Hello to everyone listening (both of you), and welcome to this special Christmas blog entry, brought to you in honour of Christ our Lord from Varanasi, holy city of the....Hindu faith. Actually, before I make too many jokes of that nature, Varanasi contains a healthy mix of many different cultures - the streets are full of travellers, Tibetan Buddhists, Nepalese market-stall owners, Sikhs and, of course, Hindus. Today we visited the Muslim quarter and this eve we'll jiggle our way across town atop a cycle-rickshaw to witness Christmas mass at the huge edifice of St. Mary's (just like home). First, though, I've got a blog to do, and more than a few days to cover...perhaps only tardy grammar and poor sentence construction can get me to the church on time.
An advance warning: this spesh Crimbo blob will contain mesages at the end to certain members of friends and family. If you belong to neither of these two categories and are, so to speak, an imposter (you know who you are) - or if you simply wish to bail out before the soppiness kicks off - I will provide notification prior to our arrival in schmaltz central.
When I last left you, I was crouched in terror behind the desk in Tala's only internet cafe, warily scanning the darkness behind the lounging locals, waiting for a tiger to come bounding out of the gloom. Well, it turns out that they're not quite so obliging in providing you with a sighting. 6am Wednesday morning and the first few rays of sunlight catch what appears to be two huge penguins, moving with difficulty across the lawn of the Mogli Jungle Resort. In fact, these two pathetic specimens are one Dixie Hawtin and another Peter Beech, intrepid explorers bent on catching tigers in their natural habitat. During a whispered pre-dawn conference, they have solemnly and jitteringly decided to wear almost every item of clothing they own. Hey, Bandavgarh at 6am was a cold place. Colder than the moon, probably. Ernest Shackleton would have cried off to his mammy and stayed in bed.
Obstacle two: not ten minutes after rolling ourselves aboard our Gypsy jeep, the safari experience has ground to a decidedly unintrepid halt just outside the gates of the Bandavgarh National Park entrance. 15 jeepfuls of expectant amateurs (Dixie and I snort and adjust our monacles) are queued up around us. It seems that a group of farmers from local villages are barring the entrance, protesting about the behaviour of the Park when, years ago, it absorbed their land like a white blood cell ingesting bacterium (or something). They want jobs, or revised compensation, or justice. Or they might be protesting about water. Nobody seems to know. Perhaps they're protesting for the sheer love of protesting. Already feeling the fatigue, we debate whether or not to open our packed lunch. Exploring is a tough business.
The stalemate is cracked when the guides waiting inside the park for their customers signal something to the waiting drivers. Goram, our driver, is the first to twig. With all the stealth available to a diesel engine, we sidle an innocent fifteen yards along the fence. There, some park workers are already unlacing the eight foot wire fence that separates us from our tigery nirvana. Others join in. Within minutes, a flood of guides and drivers are tugging hard for their livelihood. One man falls over with half of the fence in his hand - the stone is rolled. Our engine roars, we jerk forward, and Goram is first in.
Dixie and I pointedly do not look at the faces of the dispossessed farmers as we streak past into the reserve. We try to content ourselves with reasoning - the guides have to eat as well, we've paid an awful lot of money, but somehow we can't quite mask a distinct twinge of guilt. A protest must be so hard to pull off in India.
The first half of the morning session unfortunately never lives up to the adrenaline rush we got first thing, stamping on the small dreams of little people. We saw a few boars, some red-arsed monkeys (a Latin term), a multitude of spotted deer, some stags, even an elephant plodding in placid massiveness along a jeep-trail, but certainly no Tony the tiger, nor any of his cuddly, ultraviolent brothers. We had to wait until we'd reached central point, wolfed a few sandwiches, doused ourselves in tea and screamed back along route B (pursuing a lead) to catch our first glimpse. And there it was, burning bright, in the forest of the night (day). I was impressed immediately by the colour of the thing. It was practically luminous, a sea of ochre monkey-buttocks, waggling mockingly, could not compare. Sometime, somewhere, I had picked up the idea that wild animals were designed to blend in with their surrounding, to camouflage for purposes of hunting and defence. Not so here. A certain cosmic arrogance has gone into the making of the tiger. It is as if nature has produced something so massively powerful that it disdains to blend in. Hypnotic; enigmatic; actually they even look a bit camp, padding tremendously through the undergrowth like that, dragqueens of the animal kingdom. But they are absolutely massive, so I suppose they can wear what they want.
I was surprised, even incredulous to learn that the three tigers we spotted that morning, and again in the afternoon, were only cubs of 10-11 months old. They were, I would estimate using Dixie's pictures (caught up in the excitement, a have several fascinating shots of leaves, the floor of the jeep and the sky, but, alas, very few tigers), about 10 feet from nose to tip. It was with growing fascination and amusement that we watched, also, the antics of the jeep drivers vying to provide for their customers the best shot of the animals. The efforts can prove frustrating, when, for instance, you have wrenched, full-locked and craned your way to within three metres of some yawning beast, only for you to find yourself, one engine rev later, staring at the back of a tourist's head as the Star Hotel vehicle comes sailing into the gap. This all, mind, on tracks built for one jeep at a time. Around ten jeeps were jostling in the vicinity of our morning sighting - one reversing up the bank, one careering into the vegetation, one stuck in the sand as the driver curses all the gods and his passengers look on, bemused. It is little wonder that the tigers are so proud of themselves, when their every move is followed by a chorus of whinnying engines.
You probably, to be honest, don't want to hear about the particulars of our transfer to Varanasi once our safari day was over. There probably isn't much to say, save that we were very sad to leave the Mogli Resort behind. It was run in-part by a lovely English couple, who had been living in India for 3 years and had a lot of Hindi to teach us, of the sort you don't find in the guidebooks. Our train from Katny (2nd worst station in terms of theft in India) to Varanasi(worst station in terms of theft in India) took 12 1/2 hours to travel 400km - it should have been 8. Our situation wasn't helped by the fact that we followed some delightfully friendly chaps onto the wrong locomotive and had to leg it onto the correct one at a crossover. One of these days, I swear, we'll get the trains right.
Varanasi, despite all the horror stories we received from whey-faced, shuddering travellers, despite all the tales of dung and duplicity, has been brilliant. We were picked up at the station by a bloke on a bike from our hotel, the Yogi Lodge ('Do NOT speak to anyone, do NOT go with anyone', he warned on the phone), and spent the rest of the day on the ghats - the steps down to the Ganga/Ganges. Yes, we saw the burning ghats, where Hindus cremate their loved ones - it is said that someone cremated in this holiest of places attains instant enlightenment and freedom from the cycle of reincarnation - and the experience was both harrowing and uplifting, organic somehow. After cremation ('burning is learning, cremation is education', prattle the local touts in a bid to extract a 'donation'), the ashes are scraped into the Ganga and after that they just...sort of...wash away, mixed with the ashes of others. At any one time, twenty four hours a day, around eight cremations will be occurring simultaneously on this one ghat alone (I think there are three burning ghats in total). Fifteen yards from where the grieving families crowd, an Untouchable will be carefully trepanning the shoreline for gold teeth and jewellery - India!
Later, we were cornered by a smooth-talker and guilt-tripped into buying trousers (it still happens, over one month in). I am now the proud owner of some absolutely ridiculous Aladdin/MC Hammer-style threads, complete with pendulous, knee-level crotch (the trousers). Defiantly, I'm continuing to wear them, simply because I don't want to admit that I was sweet-talked into buying something I don't like, but really I'm dying inside. One other, even sadder piece of news is that my guitar didn't completely survive our 'Indiana Jones meets the Chuckle Brothers' train leap at Umaria. A few days ago, I picked it up and it started to make a hideous racket. Then I remembered it was because I can't even play the damn thing. A short inspection later, however, and - alas! - there's a crack where the spine meets the body. I've given it to an Indian bloke to mend, in the hope that it won't come back with sellotape on.
!!!Christmas soppiness alert!!!
Many happy returns to anyone who is reading this. Friends: Shackleton hope the art's going well, Joel hope the pecs are going well, Charl hope you haven't crashed your car or got stuck in a parking space. Mary stop pretending and do some work. To anyone else, sorry I can't be more specific, there's a mildly impatient Frenchman waiting for my computer.
And the fam! Merry Christmas to kith and kin all over England. You may even be reading this at the annual Beech-Nuttall-Langham-Price Crimbo scrimmage, in which case I'll do it properly: Merry Christmas Beeches (that's 'George Harrison Senior', 'Rod/Hyacinth', 'the Doc' and Al Gore), to Uncie Pete and Pete P, to Grandma and Al, Auntie Linda, Uncle Neil, Beth, Joe, Grace, the rabbit, Tiny Tim, Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch. A special Boxing Day Merry Christmas, too, to Grandma and Grandad Beech - save those chocs, I'll have some when I get back! Missing you all this Christmas time, hope you all have a lovely festive season and have been enjoying these accounts of my travels so far. Dixie sends her love. God bless us, every-one!
Right, that's quite enough of that.
Sunday, 24 December 2006
Tuesday, 19 December 2006
He's a man-eater...make you work hard...
Well, Orchha certainly was all it's cracked up to be. It's a tiny village set in the midst of a crop of crumbling forts, flanked by a wide, fast-flowing river which oozes onto green plains to the west. After a whistlestop tour of the closest monuments, on Friday we rented Indian bicycles and creaked along a road through the nature reserve. The handlebars fold backwards like those on a Harley, but the saddle is almost as wide as a carseat, and high, forcing you to ride very upright - Dixie looked like Dame Maggie Smith in a BBC adaptation of a Forster novel. We made it out to a separate arm of the river and basked on the rocks, not quite daring to venture in (those stories about parasites, the bum-worms and the eye-worms, tend to stick in the mind). As afternoon waned we meandered back, stopping at the cenotaph of the Maharaja Singh for a few customary gasps and gapes. Orchhan architecture is like nothing else in India - completely devoid of onion-domes, for a start. The spires curve upwards like...well, I'll see if I can include a few pics.
It was as we clanked through the backstreets of Orchha (Dix had been on a bangle buying-spree) that we felt the huge, irresistible peace which presides over rural India. We sensed it again in Kajuraho, as we paused along a country road to watch local children quietly crossing the scrubland. The brightly-painted houses of Orchha village hunched exhaustedly in the sun. Up at the palace, on a hill to the south, we subsided into silence as a sadhu doodled on his pipe and the surrounding grasses cooed and croaked, gazing out to a thunderous horizon. In a land so mighty, it is little wonder that the people are so humble.
What could displace all that? It took a heavy bout of ancient sandstone erotica at the Hindu temples in Kajuraho to dislodge Orchha from our minds. You will perhaps be shocked to discover, as we were, that the seventeenth-century Chandela Rajput Hindus were a very horny lot. Kajuraho village is surrounded by numerous temples, divided by the nineteenth-century British archaeologist (and incurable prude) T.S. Burt into the Eastern and Western groups. At midday, in the fizzing sunshine, we hired bikes again and tripped out to the eastern edge of the settlement, where the curator of the Varana temple slipped suavely out of his doze to give us a quick tour of the Kama Sutra positions engraved on its side. In the afternoon, after lunch at the Raja Cafe, founded by a Swiss convert to the Indian way, we went for a peaceful stroll through the lush gardens that house the more impressive, and more famous, Western cluster. It was a diverting but perhaps logical fact that most of the tourists there were Indian, their cameras trained grimly on the carved Kama Sutra contortions as they dictated notes to their wives - we imagine. Our guide, anyway, was the gleefully crude Achna, a fifty-six year old who tried to convince us that a blatant depiction of bestiality, occurring as an anguished wife looks on, was part of a contemporary cure for impotence. So let me get this straight: the sulphur in the horse's anus was necessary to cure the erection blues, and restore (in his words not mine) a 'fresh banana'? Pull the other one, mate. Somebody, somewhere, is telling a very big lie.
