Jan 30th - Jaisalmer to Sawai Madhopur via Jaipur

The train that left Jaisalmer around midnight finally arrived in Jaipur at around 12.35pm, so quite an epic journey. The reason for returning to Jaipur was that it provided a straightforward connection to Ranthambore safari park, which is located on the edge of a small town called Sawai Madhopur.

By the time I awoke, the red desert dirt of Jaisalmer had taken on a greener hue. For some reason, I hadn't been able to reserve a ticket for the short journey from Jaipur to Sawai Madhopur, but the booking clerk in Jodhpur insisted it would be straightforward to buy a ticket at the counter, and he was right. It felt like a bit of a gamble, as trains can arrive late in India, and I needed to catch the train leaving Jaipur at 2pm that reached Sawai Madhopur at 4pm so there was not a great deal of time.

Reaching Sawai Madhopur, I decided to stay in the Rajputana Heritage hotel due to the glowing reviews of the owner, Mr Vishnu, in arranging jungle safaris and he was really helpful in assisting me with planning my itinerary there. So i booked on the morning safari for the following two mornings; the mercurial Mr Vishnu, a very genial fellow, seemed to have contacts in the national park that deals with booking safaris, and I was able to select which of the 9 or 10 zones of the safari that I wished to tour, which I think doesn't generally apply.  So I picked zone 5, and then after an early evening meal, had an early night.

Jan 29th - Jaisalmer Fort and Camel Ride

After a few hours sleep yesterday, i visited Jaisalmer's sandstone fort, which was really impressive. Unfortunately I ran out of time to see it properly, but it was noticeable that unlike the other forts, there is quite a large community living still in its environs, which was quite unexpected, and some have lived here for generations. The views from the top of the fort are astounding, and clearly show how close the fort is to the Thar desert that stretches out into the distance. The fort is also home to various Jain and Hindu temples.

Before going to the fort, I'd gone to the train station and managed to get an upgrade on my train ticket for the midnight train to Jaipur. There is a process that allows you to do this, depending on availability, the day before your intended journey (called 'Tatkal') so I was now in a '3AC' sleeper berth rather than the regular sleeeper, which had not been great. Getting the ticket was quite stressful; not much sense of decorum in the queue at the sole booking office counter that was open, with people trying to push in at any time, yet the clerk managed to maintain order quite magnificently. You've got to hand it to these guys, such grace under pressure!

I'd also booked myself onto a one day camel trek into the desert starting today through an agency suitably called 'Trotters', just adjacent to the fort. So at 6am, a jeep arrived at the hotel, took me to the office where I dumped my backpack and then picked up another couple of backpackers from England, Deborah and Lydia, before heading off into the desert, where we had breakfast in the dunes. The light at that time of night was magical looking back at the city.

Riding the camel was pretty terrifying at first, a bit like riding a scooter in Udaipur, particularly with regard to the first ascent from the camel's front legs being followed by a more heightened lurch from the hind legs. What a laugh! My mounts and dismounts were far less elegant than those of my companions! I had to hold onto a metal bar that protruded from the front of the saddle, but it proved impossible for it not to dig into my midriff at various times, which created a soreness that lasted for a few days. Lunch was spent sheltering under a tree from the hot sun for a few hours, with the men tending the camels cooking a very nice vegetable curry, and then we carried on riding into the late afternoon before arriving at a point in the desert where we met up with a group of others who had perhaps taken a different route earlier in the day. All day the skies had been absolutely clear of any clouds, so after watching the stunning sunset over the dunes, the skies were festooned with a myriad of stars. Quite lovely.

I would have happily stayed overnight with the others in the desert, but my crazy itinerary - centred on being in Kathmandu for the Annapurna trek - meant I was booked onto the 5 to midnight train from Jaisalmer to Jaipur that night. Shame as I was enjoying the post-dinner conversation with the other travellers, particularly an American teacher who was trying to explain the US constitution as it applies to elections over there, and how Trump managed to prevail without winning the public vote. So I came back to Jaisalmer in the jeep, picked up my backpack, rested for an hour or so and got a lift to the train station.

