From Jodhpur we made the long bus journey to Jaiselmer, on the fringe with a desert beyond which lies Pakistan. Not a particularly comforting thought. In fact it seems to be a bit of a running joke in these parts - being sold off to Pakistan for a couple of camels or a handful of rupees. We stayed in a guesthouse run the well-spoken Papu. Isabelle, my sister, had stayed there during her visit to India a few years ago and Papu had later stayed in her flat in Barcelona during a trip to Europe. We were very well hosted and Papu even treated us to the best lassi I've ever had, in a small quarter of the town where fewer tourists venture. Well we all like to think that, don't we... But given the looks of wonderment and bemusement by the local punters slurping down their Kulfis, I'd be inclined to believe that they don't get visits from gringos on a regular basis. The lassi was thick and milky, perfumed with saffron, cardamom and raisins and we used spoons to forage for the good bits at the bottom.
At the end of our stay in Jaislemer, Papu arranged for us to go on a camel treck - a must for those who have come as far as the desert. So with some (a lot) or trepidation we clambered into the jeep and embarked on our journey about an hour from the town into the desert. We passed gypsy settlements of make-shift tents, and women in brightly coloured saris carrying big steel water pots on their heads. The contrast of the bright colours against the monochrome sand was stunning.
Finally we arrived and saw our new form of transport and companionship for the night, which would take us the rest of the way out into the desert: le chameau. I managed to bag myself a fairly small one (a baby allegedly.. I'm not so sure..) which I named Sanjay. The most frightening part of maneuvering a camel is getting on and off. When the camel stands up he stretches out his freakishly articulated hind legs first, which sends you tobogganing forwards, and then woop.. You fly backwards again as he stands on all four limbs. This happens in a few seconds but the effect is quite startling. And with lumpy, bony backs, I wouldn't say these beasts were designed with comfort in mind. Having said that, I was quite amazed to see our guides clamber on with practiced ease and ride bareback no bother; not least the miniature little boy in scruffy clothes who bopped up and down on his over-sized camel and bossed the animal around with confidence.
And so we plodded along through the sand for an hour, the surroundings growing more breathtaking with every hoofed step we took forward. And finally we arrived (though how they had any clue which direction we were going is beyond me..'just left after the shriveled shrub and a couple of metres right after the sand dune!'..) and set up camp for the night. Our guides set to work on dinner and worked away for about an hour. Chapatis made from scratch on a campfire.. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Jamie Oliver with your pseudo-rustic cooking on Andalusian campfire tv sets, and your 'bashing up' of this and that and incessant use of your hands to mix ingredients.. And so we lay on our blankets chatting the hours away, the sun began to set and the light changed. And then all of a sudden in was dark, yet incredibly lit up from the light of the moon. And then the stars began to pop out one by one. And apart from the slight irritation of the intrusion of some shameless (and very large) beetles who tried to join our party by scuttling onto our blankets uninvited, we spent an incredible evening chatting and listening to some tunes. We enjoyed a hearty and properly rustic dinner of some kind of courgette-oid stew, lentil daal, rice and of course the chapati. After such a huge feed, we fell asleep under the stars to the blissful sound of silence.
One of the striking features of Indians, I have noticed, is their hair. It seems to be a most important aspect of their personal grooming and aesthetic appeal, with considerable effort lavished upon this precious asset. I would argue that Indian hair is perhaps the finest quality hair I have encountered to date. My tangled sandpaper-like tresses (although my hair cannot so much be classed as long, since I opted for the chop before my departure... a new found empathy for Samson ensued) could not even begin to compete with this kind of caliber of hair. This hair is of a startling thickness, and I cannot help but stare in wonderment at the women's thick plaits that tumble down the whole lengths of their backs and which are the same width all the way down. No tapering out or split ends here, I can tell you. The colour is a rich and shiny ebony, and the nourishing perfumed oil they treat their hair with glints in the sun. And that's just the women! The men's hair is equally thick and lustrous and they seem to lavish almost as much, dare I say, more attention and coquettishness on their hair than the women. Crew cuts and shaved heads don't really fly here (except for the odd baby with a strange undercut) and the standard hair-do is a somewhat old fashioned, slicked back, short-back-and-sides, reminiscent of 1940s Hollywood movie stars. On a recent bus journey I was amazed to witness the man in front of me take out a nifty little pocket comb from his breast pocket (in fact a common occurrence)and proceed to comb his hair for a full five minutes! There wasn't THAT much there to comb in the first place... And the Bollywood actors (male) seem to set the standard, with their thick mane-like hair in bouffant 'brushings' plastered on giant billboards on every boulevard, endorsing any number of 'must have' products.