The journey from Kajuraho to Bandavgarh National Park (where we are biding our time, with no small amount of trepidation, before safari tomorrow) was, as somebody from Sheffied might say, a 'reet slog'. We took a bus to Satna, and spent 4 hours on the stone floor of a waiting room, bent decisively over our books and a deck of cards. Prior to this, there came the Great Fast-Food Odyssey. Overtaken by a sudden craving for e-numbers, we enquired (I admit it! Take me away!) after a certain family restaurant by the name of 'MacDonald's'. After dropping our aim to the (we thought) much simpler demand of 'burger', we found our way via several puzzled Indian restaurateurs, and a long-suffering cycle-rickshaw-wallah, to the Maharishti cafe. Sure, the burger came chopped up into four portions and sprinkled with grated cottage cheese; sure, it was veggie, and sure, it hadn't quite escaped the mania of Indian chefs for spicing everything, but by God was it worth it. The rest of the night takes on a ketchup-coloured hue. Even the delay of our train for 2 hours couldn't dent our additive-fuelled sense of wellbeing.
Our rail connection to Umaria, near to Bandavgarh, was the scene of perhaps the funniest train-related misfortune yet. Awoken in the night by a sudden urge to use the loo, Dixie nudged me with the puzzled revelation that we had apparently reached our destination two hours early. As Indian trains are rarely on time, let alone ahead of time, we dismissed the claims of the men on the platform and prepared to go to sleep. Still, out of curiosity, we hovered around the train window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the name of the tiny station as the train pulled away. Duly it came: 'Umaria'. Cue: absolute panic. Simultaneously deciding to stay put and leg it before the train picked up too much speed, we found ourselves, bags in hand, dithering by the open doors of the carriage. The flagstones were already moving by too fast to pick out any detail. Dixie, bless her, jumped first. I saw her go arse over tit as the ground whipped away to her left on landing. After a moment's hesitation, I followed. E voila! There we were, at four in the morning, my guitar still clanging, sprawled in the dust twenty feet away from each other on the only platform of a station in the middle of nowhere. The whole thing was pure slapstick. Shakily, we issued weedy cries of triumph and held up our thumbs: nothing broken.
In a way, I pity the commuting and the homeless who watched this morning a moving train ejaculate two bleary-eyed Westerners headfirst. They must have thought we were suicides; at the very best, they must have thought they were dreaming. I'm amazed my guitar survived it. The thing is obviously built of stern stuff - it has to be to survive ten minutes in India. Still exchanging high-fives and shuddering at what might have happened had we hesitated for five seconds or landed badly, we crawled into a sleeping bag on the floor of the station and waited buzzingly for the 7.30am bus to Tala.
Confusion over? - not a bit of it. An hour and a half into our bus ride we were heckled from our dawn-enraptured reverie by a tout, on the bus, at my shoulder, crying 'Koom Koom! I have a gypsy! Come to my gypsy!' I thought I must have had a bang on the head after all. It turns out that the tiny smattering of houses in which the bus had hesitated was Tala itself, at the edge of the Bandavgarh Park entrance. It really is difficult to tell the difference between a gaze of Indian expectancy and one of Indian curiosity - it turns out that the whole bus had been staring at us for five minutes, patiently waiting for us to alight. 'Kum Kum', as it's spelt, is the name of a local fleapit popular with travellers. And a gypsy? A make of jeep, driven by hawkers, which has multiplied to tremendous numbers in recent years following determined cultivation and now moves in herds around Tala and the surrounding woodland.
It transpires that we have visited Bandavgarh at exactly the right time, a fact that we keep repeating smugly to ourselves. Traditionally off the tourist map, there is little chance of the crowds that scare away most of the wildlife at Madhya Pradesh's glossier parks. We have crawled, slept, stumbled and leaped our way here exactly a week before the season kicks off, with climate perfect, smiles and signs freshly-painted, and tigers raring to go. We undertake our full-day safari tomorrow (for the not inconsiderable price of 1730 Rs. each, including entrance, guide, jeep-hire etc) exactly one day before the park entrance fee is hiked up by 50%.
A short hunt unearthed the Mogli Lodge. The place is pure Jurassic Park, with fans whirling in large, purpose-built, empty rooms, waiting for the first flush of excited tiger-spotters. It also has, strangely, the accompanying sense of doom - it seems the place is too perfect, too neat not to expect a tiger raid sometime very soon. There is a pretty veranda on stilts that a hungry beast could clear in a leap. On the other hand, it also lives up to its Jungle Book eponym. Lads from local tribes haunt the place, disguised as staff. It's 3km away from Tala village along an ill-humoured dirt track (which it is unsafe to walk at night: supper-time for those peckish predators) and only 1km from the start of the tribal settlements - where, recently, a man-eater carried off four children and some cattle before being shipped to a zoo. The park, actually, has no fences - a fact which had us tittering nervously when we were told. But, I suppose, you've gotta go there to come back. See you on the other side.
It was as we clanked through the backstreets of Orchha (Dix had been on a bangle buying-spree) that we felt the huge, irresistible peace which presides over rural India. We sensed it again in Kajuraho, as we paused along a country road to watch local children quietly crossing the scrubland. The brightly-painted houses of Orchha village hunched exhaustedly in the sun. Up at the palace, on a hill to the south, we subsided into silence as a sadhu doodled on his pipe and the surrounding grasses cooed and croaked, gazing out to a thunderous horizon. In a land so mighty, it is little wonder that the people are so humble.
What could displace all that? It took a heavy bout of ancient sandstone erotica at the Hindu temples in Kajuraho to dislodge Orchha from our minds. You will perhaps be shocked to discover, as we were, that the seventeenth-century Chandela Rajput Hindus were a very horny lot. Kajuraho village is surrounded by numerous temples, divided by the nineteenth-century British archaeologist (and incurable prude) T.S. Burt into the Eastern and Western groups. At midday, in the fizzing sunshine, we hired bikes again and tripped out to the eastern edge of the settlement, where the curator of the Varana temple slipped suavely out of his doze to give us a quick tour of the Kama Sutra positions engraved on its side. In the afternoon, after lunch at the Raja Cafe, founded by a Swiss convert to the Indian way, we went for a peaceful stroll through the lush gardens that house the more impressive, and more famous, Western cluster. It was a diverting but perhaps logical fact that most of the tourists there were Indian, their cameras trained grimly on the carved Kama Sutra contortions as they dictated notes to their wives - we imagine. Our guide, anyway, was the gleefully crude Achna, a fifty-six year old who tried to convince us that a blatant depiction of bestiality, occurring as an anguished wife looks on, was part of a contemporary cure for impotence. So let me get this straight: the sulphur in the horse's anus was necessary to cure the erection blues, and restore (in his words not mine) a 'fresh banana'? Pull the other one, mate. Somebody, somewhere, is telling a very big lie.
The journey from Kajuraho to Bandavgarh National Park (where we are biding our time, with no small amount of trepidation, before safari tomorrow) was, as somebody from Sheffied might say, a 'reet slog'. We took a bus to Satna, and spent 4 hours on the stone floor of a waiting room, bent decisively over our books and a deck of cards. Prior to this, there came the Great Fast-Food Odyssey. Overtaken by a sudden craving for e-numbers, we enquired (I admit it! Take me away!) after a certain family restaurant by the name of 'MacDonald's'. After dropping our aim to the (we thought) much simpler demand of 'burger', we found our way via several puzzled Indian restaurateurs, and a long-suffering cycle-rickshaw-wallah, to the Maharishti cafe. Sure, the burger came chopped up into four portions and sprinkled with grated cottage cheese; sure, it was veggie, and sure, it hadn't quite escaped the mania of Indian chefs for spicing everything, but by God was it worth it. The rest of the night takes on a ketchup-coloured hue. Even the delay of our train for 2 hours couldn't dent our additive-fuelled sense of wellbeing.
Our rail connection to Umaria, near to Bandavgarh, was the scene of perhaps the funniest train-related misfortune yet. Awoken in the night by a sudden urge to use the loo, Dixie nudged me with the puzzled revelation that we had apparently reached our destination two hours early. As Indian trains are rarely on time, let alone ahead of time, we dismissed the claims of the men on the platform and prepared to go to sleep. Still, out of curiosity, we hovered around the train window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the name of the tiny station as the train pulled away. Duly it came: 'Umaria'. Cue: absolute panic. Simultaneously deciding to stay put and leg it before the train picked up too much speed, we found ourselves, bags in hand, dithering by the open doors of the carriage. The flagstones were already moving by too fast to pick out any detail. Dixie, bless her, jumped first. I saw her go arse over tit as the ground whipped away to her left on landing. After a moment's hesitation, I followed. E voila! There we were, at four in the morning, my guitar still clanging, sprawled in the dust twenty feet away from each other on the only platform of a station in the middle of nowhere. The whole thing was pure slapstick. Shakily, we issued weedy cries of triumph and held up our thumbs: nothing broken.
In a way, I pity the commuting and the homeless who watched this morning a moving train ejaculate two bleary-eyed Westerners headfirst. They must have thought we were suicides; at the very best, they must have thought they were dreaming. I'm amazed my guitar survived it. The thing is obviously built of stern stuff - it has to be to survive ten minutes in India. Still exchanging high-fives and shuddering at what might have happened had we hesitated for five seconds or landed badly, we crawled into a sleeping bag on the floor of the station and waited buzzingly for the 7.30am bus to Tala.
Confusion over? - not a bit of it. An hour and a half into our bus ride we were heckled from our dawn-enraptured reverie by a tout, on the bus, at my shoulder, crying 'Koom Koom! I have a gypsy! Come to my gypsy!' I thought I must have had a bang on the head after all. It turns out that the tiny smattering of houses in which the bus had hesitated was Tala itself, at the edge of the Bandavgarh Park entrance. It really is difficult to tell the difference between a gaze of Indian expectancy and one of Indian curiosity - it turns out that the whole bus had been staring at us for five minutes, patiently waiting for us to alight. 'Kum Kum', as it's spelt, is the name of a local fleapit popular with travellers. And a gypsy? A make of jeep, driven by hawkers, which has multiplied to tremendous numbers in recent years following determined cultivation and now moves in herds around Tala and the surrounding woodland.
It transpires that we have visited Bandavgarh at exactly the right time, a fact that we keep repeating smugly to ourselves. Traditionally off the tourist map, there is little chance of the crowds that scare away most of the wildlife at Madhya Pradesh's glossier parks. We have crawled, slept, stumbled and leaped our way here exactly a week before the season kicks off, with climate perfect, smiles and signs freshly-painted, and tigers raring to go. We undertake our full-day safari tomorrow (for the not inconsiderable price of 1730 Rs. each, including entrance, guide, jeep-hire etc) exactly one day before the park entrance fee is hiked up by 50%.
A short hunt unearthed the Mogli Lodge. The place is pure Jurassic Park, with fans whirling in large, purpose-built, empty rooms, waiting for the first flush of excited tiger-spotters. It also has, strangely, the accompanying sense of doom - it seems the place is too perfect, too neat not to expect a tiger raid sometime very soon. There is a pretty veranda on stilts that a hungry beast could clear in a leap. On the other hand, it also lives up to its Jungle Book eponym. Lads from local tribes haunt the place, disguised as staff. It's 3km away from Tala village along an ill-humoured dirt track (which it is unsafe to walk at night: supper-time for those peckish predators) and only 1km from the start of the tribal settlements - where, recently, a man-eater carried off four children and some cattle before being shipped to a zoo. The park, actually, has no fences - a fact which had us tittering nervously when we were told. But, I suppose, you've gotta go there to come back. See you on the other side.
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
Orchha took my beard
First things first, I've got a moustache. A thin, slightly anaemic-looking moustache, but it's a moustache all the same and no-one can say it isn't. Dad, Uncle Pete, Pete Price, you have all been through this silly and embarrassing phase (Dad for twenty five years...) and I'm sure I'll get over it but, I have to say, I can see how the things might be addictive. Already I'm not sure my sensitive upper lip could face this cruel and bruising world without its tufty armour.