The '3AC' train was a lot more comfortable, with sheets, blankets and pillows provided and strangely the two women from Brazil who had been in the queue at the train station the previous day were in the same compartment. It did feel a fair bit safer and more private in the compartment we were in, and I felt more relaxed leaving my rucksack under the bottom bunk (unfortunately I had the top bunk again), and I did get some decent sleep on this occasion. The compartment felt a lot more socially middle class, which probably made me feel a lot safer, especially with not having people from other carriages wandering through at any time of the night.

Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer Fort

Breakfast in the Thar desert

Riding a Camel

Inelegant dismount

Sunset in the Thar desert

Jan 27th - 28th Jodhpur fort and night train to Jaisalmer

Today I visited Mehrangarh fort at Jodhpur, built by Rao Jodha, after whom the city is named. Its a richly impressive set of buildings and, like the others, built into the rock of the Aravalli  hills in the 15th century. As with the other forts, the military aspect of defending Jodhpur fort from enemy attack was combined with the most lavishly decorated palaces that are truly breathtaking: the flower and mirror palaces were particularly impressive. The audio guide, partly narrated by the current head of the ruling Rathore clan (albeit a ceremonial role now) was really excellent. The museum also had some fascinating artefacts such as palanquins and costumes.

Before leaving the fort I treated myself to a meal at a lovely restaurant built into the fort that offered traditional Rajasthani thali that was very different to other Indian food that i'd had, including dumplings of compressed lentils, and some sweet and sour dishes with lovely breads. The place provided wonderful views of the fort by night. A brilliant place!

After leaving the restaurant, I collected my backpack from the haweli and caught the midnight train to Jaisalmer, a city to the north east of Jodhpur. My train ticket was in the regular no-frills sleeper class of the train, which felt pretty uncomfortable as the compartment wasn't separate from the rest of the train so it felt that anyone could wander into where you were sleeping. My bunk was on the top, and my paranoia of having my backpack stolen meant that I pulled it up to the bunk and attempted, fairly unsuccessfully, to sleep with it.

Getting up to the top bunk was quite an effort, and involved using a small set of ladder rungs at the end of the bunk to pull myself up, and the small gap between the bunk bed and the ceiling of the train made it quite a gymnastic effort! I think anyone over 6 feet in height would find it quite difficult, and the limited length of the mattress made it more of a challenge, although the mattress itself was surprisingly comfortable.

I briefly chatted to the group of Indian post-graduate students in the bunks across and below from me, who weren't saddled with as much luggage as I was, and were more relaxed about the whole situation than me. So I lay there cradling my backpack and probably managed a couple or so hours of sleep. There is no bedding provided, so passengers bring along there own sheets, and I'd bought a cheap one myself for that purpose.

The train got to Jaisalmer just after 6am, and the guy I'd met in Pushkar who travelled a fair bit round Rajasthan recommended a particular hotel, the Sky Plaza. Getting out of the station, various auto-rickshaw drivers offered lifts to passengers, so I took one straight to the hotel, where I knocked on the door and a man who had obviously been asleep let me in, showed me to a room and after negotiating a price, I managed to get a couple of hours sleep, which felt luxuriant after being on the train.

Jodhpur Fort

Jodhpur Fort

Jodhpur Fort

Jodhpur Fort

Mirrored Palace

Howdah

Night view of Jodhpur fort

Jan 24th - 26th Getting to Jodhpur

So after a lovely few days in Udaipur I said goodbye to Neetu and Basant and took a regular bus to Jodhpur. Another long journey in a pretty cramped, hot and quite uncomfortable vehicle made pleasant by having a lengthy conversation with an Indian student who was in his second year studying agricultural research at a prestigious university.