From Udaipur we now find ourselves in the Blue City - Jodhpur. Most of the buildings were painted with paint tinted with indigo, the colour of the religious Brahman class, which also had the dual purpose of repelling insects and creating a cooling effect {allegedly}. This time we opted for a bus to take six hours away from Udaipur to Jodhpur. As we ventured out through rural Rajastan, the scenery became more and more arid and desert-like. In fact with it's stone walls and crispy looking trees, bits of it reminded me a bit of Provence. Well perhaps Provence after some sort of nuclear holocaust. I think I saw a dead cow. Unless he was in some sort of yogic pose, but he didn't look too healthy. Oh and then I saw a cow that was definitely dead; half it's body had been picked away by vultures and all that was left was a couple ribs sticking out. It looked a bit like a vignette from a Lucky Luke comic book.
After a six and then some drive with some fairly dubious driving, we were abruptly spewed out from the bus and told we had arrived in Jodhpur. It was dark by this stage and the cars and tuk tuks raged around us on the noisy streets. What followed was the most bowel-clenching tuk tuk ride of the trip so far, as we darted left and right to avoid oncoming traffic from just about every direction imaginable, all to the soundtrack of a cacophony of beeping, temple bells, chanting, shouting and general noise. {Barry's Tea ad anyone?!} It was a bit like being thrown into a weird computer game {why has no one capitalised on this idea?} where the aim is to swerve to avoid bicycles, tuk tuks, women in saris {five extra points}, mini children, sleeping dogs lying around the place, and oh.. death. At one point we drove through a junction that was like a perverse version of Place Meiser, with traffic weaving in and out from every direction. I ask you, HOW DOES IT WORK? How do people not crash every ten seconds??? And the weird thing is, somehow it does.
We spent the afternoon climbing up to this massive fortress that overlooks the city, with our new little travel gang of people we have been hanging around with since Udaipur. We were told this evening that it was 50 degrees!! FIFTY!! And you really feel it. Especially considering that we walked the whole steep way up because we didn't find the main entrance, whilst most people tuk tuk it up until just outside the ramparts. Darn. Well I'm pretty proud! Oh and i saw a dead puppy on the way up and we also got drawn into some sort of wedding procession. We did a two hour walking tour of the fort and heard lots about the Rajputs and Moghuls and co. And the usual fabulous Maharajah splendour that I don't think i will ever tire of seeing. I think I have been a Maharajah princess in another life because I can totally see myself fitting into that life style.
After a long day and much sweating and consumption of tepid water, we are now relaxing spent up on the roof top, chatting to other travelers, munching on some channa masala and enjoying the starry view of the fort. The heat has still not let up!
Well I survived Mumbai and made it in one piece to Udaipur (though my back felt like a jigsaw after the train journey..). What a wonderful place. I know ‘wonderful’ is a bit of a middle aged woman word but it seems to be the one that fits. But let me go back a bit...
As we pulled out of Mumbai Central we caught a glimpse of the lives and living conditions of some of the slums. We hadn’t been brave enough to do one of the ‘slum tours’ or venture out on our own. It’s a tricky balance between feeling the need to face the harsh reality of the conditions so many people live in, and at the same time wanting to avoid the slight element of voyeurism and exploitation in paying see people living in miserable conditions. Perhaps doing some kind of volunteering is the only way to assuage one’s guilt? That will be for the second part of the trip.