On a slightly less grand note, this Sunday Dixie and I faced down the wonder that is the Taj Mahal. It fully lives up to expectations, even with one thousand-or-so tourists scrabbling around in the dust at its feet. We went at six in the morning so we could catch the sunrise, and it effortlessly overcame the fumbling attentions of our entirely irrelevant guide, a portly chap with English so broken that one of the few phrases we could pick out was the catchy but baffling line 'Only you can have balls'. In the morning mist it loomed like something from the void, its ashen arms thrown upwards, until dawn when it assumed a slight cherubic glimmer. Even then, however, it looked like a ghost among the clouds, and all our pics really can't do justice to its solidity, its thereness - through the medium of a camera it just sort of disappears. The President of Saudi Arabia was visiting, so at noon we had to vacate the premises - and I managed to get an excellent shot from the end of the garden with only three people on the monument. If you'd seen the crowds, you'd realise how improbable this is.
A timely juncture, I think, to deliver my verdict on the Agra Tourist Board: leeches. Corruption, apparently, is rife, and everything in the place is geared towards exacting spectacular amounts from we foreign Taj pilgrims. It cost us a sad 750 Rs. apiece to enter the monument - a price we were willing to pay though it has skyrocketed from the 15 Rs. charged not 5 years ago. We determined to remain all day and bought some biscuits and drinks to take inside. Alas, no eatables were allowed to share the experience (and no cards either! is it sacrilege to play in front of the Taj?) - another new development since as recently as last year - the RG makes no mention of it and positively wills you to spend a whole day watching the light change over the mausoleum's gleaming surfaces. The implications of this are that if Jeff Tourist desires to a) spend a whole day there and b) survive without eating his own arms, then he must pay the entry fee not once but twice - each ticket allows for one entry only. Luckily, an old softy guard let us out to scramble a quick breakfast at 9am, on the condition that we were back within half an hour. Ho hum.
Our impressions of the district tourist office took a further turn for the worse when we decided to detour to the Agra Fort, shortly after being booted out to make way for His Excellency. The Taj ticket promised entry to the fort on the same day, so hopefully we clattered over towards its South Gate, propelled by a sick cycle-wallah and his ten year-old son, who jumped off the back to push on the uphill sections. Alas, our faith in human nature was unfounded - it turns out that the ticket only allowed a 50 Rupee discount on the 250 Rs ticket. Luckily we made it back to the Taj as night fell, bribing our way in with a small baksheesh. Shrouded in darkness, the outline of the tomb was still visible, still staggering. Silently, yawningly it awaited the coming of another day.
Quick question: did you know the Taj Mahal looks the same from all four directions? I always assumed it had a front, but symmetry is the key throughout the complex. No doubt there's a book about the proper significance of this, but I'll never have time to read it.
The following morning we blew Agra and boarded a bus to Fatehpur Sikri. After the hubbub of bribetropolis, this place was a revelation. Lovely guesthouse, sunny courtyard, fresh lemon-sodas all round. On Monday evening we scaled the hill to the Fatehpur mosque and were treated to a free tour by a charming inmate of the school inside the walls. Deepak was a true gent and told us everything we needed to know and, cheered, Dixie and I happily chatted away the evening by a campfire inside the walls of the Gurvedhan Hotel. As night fell we received a knock on the door of our room and were invited out to play guitar and sing around fires with some Italian guests. Unfortunately, the Indians' requests for Ricky Martin fell on deaf ears. As we were getting up to turn in, one of them knocked the whole fire and its stand over onto my guitar, producing a striking chord and much kerfuffle. I'm quite impressed that my axe managed to withstand the sabotage attempt, but the case didn't fare so well and has several holes burnt in it. I have a lasting image of an Indian chap winging my 'Givson' around the clearing in an attempt to evict the last few embers glowing inside.
In the morning, after a lateish start, we climbed the hill again to witness Akbar the Great's marvellous, bizarre city. A purpose-built complex combining, with a spirit of enlightenment entirely unexpected of a Moghul emperor with a name like that, elements of Hindu, Christian, Jain and Muslim architecture and design. Perhaps, because he had a wife from three of the world's major religions, the poor bloke just wanted a quiet life. Our guide this time was Aniss, was also very good, personal slurs aside (he told me he didn't like my beard). With understated precision he led us around a city that was only inhabited for 14 years, before it became clear that there wasn't enough water to finance the dream, and Akbar transferred the court to Agra.
In the early afternoon we departed, war-torn instrument in tow, and by that evening were residing grumpily in what is easily the worst hotel in the world. This was in Gwalior, our jumping-off point for Madhya Pradesh, a region in northern India. On the way, we were fortunate enough to encounter one Santosh Kumar and his family, who, among many gestures of friendship, protected us from a bumper crop of commuters as we attempted to dismount the train from Agra. Throughout the entire journey serviceman Santosh was generous and inquisitive, first plying us with Indian sweets and then with handfuls of a small local nut called chenna, which, he confided, the Indians eat 'to pass the time' on these long rail voyages. The nuts require shelling, and perhaps my favourite moment of the trip so far occurred when Santosh's mother shuffled forward to present Dixie with a handful already-peeled, before backing away to her seat with a big smile and a nod. She didn't speak any English, and we barely any Hindi, but there are other languages.
Gwalior, then, was a nightmare, and I'd really rather not depress myself by talking about it too much. Suffice to say that the Midway Hotel offered the grubbiest, most overpriced rooms in the northern hemisphere - there were weddings in town, and the city was booked up. The one ray of light in the entire escapade was our meal at the Kwality Restaurant, a chain operating throughout the subcontinent. This morning, following a short call to confirm accommodation, we were on our way.
Train to Jhansi, rickshaw to Orchha. The name literally means "hidden place", and if first impressions are anything to go by, it's a winner. Hotel Fortview lies plum in the centre of town, and backs onto the river where at any time of the day or night you can pick your way past the card-playing owners to catch a glimpse of a huge, eccentric fort. Apparently, the ruling dynasty were contemporaries of Akbar, the Alexander of India, but were granted peace when the head of the family showed up at the emperor's pad extravagantly sporting a banned symbol, thus earning his respect.
It is in Orchha that, this evening, beard became moustache. I finally succumbed to the predatory gazes of the barbers and went for a shave Indian-style, flip-handled razor and all. The experience/ordeal involved being sprayed in the eyes with water, cuffed on the nose and flagrantly slapped about. Approximately twenty minutes later I emerged, with the dazed impression that I had been run over by a shoal of fish.
Tomorrow we see Orchha. I strongly suspect that we may stay here for about a week. For the coming month our plans include tiger-spotting, elephant-riding and a week-long meditation course, so we think we need a few days to gather ourselves.
That's all for now, pics to follow. Thanks for reading!
On a slightly less grand note, this Sunday Dixie and I faced down the wonder that is the Taj Mahal. It fully lives up to expectations, even with one thousand-or-so tourists scrabbling around in the dust at its feet. We went at six in the morning so we could catch the sunrise, and it effortlessly overcame the fumbling attentions of our entirely irrelevant guide, a portly chap with English so broken that one of the few phrases we could pick out was the catchy but baffling line 'Only you can have balls'. In the morning mist it loomed like something from the void, its ashen arms thrown upwards, until dawn when it assumed a slight cherubic glimmer. Even then, however, it looked like a ghost among the clouds, and all our pics really can't do justice to its solidity, its thereness - through the medium of a camera it just sort of disappears. The President of Saudi Arabia was visiting, so at noon we had to vacate the premises - and I managed to get an excellent shot from the end of the garden with only three people on the monument. If you'd seen the crowds, you'd realise how improbable this is.
A timely juncture, I think, to deliver my verdict on the Agra Tourist Board: leeches. Corruption, apparently, is rife, and everything in the place is geared towards exacting spectacular amounts from we foreign Taj pilgrims. It cost us a sad 750 Rs. apiece to enter the monument - a price we were willing to pay though it has skyrocketed from the 15 Rs. charged not 5 years ago. We determined to remain all day and bought some biscuits and drinks to take inside. Alas, no eatables were allowed to share the experience (and no cards either! is it sacrilege to play in front of the Taj?) - another new development since as recently as last year - the RG makes no mention of it and positively wills you to spend a whole day watching the light change over the mausoleum's gleaming surfaces. The implications of this are that if Jeff Tourist desires to a) spend a whole day there and b) survive without eating his own arms, then he must pay the entry fee not once but twice - each ticket allows for one entry only. Luckily, an old softy guard let us out to scramble a quick breakfast at 9am, on the condition that we were back within half an hour. Ho hum.
Our impressions of the district tourist office took a further turn for the worse when we decided to detour to the Agra Fort, shortly after being booted out to make way for His Excellency. The Taj ticket promised entry to the fort on the same day, so hopefully we clattered over towards its South Gate, propelled by a sick cycle-wallah and his ten year-old son, who jumped off the back to push on the uphill sections. Alas, our faith in human nature was unfounded - it turns out that the ticket only allowed a 50 Rupee discount on the 250 Rs ticket. Luckily we made it back to the Taj as night fell, bribing our way in with a small baksheesh. Shrouded in darkness, the outline of the tomb was still visible, still staggering. Silently, yawningly it awaited the coming of another day.
Quick question: did you know the Taj Mahal looks the same from all four directions? I always assumed it had a front, but symmetry is the key throughout the complex. No doubt there's a book about the proper significance of this, but I'll never have time to read it.
The following morning we blew Agra and boarded a bus to Fatehpur Sikri. After the hubbub of bribetropolis, this place was a revelation. Lovely guesthouse, sunny courtyard, fresh lemon-sodas all round. On Monday evening we scaled the hill to the Fatehpur mosque and were treated to a free tour by a charming inmate of the school inside the walls. Deepak was a true gent and told us everything we needed to know and, cheered, Dixie and I happily chatted away the evening by a campfire inside the walls of the Gurvedhan Hotel. As night fell we received a knock on the door of our room and were invited out to play guitar and sing around fires with some Italian guests. Unfortunately, the Indians' requests for Ricky Martin fell on deaf ears. As we were getting up to turn in, one of them knocked the whole fire and its stand over onto my guitar, producing a striking chord and much kerfuffle. I'm quite impressed that my axe managed to withstand the sabotage attempt, but the case didn't fare so well and has several holes burnt in it. I have a lasting image of an Indian chap winging my 'Givson' around the clearing in an attempt to evict the last few embers glowing inside.
In the morning, after a lateish start, we climbed the hill again to witness Akbar the Great's marvellous, bizarre city. A purpose-built complex combining, with a spirit of enlightenment entirely unexpected of a Moghul emperor with a name like that, elements of Hindu, Christian, Jain and Muslim architecture and design. Perhaps, because he had a wife from three of the world's major religions, the poor bloke just wanted a quiet life. Our guide this time was Aniss, was also very good, personal slurs aside (he told me he didn't like my beard). With understated precision he led us around a city that was only inhabited for 14 years, before it became clear that there wasn't enough water to finance the dream, and Akbar transferred the court to Agra.
In the early afternoon we departed, war-torn instrument in tow, and by that evening were residing grumpily in what is easily the worst hotel in the world. This was in Gwalior, our jumping-off point for Madhya Pradesh, a region in northern India. On the way, we were fortunate enough to encounter one Santosh Kumar and his family, who, among many gestures of friendship, protected us from a bumper crop of commuters as we attempted to dismount the train from Agra. Throughout the entire journey serviceman Santosh was generous and inquisitive, first plying us with Indian sweets and then with handfuls of a small local nut called chenna, which, he confided, the Indians eat 'to pass the time' on these long rail voyages. The nuts require shelling, and perhaps my favourite moment of the trip so far occurred when Santosh's mother shuffled forward to present Dixie with a handful already-peeled, before backing away to her seat with a big smile and a nod. She didn't speak any English, and we barely any Hindi, but there are other languages.
Gwalior, then, was a nightmare, and I'd really rather not depress myself by talking about it too much. Suffice to say that the Midway Hotel offered the grubbiest, most overpriced rooms in the northern hemisphere - there were weddings in town, and the city was booked up. The one ray of light in the entire escapade was our meal at the Kwality Restaurant, a chain operating throughout the subcontinent. This morning, following a short call to confirm accommodation, we were on our way.
Train to Jhansi, rickshaw to Orchha. The name literally means "hidden place", and if first impressions are anything to go by, it's a winner. Hotel Fortview lies plum in the centre of town, and backs onto the river where at any time of the day or night you can pick your way past the card-playing owners to catch a glimpse of a huge, eccentric fort. Apparently, the ruling dynasty were contemporaries of Akbar, the Alexander of India, but were granted peace when the head of the family showed up at the emperor's pad extravagantly sporting a banned symbol, thus earning his respect.