He told me about the challenges of gaining admission to university, the considerable annual costs involved for families (around 30,000 rupees in fees and around 20,000 rupees for board and lodging) and the mushrooming of private universities in recent years, although apparently qualifications gained from public institutions are looked upon more favourably than those from private ones. He had needed to score really high marks to gain admission, and was very proud of gaining admission, especially as his course involved placements with agricultural firms looking to undertake small research studies of interest to them, which he hoped would maximise employment opportunities for him. Quite an interesting insight into the hot-house of Indian academia, where the pitfalls of not making the grade are quite perilous given the absence of a social security system. The pressure on families must be immense. But for all that, he and his friends were really enjoying their student days in the hostel, despite all the pressures. We talked about the challenges of poorer students gaining admission and he reckoned that about 10% of his colleagues had all their fees paid by the government as their families could not afford to support them, so there is a basic means-testing system in place.

Arriving in Jodhpur, I took an autorickshaw to a cheap haveli virtually opposite the railway station, which meant the occasional railway announcement filtering across from across the road, but not as obtrusively as it might seem.

I spent 3 nights in the haweli, partly resting up from all the travelling i'd done, although I did find time to fit in a haircut which was an interesting experience as whenever I said something, the staff and customers found my English accent hugely amusing. Decent haircut though, better than the usual catastrophes I regularly encounter in that regard. Telling assembled customers and staff that I was there when a 17 year old Tendulkar scored his first Test hundred at Old Trafford went down very well, although the highlight - literally - came when the owner wishing to write down a recommended eaterie for me on a scrap of paper (by now it was turning dark), took me outside his salon and inserted some device into an adjacent electricity cable to provide some light, with sparks flying in all directions! I'm not sure if that was strictly legal.

With the trek in Nepal creeping upon me, I also came across a Tibetan market near to the station, where I bought a pullover, some gloves and socks. Quite a large number of stalls selling all kinds of winter clothing. On the night of the 25th, I awoke in the middle of the night to what sounded like heavy barrels being bounced from the roof of the building, until I realised it was thunder, and the rain that followed was incredibly heavy and persistent. The first rainfall i'd heard since coming to India.

I spent most of the 26th trying to understand how the Indian railway ticket booking system works. Like everywhere its better to book in advance, so I spent a while in the railway booking office looking at available trains for the journeys I needed to make around Rajasthan:

Jodhpur to Jaisalmer; Jaisalmer to Jaipur; Jaipur to Sawai Madhopur

There are so many railway lines, and particular trains don't run on every day of the week, and there is a tightly regulated system for booking different classes of train ticket and sleeper accommodation, which is particularly relevant for overnight trains. Generally the better and more expensive sleeper trains are coded '3AC' (and even better '2AC', but these seem mainly reserved for government officials and hence rarely available to the general public). '3 AC' means 3 bunk beds situated on either side of a compartment that is secured at both ends, which means that people from other parts of the train can't wander in and out, which provides a greater sense of safety.

Its interesting that most trains either leave early morning or late evening, with comparatively few services during the day time, which I found surprising. So the process for obtaining tickets involves choosing the train you wish to travel on on-line, filling out a form with your details, the name of the train, departure and arrival times, etc and handing it to the booking clerk who processes it using the railway's online system, takes payment and hands you an electronic ticket. I had earlier tried to book tickets online, but found that non-Indian credit cards were not acceptable, which seemed a bit odd. The man in the office was really patient and helpful. I also followed Federer's win against Nadal in Melbourne; what a triumph! Later on i bought a blanket, as the regular sleeper trains provide no bedding.

Jan 22nd - 23rd Udaipur

Spent part of the evening at one of the Udaipur lakes - Badi Talade - about 10 kilometres above the city. It seemed weird for a lake to exist so far above the city, but its a really serene spot. Basant and I took this fantastic boat trip just as the sun was setting, gorgeous and only us on the lake.