The train itself was an experience, since we took ordinary seats and not a sleeper train for the day time bit of the journey. It was already relatively packed by the time we all settled into our tight-squeeze ‘seats’ at the station, and I was quite alarmed to see how many more people continued to push and shove to get on at each subsequent station. There were dozens of people standing in the aisles, literally for hours, so we counted ourselves pretty lucky with our economical if somewhat rigid seating. The train journey was about eight hours to Ahmedabad and I had some interesting chats with people. I must say that since I’ve been here I’ve had some very kind and genuine exchanges of smiles with people. Little snippets of niceness. And people are very interested and chat to you. This is something I'm not really used to, having spent a considerable portion of my life in Brussels, where people do in fact stare at you in equal measure but the difference is that it’s usually not with the same amount of benevolence. So we finally arrived in Ahmedabad and waited an hour, then got our night train all the way to Udaipur. I actually survived the experience of the bunk bed and tiny cabin scenario and I’m quite proud, but this time we were in pretty decent conditions (it’s all relative) and I fear for my mental health if I have to sleep in one of those three tier things… We shall see. So we arrived in Udaipur, Rajastan, know as ‘The White City’ at about eight in the morning, dishevelled and disoriented. And despite the noticeable heat, it was some how much more bearable than Mumbai. We got a little tuk tuk to our hostel, the Nukkad guesthouse. It’s a beautiful family-run guest house over several levels, with a polished marble open air staircase cut out in the centre of the house and towering up four floors. {I fell down an entire flight of stairs on the first morning and still have a shiner the colour and size of an aubergine on my left buttock} On the top floor there’s a beautiful roof top terrace with view over lake, decorated in the famous Rajastani hand painted detailed flowers and patters, and with a nice big long table where all the other guests come and hang out at various parts of the day. We’ve met some nice people: two English girls, a Swiss girl, two Canadians; and we’ve just sort of been hanging out and visiting things together. We’ve also had some nice chats with the owner of the place, Raju, who is slowly expanding his empire and plans to open a second guest house. The original house (where we are) has been in their family for about four generations and about twenty years ago he turned the family home into a guest house .
So on the first day we all headed out to visit the CityPalace, an impressive MaharajaPalace (or actually I think it’s even a rank above that.. Maharana or something like that..) which is a labyrinthine structure which comprises no less than eleven palaces all constructed and added to little by little by consecutive Maharajas from about the 1500s until the end of the Raj. Mad stuff. My favourite was the GardenPalace, a leafy little marble haven up at a great height, that you reach from a tiny corridor and flight of stairs. From the palace you can see the Palace hotel, where the James Bond film Octopussy was filmed. Infact, last night we finally got around to going to one of the roof top restaurants where they hiked up three flours with a big telly and screened the film for us while we ate some lovely dinner. The film was shot in 1981 and caused quite a rukus. Apparently the tuk tuks were brought in especially for the film and have been a part of the city ever since.
I am currently writing this in what is quite possibly the smallest cyber cafe know to man. It's basically a very small corridor/broom cupboard which is about 1.5m in width and has four computers in it. So here I am in Mumbai, a day more than expected due to a slight mishap on our parts with trains (we live and learn..) I'm now three days in to my India journey and starting to acclimatise. Well sort of... The heat is like nothing I've ever experienced in my life. I thought it was hot in Cuba but no, it really wasn't that hot. It's absolutely scorchio here. And so humid. I've pretty much accepted that I will look like a total ming-bag for the next two months, with hair of an indescribable and there's really not a lot I can do about it. The thought of shaving my head has crossed my mind, I'm not gonna lie. But I suppose you start to accept the heat because there's not a lot you can do, and you slow down and take breaks when you can. I find myself feeling jealous of the flee-riddent mongrels who can do nothing else but just lie on the hot stone, in total surrender to the heat. Do you think people would judge me?