It is in Orchha that, this evening, beard became moustache. I finally succumbed to the predatory gazes of the barbers and went for a shave Indian-style, flip-handled razor and all. The experience/ordeal involved being sprayed in the eyes with water, cuffed on the nose and flagrantly slapped about. Approximately twenty minutes later I emerged, with the dazed impression that I had been run over by a shoal of fish.
Tomorrow we see Orchha. I strongly suspect that we may stay here for about a week. For the coming month our plans include tiger-spotting, elephant-riding and a week-long meditation course, so we think we need a few days to gather ourselves.
That's all for now, pics to follow. Thanks for reading!
Saturday, 9 December 2006
The Taj Mahal with my girl
Just a quick update following the main one, below.
We're now in Agra, Dixie and I. In fact, returning to Delhi was not the fraught experience I had anticipated gazing out in placid semi-drunkenness as the sun dipped behind Jaisalmer fort. When I picked Dixie up from the airport, I was able to see the place with new eyes and fell more in love with it than ever. Together we toured Old Delhi and were charmed, and the Jami Masjid and Lal Qila (The Red Fort) were even more screamingly impressive than on the first visit. You can visit Dixie's blog at dixieontheotherside.blogspot.com for an in-depth review of what we did and, I suspect, what we ate (Dixie is a keen gastro-tourist).
Right now we're both sitting in an internet cafe in Taj Ganj in Agra. If you're itching to hear about our impressions of the Taj Mahal, I'm afraid you'll have to wait - we've only glimpsed it from our hotel roof and the thing looked so still, so much like a photograph that I'd like to find out whether it's a vast scam designed to dupe tourists before committing myself. Tomorrow, we intend to spend the whole day there, and view it as the light changes from dawn until dusk. Expect to be bored with phrases of the 'Words cannot describe...', 'You have to see it to believe it...' sort.
This evening, we've had a walk around the town, chasing the ghost of an 'Archaeological Survey of India' office. We plan to visit next the deserted city of Fatehpur Sikri - thanks for the tip, Uncle Pete - and want to book tickets for what is apparently the only reputable guesthouse in the area (with large, clean rooms at an extortionate 10 Rs. a night, or 12p). In our ramblings, we came upon another Indian wedding, and were invited inside to eat and exchange conversational pleasantries with relatives of the bride and groom. Agra is not quite the hotbed of hassle we were expecting, though the rickshaw-wallahs are persistent. I'll let you know if this good humour holds.
We're now in Agra, Dixie and I. In fact, returning to Delhi was not the fraught experience I had anticipated gazing out in placid semi-drunkenness as the sun dipped behind Jaisalmer fort. When I picked Dixie up from the airport, I was able to see the place with new eyes and fell more in love with it than ever. Together we toured Old Delhi and were charmed, and the Jami Masjid and Lal Qila (The Red Fort) were even more screamingly impressive than on the first visit. You can visit Dixie's blog at dixieontheotherside.blogspot.com for an in-depth review of what we did and, I suspect, what we ate (Dixie is a keen gastro-tourist).
Right now we're both sitting in an internet cafe in Taj Ganj in Agra. If you're itching to hear about our impressions of the Taj Mahal, I'm afraid you'll have to wait - we've only glimpsed it from our hotel roof and the thing looked so still, so much like a photograph that I'd like to find out whether it's a vast scam designed to dupe tourists before committing myself. Tomorrow, we intend to spend the whole day there, and view it as the light changes from dawn until dusk. Expect to be bored with phrases of the 'Words cannot describe...', 'You have to see it to believe it...' sort.
This evening, we've had a walk around the town, chasing the ghost of an 'Archaeological Survey of India' office. We plan to visit next the deserted city of Fatehpur Sikri - thanks for the tip, Uncle Pete - and want to book tickets for what is apparently the only reputable guesthouse in the area (with large, clean rooms at an extortionate 10 Rs. a night, or 12p). In our ramblings, we came upon another Indian wedding, and were invited inside to eat and exchange conversational pleasantries with relatives of the bride and groom. Agra is not quite the hotbed of hassle we were expecting, though the rickshaw-wallahs are persistent. I'll let you know if this good humour holds.
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
(I don't want to go to) Delhi
Scene: a train station in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Enter stage left, one Young man in t-shirt, brown, and long trousers. The Young man is a first-time traveller. He is slightly unclean but still has a faint air of clinging optimism, and he whistles gaily as he saunters along, stopping to take an inquiring peek over the railings of the walkway at the dark tracks beneath. In his left hand he clutches a bag of samosas. He has no rucksack.
As the Young man nears the steps which lead down towards platform 5, a change begins to come over him. There is something in his bearing which indicates impatience, or possibly anxiety. His pace, almost imperceptibly, begins to quicken.
Descending towards train platform 5, the Young man pauses. He stops whistling. Wearing a slightly puzzled look, he jogs lightly back up to the walkway, and squints hard at the sign. '5'. He looks again down the steps. A plastic bag skitters mockingly across the platform towards the tracks, as if to emphasise its utter emptiness.
Over on platform 4, the commuters turn their heads as a strange squeal hangs in the air.
'Shit! Shiiiiiiit!'
*
Well what a week, what a week. From the Bond-infested lake city of Udaipur, via the dunes and camel farts of the Jaisalmer desert, here I land once more in an internet cafe just off the Pahar Ganj Maaaaiiiiin Bazaaaaaaar. From the living room of the Sudha guesthouse in Udaipur, where I slept among photos of dead relatives and paid the owner's son in multivitamins when he learned to say 'Yo!', I have arrived once more in one of the subcontinent's premier tourist traps. Booked in at the Shelton Hotel with some friends in preparation for Dixie's arrival - pretty pricey but worth it for the views and the rooftop oasis. And now my last companion in the Rajasthani Odyssey has flown home, it's great and a bit sad to look back on my experiences in some very unique cities. Nostalgia? Already? Ridiculous.
The wheels on the bus go round and round - or do they? For three hours of the coach journey from Udaipur to Jaisalmer, we sat in gridlocked traffic. The rest of the time was spent chiefly in the air as our lobotomised driver hit the bumps at fifty. With windows that didn't close and no blanket (arse), it was probably the most unpleasant nine hours of my life, including that time I was burned at the stake. So uncomfortable was it that when we reached Jodhpur - hours late for our transfer - Rob and I decided to cut our losses and stay. After a winkless night, we were too tired even to fend off the group of rickshaw drivers rallying after their battle over the asian travellers (who are extremely polite, and pay too much). The Hare Rama haveli waited patiently in the sunshine for our arrival.
Google it for pictures: the city of Jodhpur, Rajasthan lays proud claim to the hugest, most impressive fort I have ever seen. Perched high on a cliff and with walls so sheer that Gilette should sponsor them, the Mehrangarh is so impregnable that in the history of regional inter-city warfare (think Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Corinth) it was never once taken. The sandstone heights of Jasailmer's citadel appear lackadaisical in comparison; this really is the business as far as Rajasthani fortifications go.
Views aside, the blue-rinsed city of Jodhpur didn't seem to offer very much, and we were keen to taste real desert. After the fiasco of queueing with Indian ladies for a ticket (they don't queue), at an ungodly hour the next day we heaved out of the train station bound for Jaisalmer (Rob flatly refused to take another bus). We arrived in the city at about 1pm, having already 'tasted' as much desert as we wished to - the train windows didn't close and we were chewing dust all morning. A guy had schmoozed us hard since Jodhpur station and we decided to reward him by staying at his hotel - a mistake, but an entertaining one. It turns out that Salim was probably the most unscrupled man in all Jaisalmer, but for the first two nights at least we slummed it there in two double rooms with TV, bathroom and balcony at 70 Rs. Aha, there's a catch. Camel safaris are big bucks in Jaisalmer, and when Salim through his repeated, almost compulsive lying tactics drove our business elsewhere, he responded by dumping us out the next day. In leaving, I bolted the door of the hotel from the outside as the idiot dozed in his office.
Before we hit the desert proper, there's a word or two to say about Jaisalmer fort. Built in the twelfth century, it doesn't rival Jodphur's Mehrangarh in size, the attraction is rather the unique streets inside the walls, where the population is still 70% brahmin. Uniquely clean, that is. Where in Delhi it is the job of an untouchable to maintain a thoroughfare through all the rubbish, here the brahmin sweep the sandstone paving 5, 6 times a day. Also, as a local shopowner took pride in telling me, it is with great conscientiousness that the brahmin spit their bete tobacco juice in the gutter rather than on the feet of passers-by. With its tiny streets, its stones worn smooth by time, its changeless population and the delicious intricacy of its Jain temples, Jaisalmer is a tourist's dream and it is a crying shame that whole sandstone, World Heritage caboodle is under such a threat of subsidence after ten years of disappointing monsoons.
Chandra at Seven Star Safaris spoke the truth - everything he promised to us was delivered. In the thick of complaints from wincing fellow-travellers, we lost our bottle and opted for only a two-day, one-night trek - probably a shame in hindsight, though I was in a rush to get back to Delhi for Dixie's arrival. It turns out we were sharing our jaunt with a Finnish girl of about 30 and a travel-hardened old Aussie. Together, the four of us (Rob, Marika, Azadear and myself) had many conversations about life, love, the universe etc - the usual small fry. Azadear, the Australian lady, believed deeply in reincarnation and also that conventional medicine tackles only one aspect of what is in truth a bodily balancing act reminiscent of the four humours - comprising the mental, the physical, the emotional and the physical. It was quite a laugh to watch her attempt to coax from brash, no-nonsense Rob the deep-seated trauma underlying his habit of grinding his teeth.
My camel was called Gangia - a sickly young chap but, according to our excellent guides, apparently a hit with the ladies. He was certainly a hit with the flies, who sensed, I think, his weakness. Azadear, on the other hand, was set astride Atchoo - the alpha-male of the group who tended to wander off at intervals to crop the nearest bush, despite her protests. I spent two great days aboard Gangia and got quite attached to the little (ie. big) guy. Together we lagged behind, skived, generally wandered off course and produced an awful lot of natural gas (I'll leave you to decide who did the producing), and it was really quite sad to see the last of his horrible, malformed, stinking, yellow-toothed camel's face. We both being men, a hug, of course, was out of the question, but I like to think we established a rapport. I was thrilled when he accepted some tasty leaves from my hand on the second morning, but in fact he probably didn't have a clue who I was.
Anybody who goes to the desert around Jaisalmer and doesn't mention the borrt (burrs), the tiny prickly balls that grow on the local grass, is not painting you an accurate picture. These spiny little buggers are probably my abiding memory of the desert, apart from the hypnotically swaying image of Atchoo's colossal backside. They get everywhere, everywhere, I'm talking clothes, bag, hair, shoes, underpants, small intestine. They get into your mind. I'm still picking them from my blanket a week later and causing great damage to my fingertips.
The following day, at 4pm, it was time to leave Jaisalmer behind and brave the 21-hour train journey back to Delhi. This one stretch was probably more dramatic than all 5 days I spent in the desert city. It started out fairly pleasantly, we playing guitar and singing to some soldiers in our carriage as the train left Jaisalmer station. Then we had the faintly humorous little scene described above (not humorous at the time, although I did feel quite faint) when I nipped out at the stop-off in Jodhpur to buy samosas (a man cannot live on biscuits alone). In fact, after a short search I found the train sitting smugly on platform 1, where it had been transferred to link up with some other carriages. The real drama of the trip back, however, came when one of the English girls we were travelling with, Elena, had her bag stolen in the night. This in itself was no big deal because it contained only clothes, but in the search we came across a bag belonging to one 'Archie Davies' - containing passport, driving licence, credit cards. After a quick peek in his diary (woudn't you...?), we realised that his flight was only a few days away, and the whole thing became a bit Famous Five. 'But Peter, we must return the bag to the Embassy at once, otherwise poor Archie will be frightfully upset!' etc etc.