We also made a visit to the Jagdish temple, built in the 17th century by the Maharajas at the City Palace, a majestic feast of hand carved stone.

Later on I visited the saheliyon-ki-bari (or courtyard of the maidens), a set of ornate gardens with fountains, a lotus pool and marble elephants that spout water. The water is still driven by gravity apparently, and comes from the Fateh Sagar lake, and the place was designed as a pleasant refuge for the queen and her handmaidens to relax. A lovely spot, and the layout of each garden space seemed to make it feel either warmer or cooler depending upon the layout and foliage.

Jagdish temple

Jagdish temple

Jagdish temple

Sahelion-ki-bari

Sahelion-ki-bari

Jan 20th - 21st Udaipur

I really liked Udaipur, a city of fantastic lakes that seem to meld into each other and the only place I visited where it seemed possible to get around on the roads without feeling you were in an eternal traffic jam! Part of this perspective was to some extent due to Basant taking me around to different places on the back of his scooter that weaved its way through traffic fairly rapidly. At first it was fairly nerve-wracking clambouring onto the back of it and thinking i was about to fall off, but once i'd got used to hanging onto the little metal handles on the side, it was fine and gave a totally different experience of getting around, with the breeze blowing across my face. In the back of an auto-rickshaw, your perspective on what is going on around you is quite obscured, so it was quite liberating to have that enhanced sense of your surroundings.

On the 21st I visited the main City Palace of Udaipur that was built over a period of about 400 years, and what a stunning place it is, combining different architectural styles, and I suppose to call it a single palace is a bit simplistic as there are a number of different palaces as one Rajput king after another but their own stamp on the complex through building another structure or adding to an existing one.

Everything is constructed in granite and marble. On the upper floor there is a tree growing in one of the quadrangles, which feels like a bit of an optical illusion, but also a reminder that the palace's / fort's foundations are actually embedded into the rocks below, like the other Rajasthani forts. The marble workmanship and inlay of different stones and glasswork is really impressive, particularly in the Peacock courtyard, and the views of the city are wonderful. The current rulers have set up a trust to maintain the place, which perhaps explains why it is in better condition than the other forts i've visited. It's a fantastic place!

City palace

City palace

City palace

Golden palanquin

Peacock courtyard

City Palace

Jan 19th - Chittorgarh Fort

From Bundi I travelled back to Ajmer on the most crowded bus imaginable. One of the benefits of taking a 55 litre rucksack was supposed to be that it would be easier to carry stuff around in crowded spaces, as opposed to having say a 70 litre rucksack. That's true up to a point, but when the bus is as crowded as that, it doesn't really make a lot of difference! Luckily i'd struck up a conversation with some IT specialists who managed to help me off the bus, though how I managed to physically extricate myself with rucksack from that vehicle is a mystery. An elderly woman took exception to my bag/torso colliding with her, and launched into a bit of a verbal tirade, which I don't think involved asking after my well-being.

At Ajmer I then took a train, that was long delayed, to the town of Chittorgarh. By the time i'd got there,  it was pretty dark, and I managed to check into a place recommended to me by someone I'd met in Pushkar who travelled a lot around Rajasthan with his job.

It wasn't until the next day, when I took an auto-rickshaw to Chittorgarh fort, that I came to realise its enormity. I'd hired a guide as I was quite short of time, and we travelled to different areas to see the main features of it, and even then we ran out of time to see everything. It is the largest fort in all of Asia, and has a very bloody history in the story of the Rajput kings and their many wars with the Mughals. The Rajputs when faced with military defeat preferred death to surrender, and on 3 occasions in the 1500s they went to war facing certain death while their families committed mass suicide in the fort, bathing themselves in perfume, wearing their finest jewellery before burning themselves on a mass pyre. Its an incredible place and i wish i'd had more time there. There are fantastically intricate stone carvings on so many of the monuments.

