rapted and those who had stuck to plain rice and french fries were pleseantly surprised. South food is much cleaner and consist of steamed rice paddies and coconut chuntneys – Kate and I managed on strong host insistence 11 rice paddies between us. Hospitatlity is god like in India – similar to our village wedding experinece in Chamba Valley in the hills. It is believed that a guest is like a god and must be treated accordingly. Charatcerised by eating first, been offered copuious amouts of food and obsolved from any effort to assist in either preparation or clean-up. We looked through family photos some very familiar 70s shots of Vinits dad had strong similaries to all dads of that time – dad and colin it could have been you in bvell bottoms with aviatars and mos. After all this we were treated to ice-cream. Kate was given a very slow and cautious lift (as per my instructions) on Vinit’s motorbike back to the hotel. The rest of us crammed into tuk tuks and cars.

The next morning we took a relaxing boat ride around the lake and saw the palace up close. You cant get onto the palace-island bit unless you are prepared to part with 3000RS ($75) before you even buy anything. We had breakfast at a German Bakery and ate cake and coffee. The coffee was poor (despite lonely planet’s strongest recommendations) but the brownies and cinnamon rolls were delicious. Kate took an miniature painting class, and I took a North Indian cooking class in the afternoon. We sat out at a lakeside restaurant for the sunset and I lost my first game of chess to Vinit. I repeated this performance on the train the very next day.

Very early this morning we left for Pushkar – a no alcohol, no meat, no eggs, no kissing lakeside town north-east of Udaipur. We’ve just arrived and I had a spectacular vegetable burger – the first non curry based meal in a month. The hotel restaurant serves the freshest, most delicious food. And they can get western meals right! Its like an oasis in the middle of a mixed vegetable and chapatti desert.

We are off for a walk around town and some dinner.

One last thing. In our hotel in Udaipur, the owners husband was a former Colonel in the Indian Army. There was a plaque in the lobby with some very brusqe, camouflaged men holding machine guns and posing in threatening ways. The header said ‘9^th Special Forces Regiment’. The regiment’s motto, embossed in the lower right corner read:

‘who cares who wins’.

I assume this is not the motto of the whole Indian Army. What a big difference a little comma can have.

Our love to you all. Our phone is out of battery and credit, and we cant find the charger, but hopefully I will get my hands on one today.

We miss you.

Love Kate and Charles.