In true Famous Five spirit we stopped for a few beers in Pahar Ganj, and eventually found our way to the embassy. As we stepped inside the door, a young man came bounding out of the first building, almost in tears. He had just been informed that he would have to cancel his flight when lo! like angels from heaven appeareth the three whose coming was promised! He took us out for afternoon tea at the Taj Palace Hotel (one of the best 5-star places in Delhi) and then became a fully-fledged member of our motley crew.
Drinks in the evening, flights in the morning - by 7pm on the 5th all had departed, and I was left to stumble through the streets of Delhi as I had done with such wonder three weeks ago. But I wasn't to be alone for long...
Enter stage left, one Young man in t-shirt, brown, and long trousers. The Young man is a first-time traveller. He is slightly unclean but still has a faint air of clinging optimism, and he whistles gaily as he saunters along, stopping to take an inquiring peek over the railings of the walkway at the dark tracks beneath. In his left hand he clutches a bag of samosas. He has no rucksack.
As the Young man nears the steps which lead down towards platform 5, a change begins to come over him. There is something in his bearing which indicates impatience, or possibly anxiety. His pace, almost imperceptibly, begins to quicken.
Descending towards train platform 5, the Young man pauses. He stops whistling. Wearing a slightly puzzled look, he jogs lightly back up to the walkway, and squints hard at the sign. '5'. He looks again down the steps. A plastic bag skitters mockingly across the platform towards the tracks, as if to emphasise its utter emptiness.
Over on platform 4, the commuters turn their heads as a strange squeal hangs in the air.
'Shit! Shiiiiiiit!'
*
Well what a week, what a week. From the Bond-infested lake city of Udaipur, via the dunes and camel farts of the Jaisalmer desert, here I land once more in an internet cafe just off the Pahar Ganj Maaaaiiiiin Bazaaaaaaar. From the living room of the Sudha guesthouse in Udaipur, where I slept among photos of dead relatives and paid the owner's son in multivitamins when he learned to say 'Yo!', I have arrived once more in one of the subcontinent's premier tourist traps. Booked in at the Shelton Hotel with some friends in preparation for Dixie's arrival - pretty pricey but worth it for the views and the rooftop oasis. And now my last companion in the Rajasthani Odyssey has flown home, it's great and a bit sad to look back on my experiences in some very unique cities. Nostalgia? Already? Ridiculous.
The wheels on the bus go round and round - or do they? For three hours of the coach journey from Udaipur to Jaisalmer, we sat in gridlocked traffic. The rest of the time was spent chiefly in the air as our lobotomised driver hit the bumps at fifty. With windows that didn't close and no blanket (arse), it was probably the most unpleasant nine hours of my life, including that time I was burned at the stake. So uncomfortable was it that when we reached Jodhpur - hours late for our transfer - Rob and I decided to cut our losses and stay. After a winkless night, we were too tired even to fend off the group of rickshaw drivers rallying after their battle over the asian travellers (who are extremely polite, and pay too much). The Hare Rama haveli waited patiently in the sunshine for our arrival.
Google it for pictures: the city of Jodhpur, Rajasthan lays proud claim to the hugest, most impressive fort I have ever seen. Perched high on a cliff and with walls so sheer that Gilette should sponsor them, the Mehrangarh is so impregnable that in the history of regional inter-city warfare (think Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Corinth) it was never once taken. The sandstone heights of Jasailmer's citadel appear lackadaisical in comparison; this really is the business as far as Rajasthani fortifications go.
Views aside, the blue-rinsed city of Jodhpur didn't seem to offer very much, and we were keen to taste real desert. After the fiasco of queueing with Indian ladies for a ticket (they don't queue), at an ungodly hour the next day we heaved out of the train station bound for Jaisalmer (Rob flatly refused to take another bus). We arrived in the city at about 1pm, having already 'tasted' as much desert as we wished to - the train windows didn't close and we were chewing dust all morning. A guy had schmoozed us hard since Jodhpur station and we decided to reward him by staying at his hotel - a mistake, but an entertaining one. It turns out that Salim was probably the most unscrupled man in all Jaisalmer, but for the first two nights at least we slummed it there in two double rooms with TV, bathroom and balcony at 70 Rs. Aha, there's a catch. Camel safaris are big bucks in Jaisalmer, and when Salim through his repeated, almost compulsive lying tactics drove our business elsewhere, he responded by dumping us out the next day. In leaving, I bolted the door of the hotel from the outside as the idiot dozed in his office.
Before we hit the desert proper, there's a word or two to say about Jaisalmer fort. Built in the twelfth century, it doesn't rival Jodphur's Mehrangarh in size, the attraction is rather the unique streets inside the walls, where the population is still 70% brahmin. Uniquely clean, that is. Where in Delhi it is the job of an untouchable to maintain a thoroughfare through all the rubbish, here the brahmin sweep the sandstone paving 5, 6 times a day. Also, as a local shopowner took pride in telling me, it is with great conscientiousness that the brahmin spit their bete tobacco juice in the gutter rather than on the feet of passers-by. With its tiny streets, its stones worn smooth by time, its changeless population and the delicious intricacy of its Jain temples, Jaisalmer is a tourist's dream and it is a crying shame that whole sandstone, World Heritage caboodle is under such a threat of subsidence after ten years of disappointing monsoons.
Chandra at Seven Star Safaris spoke the truth - everything he promised to us was delivered. In the thick of complaints from wincing fellow-travellers, we lost our bottle and opted for only a two-day, one-night trek - probably a shame in hindsight, though I was in a rush to get back to Delhi for Dixie's arrival. It turns out we were sharing our jaunt with a Finnish girl of about 30 and a travel-hardened old Aussie. Together, the four of us (Rob, Marika, Azadear and myself) had many conversations about life, love, the universe etc - the usual small fry. Azadear, the Australian lady, believed deeply in reincarnation and also that conventional medicine tackles only one aspect of what is in truth a bodily balancing act reminiscent of the four humours - comprising the mental, the physical, the emotional and the physical. It was quite a laugh to watch her attempt to coax from brash, no-nonsense Rob the deep-seated trauma underlying his habit of grinding his teeth.
My camel was called Gangia - a sickly young chap but, according to our excellent guides, apparently a hit with the ladies. He was certainly a hit with the flies, who sensed, I think, his weakness. Azadear, on the other hand, was set astride Atchoo - the alpha-male of the group who tended to wander off at intervals to crop the nearest bush, despite her protests. I spent two great days aboard Gangia and got quite attached to the little (ie. big) guy. Together we lagged behind, skived, generally wandered off course and produced an awful lot of natural gas (I'll leave you to decide who did the producing), and it was really quite sad to see the last of his horrible, malformed, stinking, yellow-toothed camel's face. We both being men, a hug, of course, was out of the question, but I like to think we established a rapport. I was thrilled when he accepted some tasty leaves from my hand on the second morning, but in fact he probably didn't have a clue who I was.
Anybody who goes to the desert around Jaisalmer and doesn't mention the borrt (burrs), the tiny prickly balls that grow on the local grass, is not painting you an accurate picture. These spiny little buggers are probably my abiding memory of the desert, apart from the hypnotically swaying image of Atchoo's colossal backside. They get everywhere, everywhere, I'm talking clothes, bag, hair, shoes, underpants, small intestine. They get into your mind. I'm still picking them from my blanket a week later and causing great damage to my fingertips.
The following day, at 4pm, it was time to leave Jaisalmer behind and brave the 21-hour train journey back to Delhi. This one stretch was probably more dramatic than all 5 days I spent in the desert city. It started out fairly pleasantly, we playing guitar and singing to some soldiers in our carriage as the train left Jaisalmer station. Then we had the faintly humorous little scene described above (not humorous at the time, although I did feel quite faint) when I nipped out at the stop-off in Jodhpur to buy samosas (a man cannot live on biscuits alone). In fact, after a short search I found the train sitting smugly on platform 1, where it had been transferred to link up with some other carriages. The real drama of the trip back, however, came when one of the English girls we were travelling with, Elena, had her bag stolen in the night. This in itself was no big deal because it contained only clothes, but in the search we came across a bag belonging to one 'Archie Davies' - containing passport, driving licence, credit cards. After a quick peek in his diary (woudn't you...?), we realised that his flight was only a few days away, and the whole thing became a bit Famous Five. 'But Peter, we must return the bag to the Embassy at once, otherwise poor Archie will be frightfully upset!' etc etc.
In true Famous Five spirit we stopped for a few beers in Pahar Ganj, and eventually found our way to the embassy. As we stepped inside the door, a young man came bounding out of the first building, almost in tears. He had just been informed that he would have to cancel his flight when lo! like angels from heaven appeareth the three whose coming was promised! He took us out for afternoon tea at the Taj Palace Hotel (one of the best 5-star places in Delhi) and then became a fully-fledged member of our motley crew.
Drinks in the evening, flights in the morning - by 7pm on the 5th all had departed, and I was left to stumble through the streets of Delhi as I had done with such wonder three weeks ago. But I wasn't to be alone for long...
Sunday, 26 November 2006
Yes, I remember Ajmer.
Chaps and chapatis, what you are about to read is the distillation of about ten days' travel, so you'll have to forgive me if it's a little long. However, each of you has my full permission to have a tea break halfway through, perhaps even have a nap. As long as you pay close attention, that is, to every single word. Word. Every. Word. Single. Single. Word. Every. Good, let's begin.
Ok! From the strangled alleys of Old Delhi to the gridiron system of Jaipur's bazaars (unique in India) my little craft wended its solitary way. I had my first experience of Indian train travel, albeit in a slightly posh class (all there was available), and got talking to a few old Indian blokes who furnished me with some useful if cryptic advice: 'Beware the fiendish monkeys of Jaipur!'. Landed on my feet at the 'Pearl Palace' guesthouse, described by the RG as the 'gold standard of all budget accommodation'. Flowers lined the marble staircases, every room had traditional Indian decorations and there was an idyllic rooftop restaurant looking out over what must have been one of Jaipur's most affluent districts. The houses resembled Mallorcan holiday villas - I counted 11 swimming pools. When I arrived, the receptionist presented me with a booklet entitled 'Jaipur for Aliens', including useful city maps and even some traditional Indian recipes, and I think that this little luxury just about sums up 'The Pearl Palace' - helpful if a bit cosy, and certainly catering for a particular kind of tourist. It was good to have a hot shower because I smelled. And - whisper it! - I spent the rest of the day relaxing.
On Sunday 19th I staggered around what is in reality a brutally busy, pretty exacting metropolis. Indeed, my overall impressions of Jaipur (and most other backpackers agree) were not good, and it seems a shame that the tourists of the so-called Golden Triangle (Delhi, Jaipur, Agra) might leave India disappointed. In the evening I watched the crowds outside Jaipur's titanic Raj Mandir cinema complex and witnessed with amusement the phenomenon of Indian queueing for the first time. Essentially, the idea is to leave no space between onself and the person in front - six inches and somebody shoves in an arm. The general senses of panic was augmented by the presence of an armed policeman who went around dealing hefty blows to anybody transgressing the two-by-two rule. From there I walked down to 'Geoffrey's Pub' - really, I was pampering myself - which managed to be more 'British' than Britain could ever be (the glass-polishing, white clad barmen all have lighters and attempt to strike up conversations with questions like 'Hard day?'), but there was football on the telly and the beer was good. Fiendish monkeys were thin on the ground.
By this stage, I was wearing my first curta, a type of traditional Indian garment which reaches down to the knees. I've since adopted it as a nightshirt due to its excessive size (think Ebenezer Scrooge) and bought a smaller one. If in the street my previous shirt was a handy fan-cooling system, these things are wind-tunnels.
In Jaipur, wandering through the 'Elephant Owner's Quarter' in search of elephants - a completely unreasonable thing to do, apparently - I fell into conversation with Rade Rashid, probably my first true Indian friend. Up until this point, I had religiously avoided the gazes of almost every Indian person, but this very friendly man showed me that what might have appeared aggression, was only curiosity, and what might have seemed like greediness, was only poverty. True, in the end he took me back to his house and tried to sell me gemstones, but I don't begrudge him that considering that he opened the door for me towards a new type of interaction with the Indian people. Within seconds of his opening conversational gambit ('Andrew Flintoff!') a crowd had formed, and they were all practising their English phrases and playing with my camera, entertainment which was only curtailed when one of them accidentally dropped it! The poor guy nearly committed suicide, he was so upset.