How to describe the millions of flashing impressions, sensations, images, smells, colours, as I took the taxi from the airport on the first day? I don't think I'll even try... I had heard so many anecdotes before leaving about the magic of India, the 'je ne sais quoi' that you feel when I first arrived. And as I trundled through the airport on the first day I thought, 'Shit, what if I just don't feel it?!' Expectations can be a let down. I’ll have to fake it. But on that first journey from the airport, it slowly came over me and I did indeed feel 'it'. Whatever 'it' is. One thing that has been quite a pleasant surprise is that Mumbai actually smells quite nice. Well the bits I have seen, for the most part. I'd imagine the slums are not particularly fragrant or salubrous.. But generally when you walk around the street, it's not bad. I was expecting that with the heat and sun, and the fairly stomach clenching smells I'd experienced in Abidjan, that it would be overwhelming. But quite honestly, the smells from the bin juice on the streets of Barcelona when the sun rises is far worse!
I have been quite surprised to discover that Mumbai is not as cosmopolitan as I had imagined and generally people are quite intrigued to see white people. We seem to provoke quite a bit of curiosity and have a very high comedic value. Yesterday we went to try and get tickets for a boat trip to ElephantaIsland (which was closed) and while resting in the shade for a moment, we attracted all sorts of attention. I noticed this family with young children standing huddled together and who shyly looked over at us and giggled embarrassedly. The little boy looked over timidly and the Dad sort of gently nudged him over, probably saying something like 'Go on! Don't be scared'. The little boy came over and stretched out his hand and said 'Hello, how are you'. So we shook his little hand, and in turn the hands of all the members of the familiy. It was a bit like feeding time at the seal tank in Dublin zoo. Then they headed off all chuffed with themselves, as quickly as they had come! Straight after a couple of young guys came over and asked if they could take pictures with them. So we obliged and posed with various people who all took it in turns to pose, then take the camera so that the other friends could all be in the picture. Pretty soon this got somewhat out of hand and there were no fewer than ten to twelve people who had amassed before us, all gesturing which way to pose and begging for one more picture. I’d say we were there a good fifteen minutes. So this is what it must be like to be famous.
Finally, I cannot finish without mentioning our, thankfully, former lodgings. Lise and Cyril (my travel companions) where already staying in the Salvation Army Red Shield Hostel (yes, I'm serious). Well I can tell you, this place exceeded all my very worst pre-departure anxieties and worst case scenarios. And in the most evocative manner possible. The place is run by a man who could almost certainly transition into other career opportunities, say for example, playing an evil and stingy uncle in a Bollywood film, who beats his servants and shouts angrily in hindi all time. The place is basically a complete and utter dump. There’s just no other way to describe it. It is the architectural and structural equivalent to a big poo. And it is also has an interior décor theme of poo, in fact. Filth infested, no running water (though this was apparently a recent development) blocked toilets that don't flush, flee-ridden matresses... And the man has the audacity to get angry when we enquired about a few different rooms! Every time I went to the toilet (a traumatic affair indeed) I had visions of the toilet in Trainspotting when Ewan McGregor is going cold turkey and hallucinates that he is sucked into a cack-infested toilet bowl. Lovely... And I must mention in passing the breakfast which consisted of a hard boiled egg, two slices of American sliced pan-style Wonderbread, a dodgy banana, and a little cup of ghee (clarified and disconcerting butter) and a little dollop of jam. Jam is an exaggeration, it was more like fluorescent melted jelly cubes that taste like sweets. Anyway, fear not! We since moved into a far superior hostel where the owners actually take into consideration the fact that you are human, and get this, it’s CHEAPER!! Right, I must go as we are off to catch our train to Ahmedabad and then a night train to Udaipur. Mumbai is actually a surprisingly green and beautiful city, with plenty to see and do. But the humidity is daunting so we are off north into the dessert where it is technically hotter I think, but a different more bearable kind of hot. I hope.