The one overridingly good product of my stay at the Pearl Palace was that I made the acquaintance of a lovely chap called Dave, a forty nine year-old Brummie staying in India for two weeks. In fact, we've only just now with a certain glumness parted company, 200 miles southwest in Udaipur - he to Agra to see the Taj before flying out of Delhi, we to the desert city of Jaisalmer this eve. Dave was a writer and a parent with many fascinating things to say, and excellent company in Jaipur, Pushkar and beyond.
From Jaipur, then, I truly kicked off into backpacker, budget-traveller territory, and witnessed a completely different India. On the morning of the 22nd, I caught a bus south to Pushkar through the featureless wayside town of Ajmer, where 'no one left and no one came'. Eight of us were crammed in the driver's cockpit, chewing on our knees. And gone, all of a sudden, was the pushiness, the fleecing, and in its place we have all been lucky enough to experience the unbridled friendliness of a lovely, lovely people.
Pushkar is a holy place - purportedly formed when Brahma scattered three flower petals, the largest of which formed the town's lake, and centrepiece. An unspoken rule in the town is that everyone receives a blessing from a local brahmin, for a small 'donation'. After this one is allowed the 'Pushkar Passport', a red wristband which theoretically means the cessation of all holy hassle (these brahmin, or priests, can be quite pushy). Unfortunately, not all of them are as pious as they report, and we heard stories of travellers paying up to 1000 Rs. for the privilege, while, surrounded on the ghats by holy men, I decided an already extortionate 100 should suffice. My brahmin blessed all my immediate family and you too, Dixie, so if any of you guys feel unusually contented/wealthy/physically healthy over the next few weeks, I'll accept cash or cheques.
A sidenote on the whole money issue - one of the essentials for understanding and appreciating the Indian people is accepting the fact that people will always want money, want things. Take the child of the guy who owns my guesthouse in Udaipur - I've given him sweets and pens aplenty and he still asks for more every time he sees me! To be honest, I find those travellers a bit pathetic who loudly refuse to pay a small baksheesh when a man wearing nothing but shorts wings their bags on top of the bus for them. Likewise, in a temple if one of the worshippers should give you a helpful quick tour of the shrines, a small tip is always appreciated. Neither should you expect applause for acceding to what really is such a tiny demand - India has a culture of 'give and take' which is essential to coexistence in such close proximity. On the first day, a guy walked into the internet cafe I was using, picked up my pen and wrote a number on his hand, replaced it and walked out without saying a word. Really, this is no crime, but you can imagine the frowns and tuba-like hrumphing this kind of behaviour would elicit in the UK. At the end of the day, 10 Rs. is a pittance to us - they know it and we know it too. In fact, it's exactly like borrowing a pen.
Pushkar is surrounded by 52 ghats, consisting of steps which lead down to a platform at the water's edge. It's expected that you remove your shoes before descending, and at sunrise you can watch the local men and women washing themselves and performing their ablutions - a very picturesque scene. As a Hindu holy place, the town is theoretically free of meat, eggs and alcohol (although a brahmin offered my friend Rob hash, opium and even Indian women within a day of our arrival) - perhaps a surprise, then, that it has become so popular with backpackers, and a symbol of hope for all who suspect that young people travel merely to live a fast and free lifestyle. Pushkar, you see, is positively rammed with travellers. Despite this, it retains a great deal that is Indian - more, in the opinion of most, than the scrimmages that are Delhi, Jaipur et al. It is one of the three Hindu holy places, after all (the others are Varanasi and Rishikesh), and there are many Indian pilgrims there besides.
The peaceful cohabitation of Indian and foreign was epitomised, for me, on my first evening in the town. After an evening meal, a few of us went for a wander and stumbled upon an Indian wedding procession in full swing. Drums sounded, lights were waving, and a local man was perched nervously atop a splendiferously-decked white steed. Every hundred metres or so, the procession would come to a stop for dancing and singing, and before long I was pulled into the centre of the fray to give my best imitation of Indian dancing - I stuck to the 'shoulder-shake', 'screwing in a lightbulb' and 'patting the dog' - and I'm pretty sure I must have looked like a lunatic but the groom and his company couldn't have been more thrilled. Everybody was exceptionally friendly and all the local teenagers wanted to shake my hand, clap me on the back or walk beside me with their arms around my shoulders, as is the Indian way. As the celebration culminated at the top of town, I was finally able to extricate myself with the promise of returning the next day. And as I walked home alone through the peaceful, traffic-free streets I lost count of the 'namastes' issuing from the darkness and the smiles from the waving shop-owners. This kind of friendliness I've never seen anywhere else.
Tangent number 18: I've let my beard grow since reaching India. Unfortunately, I haven't quite managed to achieve the 'mysterious and intriguing' look I was going for. Instead, my lower jaw is surrounded by a fog of downy, not-very-manly-looking hair. The barbers pick me out in the street and nod me sympathetically in the direction of the chair, as if to say 'I'll sort it out, mate, don't you worry', but I won't give up! Sometimes, a manchild's gotta do what a manchild's gotta do.
On my second night in Pushkar I went to a fantastic concert by a band called Prem Joshua. It took place in a Hindu temple just off the main street. The place was full of travellers, and it was quite a hilarious sight to see the brahmins begging the ladies not to dance too provocatively. The young ones, however, were quite obviously fighting with themselves to avoid joining in with the festivities. The whole thing was rabid with cliche, as the dropouts of capitalist society worldwide boogied with abandon to sitar/dance music crossover numbers and the German band leader intoned 'Tonight, the subject is looooove' with the deadpan sincerity that only Europeans can manage. Me and my English friends certainly suppressed a few sniggers, and I'm sure you would all have laughed heartily, but it really was great fun.
The next day was spent befriending locals at 'Sunset Point', and we ended up giving away a few things we no longer needed to the local kids. I love the company of Indian people, it's very refreshing that a smile or a pat on the back will go so far. Personal space issues do not exist, and it makes me ashamed to think of the loneliness of the English street, with each embroiled in his separate thoughts. An Indian man is, for the most part, so appreciative of any display of openness - even the hawkers will gladly sit down and talk cricket after a pat on the belly or a friendly word. The young men are invariably fascinated by the subject of sex - 'Do you have sex experience?' is becoming a very common question. That evening, a local kid held my hand all the way back to my hotel after I bought him a chapati. Another especially endearing feature is the head-wiggle, ubiquitous throughout India. As far as I can tell, the head-wiggle has no definitive translation - it can mean 'hello', 'thankyou', 'you're welcome', 'yes' and even 'no' - but it is meant in good faith and is always utterly charming.
As much as I loved it, alas, there came a day when we had to leave Pushkar behind. By this stage, one of our group, Tom, had gone north to Jaisalmer, and the four of us - Rob, Dave, a girl from Eastbourne called Charlotte and myself - headed south to Udaipur (yes, that's where they filmed James Bond's 'Octopussy', screened in restaurants across the city every night). Possibly the most picturesque place I've ever visited, Udaipur is also built around a central lake, this one colossal in size. Pics I can certainly provide ye with. We're staying at the Sudha guesthouse, where we can dine at any hour of the day while the down-at-heel owner witters on about the Lonely Planet recommendation he never received - obviously a big thing for hoteliers hereabouts. I've bought a guitar and we've had a few rooftop singsongs. Actually I'm very proud of that haggle - I managed to cut him down to around half price for a genuine 'Givson' (an Indian make), case and pick. It took about an hour, and I had to get up and pretend to walk out several times, but the guy eventually caved and I got the lot for a mere 2550 Rs.
So, that's it, and to Jaisalmer this eve! I'm sorry if your spouse has got bored and left you during the course of reading this, I promise to make the next one a little shorter.
And Dad - I've heard both the words 'excellent' and 'shithole' attached to Kolkata, so be prepared to keep an open mind.
Ok! From the strangled alleys of Old Delhi to the gridiron system of Jaipur's bazaars (unique in India) my little craft wended its solitary way. I had my first experience of Indian train travel, albeit in a slightly posh class (all there was available), and got talking to a few old Indian blokes who furnished me with some useful if cryptic advice: 'Beware the fiendish monkeys of Jaipur!'. Landed on my feet at the 'Pearl Palace' guesthouse, described by the RG as the 'gold standard of all budget accommodation'. Flowers lined the marble staircases, every room had traditional Indian decorations and there was an idyllic rooftop restaurant looking out over what must have been one of Jaipur's most affluent districts. The houses resembled Mallorcan holiday villas - I counted 11 swimming pools. When I arrived, the receptionist presented me with a booklet entitled 'Jaipur for Aliens', including useful city maps and even some traditional Indian recipes, and I think that this little luxury just about sums up 'The Pearl Palace' - helpful if a bit cosy, and certainly catering for a particular kind of tourist. It was good to have a hot shower because I smelled. And - whisper it! - I spent the rest of the day relaxing.
On Sunday 19th I staggered around what is in reality a brutally busy, pretty exacting metropolis. Indeed, my overall impressions of Jaipur (and most other backpackers agree) were not good, and it seems a shame that the tourists of the so-called Golden Triangle (Delhi, Jaipur, Agra) might leave India disappointed. In the evening I watched the crowds outside Jaipur's titanic Raj Mandir cinema complex and witnessed with amusement the phenomenon of Indian queueing for the first time. Essentially, the idea is to leave no space between onself and the person in front - six inches and somebody shoves in an arm. The general senses of panic was augmented by the presence of an armed policeman who went around dealing hefty blows to anybody transgressing the two-by-two rule. From there I walked down to 'Geoffrey's Pub' - really, I was pampering myself - which managed to be more 'British' than Britain could ever be (the glass-polishing, white clad barmen all have lighters and attempt to strike up conversations with questions like 'Hard day?'), but there was football on the telly and the beer was good. Fiendish monkeys were thin on the ground.
By this stage, I was wearing my first curta, a type of traditional Indian garment which reaches down to the knees. I've since adopted it as a nightshirt due to its excessive size (think Ebenezer Scrooge) and bought a smaller one. If in the street my previous shirt was a handy fan-cooling system, these things are wind-tunnels.
In Jaipur, wandering through the 'Elephant Owner's Quarter' in search of elephants - a completely unreasonable thing to do, apparently - I fell into conversation with Rade Rashid, probably my first true Indian friend. Up until this point, I had religiously avoided the gazes of almost every Indian person, but this very friendly man showed me that what might have appeared aggression, was only curiosity, and what might have seemed like greediness, was only poverty. True, in the end he took me back to his house and tried to sell me gemstones, but I don't begrudge him that considering that he opened the door for me towards a new type of interaction with the Indian people. Within seconds of his opening conversational gambit ('Andrew Flintoff!') a crowd had formed, and they were all practising their English phrases and playing with my camera, entertainment which was only curtailed when one of them accidentally dropped it! The poor guy nearly committed suicide, he was so upset.
The one overridingly good product of my stay at the Pearl Palace was that I made the acquaintance of a lovely chap called Dave, a forty nine year-old Brummie staying in India for two weeks. In fact, we've only just now with a certain glumness parted company, 200 miles southwest in Udaipur - he to Agra to see the Taj before flying out of Delhi, we to the desert city of Jaisalmer this eve. Dave was a writer and a parent with many fascinating things to say, and excellent company in Jaipur, Pushkar and beyond.
From Jaipur, then, I truly kicked off into backpacker, budget-traveller territory, and witnessed a completely different India. On the morning of the 22nd, I caught a bus south to Pushkar through the featureless wayside town of Ajmer, where 'no one left and no one came'. Eight of us were crammed in the driver's cockpit, chewing on our knees. And gone, all of a sudden, was the pushiness, the fleecing, and in its place we have all been lucky enough to experience the unbridled friendliness of a lovely, lovely people.
Pushkar is a holy place - purportedly formed when Brahma scattered three flower petals, the largest of which formed the town's lake, and centrepiece. An unspoken rule in the town is that everyone receives a blessing from a local brahmin, for a small 'donation'. After this one is allowed the 'Pushkar Passport', a red wristband which theoretically means the cessation of all holy hassle (these brahmin, or priests, can be quite pushy). Unfortunately, not all of them are as pious as they report, and we heard stories of travellers paying up to 1000 Rs. for the privilege, while, surrounded on the ghats by holy men, I decided an already extortionate 100 should suffice. My brahmin blessed all my immediate family and you too, Dixie, so if any of you guys feel unusually contented/wealthy/physically healthy over the next few weeks, I'll accept cash or cheques.
A sidenote on the whole money issue - one of the essentials for understanding and appreciating the Indian people is accepting the fact that people will always want money, want things. Take the child of the guy who owns my guesthouse in Udaipur - I've given him sweets and pens aplenty and he still asks for more every time he sees me! To be honest, I find those travellers a bit pathetic who loudly refuse to pay a small baksheesh when a man wearing nothing but shorts wings their bags on top of the bus for them. Likewise, in a temple if one of the worshippers should give you a helpful quick tour of the shrines, a small tip is always appreciated. Neither should you expect applause for acceding to what really is such a tiny demand - India has a culture of 'give and take' which is essential to coexistence in such close proximity. On the first day, a guy walked into the internet cafe I was using, picked up my pen and wrote a number on his hand, replaced it and walked out without saying a word. Really, this is no crime, but you can imagine the frowns and tuba-like hrumphing this kind of behaviour would elicit in the UK. At the end of the day, 10 Rs. is a pittance to us - they know it and we know it too. In fact, it's exactly like borrowing a pen.
Pushkar is surrounded by 52 ghats, consisting of steps which lead down to a platform at the water's edge. It's expected that you remove your shoes before descending, and at sunrise you can watch the local men and women washing themselves and performing their ablutions - a very picturesque scene. As a Hindu holy place, the town is theoretically free of meat, eggs and alcohol (although a brahmin offered my friend Rob hash, opium and even Indian women within a day of our arrival) - perhaps a surprise, then, that it has become so popular with backpackers, and a symbol of hope for all who suspect that young people travel merely to live a fast and free lifestyle. Pushkar, you see, is positively rammed with travellers. Despite this, it retains a great deal that is Indian - more, in the opinion of most, than the scrimmages that are Delhi, Jaipur et al. It is one of the three Hindu holy places, after all (the others are Varanasi and Rishikesh), and there are many Indian pilgrims there besides.
The peaceful cohabitation of Indian and foreign was epitomised, for me, on my first evening in the town. After an evening meal, a few of us went for a wander and stumbled upon an Indian wedding procession in full swing. Drums sounded, lights were waving, and a local man was perched nervously atop a splendiferously-decked white steed. Every hundred metres or so, the procession would come to a stop for dancing and singing, and before long I was pulled into the centre of the fray to give my best imitation of Indian dancing - I stuck to the 'shoulder-shake', 'screwing in a lightbulb' and 'patting the dog' - and I'm pretty sure I must have looked like a lunatic but the groom and his company couldn't have been more thrilled. Everybody was exceptionally friendly and all the local teenagers wanted to shake my hand, clap me on the back or walk beside me with their arms around my shoulders, as is the Indian way. As the celebration culminated at the top of town, I was finally able to extricate myself with the promise of returning the next day. And as I walked home alone through the peaceful, traffic-free streets I lost count of the 'namastes' issuing from the darkness and the smiles from the waving shop-owners. This kind of friendliness I've never seen anywhere else.
Tangent number 18: I've let my beard grow since reaching India. Unfortunately, I haven't quite managed to achieve the 'mysterious and intriguing' look I was going for. Instead, my lower jaw is surrounded by a fog of downy, not-very-manly-looking hair. The barbers pick me out in the street and nod me sympathetically in the direction of the chair, as if to say 'I'll sort it out, mate, don't you worry', but I won't give up! Sometimes, a manchild's gotta do what a manchild's gotta do.
On my second night in Pushkar I went to a fantastic concert by a band called Prem Joshua. It took place in a Hindu temple just off the main street. The place was full of travellers, and it was quite a hilarious sight to see the brahmins begging the ladies not to dance too provocatively. The young ones, however, were quite obviously fighting with themselves to avoid joining in with the festivities. The whole thing was rabid with cliche, as the dropouts of capitalist society worldwide boogied with abandon to sitar/dance music crossover numbers and the German band leader intoned 'Tonight, the subject is looooove' with the deadpan sincerity that only Europeans can manage. Me and my English friends certainly suppressed a few sniggers, and I'm sure you would all have laughed heartily, but it really was great fun.
The next day was spent befriending locals at 'Sunset Point', and we ended up giving away a few things we no longer needed to the local kids. I love the company of Indian people, it's very refreshing that a smile or a pat on the back will go so far. Personal space issues do not exist, and it makes me ashamed to think of the loneliness of the English street, with each embroiled in his separate thoughts. An Indian man is, for the most part, so appreciative of any display of openness - even the hawkers will gladly sit down and talk cricket after a pat on the belly or a friendly word. The young men are invariably fascinated by the subject of sex - 'Do you have sex experience?' is becoming a very common question. That evening, a local kid held my hand all the way back to my hotel after I bought him a chapati. Another especially endearing feature is the head-wiggle, ubiquitous throughout India. As far as I can tell, the head-wiggle has no definitive translation - it can mean 'hello', 'thankyou', 'you're welcome', 'yes' and even 'no' - but it is meant in good faith and is always utterly charming.
As much as I loved it, alas, there came a day when we had to leave Pushkar behind. By this stage, one of our group, Tom, had gone north to Jaisalmer, and the four of us - Rob, Dave, a girl from Eastbourne called Charlotte and myself - headed south to Udaipur (yes, that's where they filmed James Bond's 'Octopussy', screened in restaurants across the city every night). Possibly the most picturesque place I've ever visited, Udaipur is also built around a central lake, this one colossal in size. Pics I can certainly provide ye with. We're staying at the Sudha guesthouse, where we can dine at any hour of the day while the down-at-heel owner witters on about the Lonely Planet recommendation he never received - obviously a big thing for hoteliers hereabouts. I've bought a guitar and we've had a few rooftop singsongs. Actually I'm very proud of that haggle - I managed to cut him down to around half price for a genuine 'Givson' (an Indian make), case and pick. It took about an hour, and I had to get up and pretend to walk out several times, but the guy eventually caved and I got the lot for a mere 2550 Rs.
So, that's it, and to Jaisalmer this eve! I'm sorry if your spouse has got bored and left you during the course of reading this, I promise to make the next one a little shorter.
And Dad - I've heard both the words 'excellent' and 'shithole' attached to Kolkata, so be prepared to keep an open mind.
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
My Favourite Methods of Deterring Hawkers
My Favourite Methods of Deterring Hawkers:
1) Hawker: 'Hello friend, where you from?'
Hawkee: 'Delhi.'
2) Hawker: 'Hey man, you English?'
Hawkee: 'Deutsch.'
3) Hawker: 'Hello/ Excuse me/ You like rickshaw? Very cheap/ Good sir, you want some jewellery? Indian price, very good.'
Hawkee blows raspberry in response to every question.
And last but by no means least, the old classic:
4) Hawker: 'Hey man, how are you?'
Hawkee: 'Hey man, how are you?'
Hawker: 'I'm ok thanks. You want grass?'
Hawkee: 'I'm ok thanks. You want grass?'
Hawker: 'No, man, YOU want grass. I give YOU grass.'
Hawkee: 'No, man, YOU want grass. I give YOU grass.'
Hawker: 'Hey man, what's the problem? You very strange.'
Hawkee: 'Hey man, what's the problem? You very strange.'
and so on.
Having said that, I've left the stressful towns behind now and am currently reposing in wonderful, wonderful, peaceful Pushkar. More on this tomorrow - a concert in the old Hindu temple at the centre of town is due to start in 15 minutes.
1) Hawker: 'Hello friend, where you from?'
Hawkee: 'Delhi.'
2) Hawker: 'Hey man, you English?'
Hawkee: 'Deutsch.'
3) Hawker: 'Hello/ Excuse me/ You like rickshaw? Very cheap/ Good sir, you want some jewellery? Indian price, very good.'
Hawkee blows raspberry in response to every question.
And last but by no means least, the old classic:
4) Hawker: 'Hey man, how are you?'
Hawkee: 'Hey man, how are you?'
Hawker: 'I'm ok thanks. You want grass?'
Hawkee: 'I'm ok thanks. You want grass?'
Hawker: 'No, man, YOU want grass. I give YOU grass.'
Hawkee: 'No, man, YOU want grass. I give YOU grass.'
Hawker: 'Hey man, what's the problem? You very strange.'
Hawkee: 'Hey man, what's the problem? You very strange.'
and so on.
Having said that, I've left the stressful towns behind now and am currently reposing in wonderful, wonderful, peaceful Pushkar. More on this tomorrow - a concert in the old Hindu temple at the centre of town is due to start in 15 minutes.
Saturday, 18 November 2006
This week, I will be mostly wearin'....traditional Indian garb
Today: Old Delhi, and I have to say that it's worlds away from Pahar Ganj, though only ten minutes on foot. Old Delhi is, for me, where 'The Real India' (registered trademark) begins. I was met with scrupulous honesty - one chai-wallah even called me back after I walked off without my 5 Rs. (about 6p) change and 'Where are you from?' is not a prelude to the hard-sell - although one doesn't hear it often as most don't speak English. Luckily my Hindi is coming along nicely - 'Namaste, kyaa aap haathi bach-te mayng?'/ 'Good day, do you sell elephants?'. I've smoked a beedi - sorry, mum -, a sort of Indian cigarette (known as the 'poor man's puff') favoured by all the cycle-rickshaw wallahs and workmen which consists of a fragment of tobacco wrapped in a single banana leaf. Don't worry, I didn't smoke them all - I gave the rest away to children (is he joking?).
The undoubted pinnacle of my saunterings around Old Delhi - during which I was not hassled once, though I attracted my fair share of curious looks - was Jama Masjid, a vast mosque about half a mile away from the Red Fort. At the call to prayer, a long, loud, chilling wail booms out from the loudspeaker system across the whole of the old city before descending into those chunnering Arabic syllables. The sound, so different from homely church-bells, is awesome and utterly, utterly foreign - a sudden reminder that you have journeyed halfway across the planet to a place where things have panned out very differently. The mosque itself is breathtaking, a crop of huge onion-domes and spires framing a central courtyard. The sense of of scale there, like everywhere else, is augmented by the Indian dust that hangs in the air and makes the great curves of the architecture seem somehow very far away - almost in another age. Never fear - I have pics aplenty to show you all when I get home.
One other local institution I have more than a few pics of is a certain Miss (Adriana? can't be) Shah, approximately 5 years old, who marched up and introduced herself to me as I was sat waiting for the prayer-hour to finish, demanding 'photocamera'. Her and her family maintain and live beside a small monument at the gates of the mosque, and she was very sweet. Soon a few other kids were gathered round and some men left their rickshaws to come and have photocamera too. I was really very cheerful in handing over my rupees this time.
I've kitted myself out in full Indian garb and am contemplating giving away my t-shirts. The loose, flowing garments traditionally favoured by Indians really do help in the heat, acting as a handy fan-cooling system for you and everyone within a ten-metre radius as you flounce ridiculously down the road. Most of the young Indians, besides the Muslims on their way to prayer, are meanwhile trying to look as Western as possible - in shirts, jeans and leather shoes, and with mobile-phones sellotaped to their ears. It makes for some curious stand-offs when you blunder out of a sidestreet, traveller cliche number one, and into a group of young lads propped jauntily against mopeds or car-bonnets. Bafflement abounds on either side. Likewise, I was laughed at when I smoked the beedi - why, when I can afford the prestige of cigarettes? It makes you question yourself. Why is it fashionable to look dishevelled in the West? Over here, scruffiness means poverty.
I've learned that most Indians judge a man by his footwear. The spanking new Merrells I bought attract envious glances all the time and I'm frankly relieved that they're starting to get a bit battered. 'Hey man, nice sandals' is supposed to be a compliment, but I can't quite escape the sarcasm these phrases would have in a Western mouth and feel like a rich tit every time. More or less every transaction is implicitly guilt-inducing, and I have to resist an urge to pay well over the odds for any small service. You can sense the silent question every time you haggle, and I usually end up acquiescing far too easily, especially at the end of those dangerous rickshaw voyages as the wallah hunts around for change.
Small coinage, incidentally, is surprisingly hard to come by over here, and one of the reasons why you have to be selective with the beggars you donate to. Paying at a restaurant with a 500 rupee note for a meal which cost 117 (not my fault, the ATM has saddled me with hundreds of the buggers) will entail a scramble, sometimes with a boy running off down the street to change up.
I've had to withdraw 20 000 Rupees - I think that, shockingly, the amount is more than the average yearly Indian wage - because tomorrow I set sail for the historic city of Jaipur (not known for its cashpoints). At 6am. Sob. Paid up at the Hotel Namaskar today and the four nights have cost me only 850 Rs. - pretty much a tenner. One of the reasons why it was so cheap was because I volunteered to eschew a bathroom on the second nite and got the hotel's cut-price room at 200 Rs. per nite. There's a communal toilet I can wash in (in the sink in the communal toilet) and it's really not that bad, well worth saving 50 Rs. a night for. It has a fantastic window down into the street and a fully-functional fan which is this very moment drying my snazzy/silly Indian shirt.
And Delhi belly? I know you're all dying to hear....well, as yet, not a sniff (so to speak). In fact, I'm starting to think that the Rough Guiders are a bunch of scaremongerers, because I've been eating and drinking all over the shop and feel great (famous last words). Just as well really because I'd probably have to go out the window.
The undoubted pinnacle of my saunterings around Old Delhi - during which I was not hassled once, though I attracted my fair share of curious looks - was Jama Masjid, a vast mosque about half a mile away from the Red Fort. At the call to prayer, a long, loud, chilling wail booms out from the loudspeaker system across the whole of the old city before descending into those chunnering Arabic syllables. The sound, so different from homely church-bells, is awesome and utterly, utterly foreign - a sudden reminder that you have journeyed halfway across the planet to a place where things have panned out very differently. The mosque itself is breathtaking, a crop of huge onion-domes and spires framing a central courtyard. The sense of of scale there, like everywhere else, is augmented by the Indian dust that hangs in the air and makes the great curves of the architecture seem somehow very far away - almost in another age. Never fear - I have pics aplenty to show you all when I get home.
One other local institution I have more than a few pics of is a certain Miss (Adriana? can't be) Shah, approximately 5 years old, who marched up and introduced herself to me as I was sat waiting for the prayer-hour to finish, demanding 'photocamera'. Her and her family maintain and live beside a small monument at the gates of the mosque, and she was very sweet. Soon a few other kids were gathered round and some men left their rickshaws to come and have photocamera too. I was really very cheerful in handing over my rupees this time.
I've kitted myself out in full Indian garb and am contemplating giving away my t-shirts. The loose, flowing garments traditionally favoured by Indians really do help in the heat, acting as a handy fan-cooling system for you and everyone within a ten-metre radius as you flounce ridiculously down the road. Most of the young Indians, besides the Muslims on their way to prayer, are meanwhile trying to look as Western as possible - in shirts, jeans and leather shoes, and with mobile-phones sellotaped to their ears. It makes for some curious stand-offs when you blunder out of a sidestreet, traveller cliche number one, and into a group of young lads propped jauntily against mopeds or car-bonnets. Bafflement abounds on either side. Likewise, I was laughed at when I smoked the beedi - why, when I can afford the prestige of cigarettes? It makes you question yourself. Why is it fashionable to look dishevelled in the West? Over here, scruffiness means poverty.
I've learned that most Indians judge a man by his footwear. The spanking new Merrells I bought attract envious glances all the time and I'm frankly relieved that they're starting to get a bit battered. 'Hey man, nice sandals' is supposed to be a compliment, but I can't quite escape the sarcasm these phrases would have in a Western mouth and feel like a rich tit every time. More or less every transaction is implicitly guilt-inducing, and I have to resist an urge to pay well over the odds for any small service. You can sense the silent question every time you haggle, and I usually end up acquiescing far too easily, especially at the end of those dangerous rickshaw voyages as the wallah hunts around for change.
Small coinage, incidentally, is surprisingly hard to come by over here, and one of the reasons why you have to be selective with the beggars you donate to. Paying at a restaurant with a 500 rupee note for a meal which cost 117 (not my fault, the ATM has saddled me with hundreds of the buggers) will entail a scramble, sometimes with a boy running off down the street to change up.
I've had to withdraw 20 000 Rupees - I think that, shockingly, the amount is more than the average yearly Indian wage - because tomorrow I set sail for the historic city of Jaipur (not known for its cashpoints). At 6am. Sob. Paid up at the Hotel Namaskar today and the four nights have cost me only 850 Rs. - pretty much a tenner. One of the reasons why it was so cheap was because I volunteered to eschew a bathroom on the second nite and got the hotel's cut-price room at 200 Rs. per nite. There's a communal toilet I can wash in (in the sink in the communal toilet) and it's really not that bad, well worth saving 50 Rs. a night for. It has a fantastic window down into the street and a fully-functional fan which is this very moment drying my snazzy/silly Indian shirt.
And Delhi belly? I know you're all dying to hear....well, as yet, not a sniff (so to speak). In fact, I'm starting to think that the Rough Guiders are a bunch of scaremongerers, because I've been eating and drinking all over the shop and feel great (famous last words). Just as well really because I'd probably have to go out the window.
Thursday, 16 November 2006
LOST....in the Maaaaiiiiin Bazaaaaaaaaaaar
Well! It's all here, folks! Just as ordered, just like it said in all the guidebooks. They exist, the rickshaw-wallahs, the touts, the scammers, the beggars, the magnificent street-cooking, the midgets in bikinis (I made that one up). The narrow streets and alleys of Pahar Ganj are crammed with dogs, sadhus and chai-wallahs, and with row upon row of different coloured cloths. The cows really do wander the streets - in fact, it's quite a lot of fun to watch the Hindu stall and shop-owners shoo them away, obviously fighting against themselves to be civil. They're a lot more arrogant than English cows, the ones over here. They swagger a bit. In fact, the first attempt to pick my pocket was made by a cow. I'm surprised he didn't take me by the arm and try to guide me into a shop.
If I sound a bit cynical it's because the first day or so has at times been something of a hassle. I'm starting to wish mum hadn't washed my tops so well because the shop-owners and beggars can sense your freshness and look at you like so much meat. Understandable, really. The place is intimidating at first. You don't have a single moment to stop and peer between the piled-up signs, looking for that cafe the Rough Guide said was 'not bad' - in fact, the one time I tried to a nearby tout screamed ''LOST!!!...in the Maaaaiiiiinn Bazaaaaaaarr!!' and jumped out in front of me with his arms held weirdly aloft. That said, by far the biggest danger to your wallet and your patience are the well-dressed, thoroughly-groomed young men who fall into step with you as you walk the streets of the tourist district. The lines 'Hello, friend', and 'Where you from? England? Nice country' and even 'Welcome to India' are all starting to sound a little worn. These dapper gents are invariably trying to lead you to a shop, a market, a fake tourist office or to distract you long enough for their friends to pick your pocket. I chatted to a web-developer named (Chris? Greg?) this morning in a cafe at brekky - lived here for 2 1/2 years, no less - and he said the only way to avoid hassle is to ignore them. Practically everyone, that is. It sounds harsh, but if you so much as look at a pair of sunglasses, the walking street-vendors will follow you, murmuring the same words over and over ('very good quality...very good design...Ray-ban...very good quality...'). The same can be said, I'm afraid to say, of the street children. I'm glad that I read about the rampant solvent-addiction that lies behind every imploring look, every softly-spoken 'Sahib, namaste' and every tug at the sleeve because if not I'd probably have given away my first week's budget already without helping anybody.
And yes, I have been scammed ('Widows of Bangladesh', indeed). On the first day, also, barely twenty minutes after stepping out of the hotel, I was led to a fake tourist office by my charming companion, 'Raj' - I think he was taking the piss - and, what with my British diffidence, it was really a struggle to leave. I was told later on by the brothers who run the Namaskar that these places are a real problem, posing as official, and have duped many travellers (on closer inspection of the central district, Connaught Place, they are everywhere). That said, 540 English pounds for a car tour of Rajasthan was ever-so-slightly out of my price range and I was in no danger of paying up. They picked the wrong guy to mess with this time!...because I'm far too poor.
These things aside, the real Delhi - the chaotic markets and forgotten backstreets - has a real charm, and it's growing on me moment-by-moment. Today I took an a/c bus tour of Old Delhi for 105 Rs. (about one pound twenty) - I even tried to haggle with the operators and demanded to see paperwork for about ten minutes, such was my wariness, before realising that I was actually sat inside the official tourist office of India and the fee was non-negotiable - and after all those cool, spacious gardens and thunderous tombs it was actually quite a joy to put-put into brash, noisy Pahar Ganj market-place aboard my auto-rickshaw (I'll talk about Indian driving another time). Its colour, its sheer liveliness, is incredible. The place may smell like Satan's flip-flops, but it's starting to feel like home. And I managed to walk the whole length of the Main Bazaar without being hassled once! I think I've cracked it.
If I sound a bit cynical it's because the first day or so has at times been something of a hassle. I'm starting to wish mum hadn't washed my tops so well because the shop-owners and beggars can sense your freshness and look at you like so much meat. Understandable, really. The place is intimidating at first. You don't have a single moment to stop and peer between the piled-up signs, looking for that cafe the Rough Guide said was 'not bad' - in fact, the one time I tried to a nearby tout screamed ''LOST!!!...in the Maaaaiiiiinn Bazaaaaaaarr!!' and jumped out in front of me with his arms held weirdly aloft. That said, by far the biggest danger to your wallet and your patience are the well-dressed, thoroughly-groomed young men who fall into step with you as you walk the streets of the tourist district. The lines 'Hello, friend', and 'Where you from? England? Nice country' and even 'Welcome to India' are all starting to sound a little worn. These dapper gents are invariably trying to lead you to a shop, a market, a fake tourist office or to distract you long enough for their friends to pick your pocket. I chatted to a web-developer named (Chris? Greg?) this morning in a cafe at brekky - lived here for 2 1/2 years, no less - and he said the only way to avoid hassle is to ignore them. Practically everyone, that is. It sounds harsh, but if you so much as look at a pair of sunglasses, the walking street-vendors will follow you, murmuring the same words over and over ('very good quality...very good design...Ray-ban...very good quality...'). The same can be said, I'm afraid to say, of the street children. I'm glad that I read about the rampant solvent-addiction that lies behind every imploring look, every softly-spoken 'Sahib, namaste' and every tug at the sleeve because if not I'd probably have given away my first week's budget already without helping anybody.
And yes, I have been scammed ('Widows of Bangladesh', indeed). On the first day, also, barely twenty minutes after stepping out of the hotel, I was led to a fake tourist office by my charming companion, 'Raj' - I think he was taking the piss - and, what with my British diffidence, it was really a struggle to leave. I was told later on by the brothers who run the Namaskar that these places are a real problem, posing as official, and have duped many travellers (on closer inspection of the central district, Connaught Place, they are everywhere). That said, 540 English pounds for a car tour of Rajasthan was ever-so-slightly out of my price range and I was in no danger of paying up. They picked the wrong guy to mess with this time!...because I'm far too poor.
These things aside, the real Delhi - the chaotic markets and forgotten backstreets - has a real charm, and it's growing on me moment-by-moment. Today I took an a/c bus tour of Old Delhi for 105 Rs. (about one pound twenty) - I even tried to haggle with the operators and demanded to see paperwork for about ten minutes, such was my wariness, before realising that I was actually sat inside the official tourist office of India and the fee was non-negotiable - and after all those cool, spacious gardens and thunderous tombs it was actually quite a joy to put-put into brash, noisy Pahar Ganj market-place aboard my auto-rickshaw (I'll talk about Indian driving another time). Its colour, its sheer liveliness, is incredible. The place may smell like Satan's flip-flops, but it's starting to feel like home. And I managed to walk the whole length of the Main Bazaar without being hassled once! I think I've cracked it.
Sunday, 12 November 2006
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