However, I spent so much time at the fort that I managed to miss the train to Udaipur, but luckily managed to catch a bus instead. Its a journey of about 140 kilometers, and in Udaipur I stayed with a cousin, Neetu, who I'd never met before, and her husband, Basant. It was really lovely to meet with them, and in the early evening they took me to the Lake Palace, which was magnificent. The quality of the light at that time of the day in India gives a warm glow to everything, and the palace's reflection in the water was very special.

Chittorgarh Fort

Stone carvings at Chittorgarh Fort

Lake Palace at Udaipur

Jan 19th Pushkar

And so to Pushkar, which turned out to provide quite a suprise. Pushkar is a small town on the edge of the Thar desert, and is a place of profound religious importance to Hindus. The place is thronged with worshippers chanting down the narrow streets, and amongst the tourist shops selling clothing, ornaments etc there are revered holy men or sadhus with their attendant followers.  There are so many temples in the town, and there is a palpable sense of religiosity about the place. The most important of these temples is the one dedicated to Brahma, which is virtually the only one dedicated to the Creator in the whole country.

To my huge surprise I discovered before visiting the Brahma temple that the priests who run it are from the Prashar clan! Its not the most common name in India, so that was a major surprise, and I later discovered that the travel agent who booked my passage out of the town and the guy on the hotel reception also carried the same name. A town full of Prashars! How odd?!

Adjacent to the temple is Pushkar lake, which has 52 ghats, or a series of steps, that lead to the holy lake. So worshippers attend the lake, spend time in quiet contemplation and receive blessings from the priests as well as make offerings. Its an incredibly spiritual place, hard to describe really, but very relaxing. Such a contrast: the peaceful setting of the ghats and the tumult of the narrow streets just a stone's throw away.

Ghats at Pushkar Lake

Pushkar streets

Pushkar Lake

Ghats at Pushkar Lake

Jan 18th - Tahargarh Fort at Bundi

After breakfast, during which I chatted to an amusing American couple in the rooftop restaurant who imported Indian handicrafts for US consumers and who squirmed with acute embarrassment at the mention of Trump's triumph in the US elections, I made my way to Bundi fort. Its a wonderful place with powerful echoes of the distant past, and you could easily picture the Rajput kings and their entourage swanning about the place.

Stunning architecture throughout, but I was more impressed by the paintings in the Chitrashala that were located in the part of the fort built for wives and concubines of the maharajas. Given that the fort was built in the 1300s, it was amazing to think that the colours had survived in the way that they had. It became a bit of a bugbear to me in various historic places in India so little is done to preserve these places, and the chitrashala was no exception. Wandering around that part of the fort, I got into conversation with a man who I thought was a fellow tourist but was actually one of the official guides who scampered off and reappeared with a set of keys to a room containing the Chitrasala frescoes that I otherwise would have missed. Standing in these little rooms as he showed me this incredible artistry, I couldn't help thinking about the damage that may affect them over time and the lack of care for this magnificence.

In the UK the heritage culture is so strong that it would be inconceivable for such historic items to be left in that condition, with no control over the environmental circumstances and how these might affect the frescoes over time. Although I suppose there is an economic dimension given the high cost of maintenance. I just hope this artwork survives! Some of the frescoes depicting Hindu mythology had been painted by Mongolian and Chinese artists, highlighting the kind of cross-cultural relations that would have existed back then. Really fascinating.

Afterwards I had a whistle-stop tour of Bundi's sights in an auto-rickshaw, principally the gorgeous step wells that are about 300 years old and which were used to store water. Interesting how something so utiitarian could be constructed in such an elaborate and sophisticated manner. The 84 pillared cenotaph that is decorated with elaborate stone carvings of animals was another highlight.

I then took a bus to the town of Ajmer, which was not the most comfortable due to it being pretty overcrowded, and was less pleasant than the bus from Jaipur to Bundi (although I didn't think that was possible!). Alas there wasn't time to look round Ajmer itself, which is home to a famous Sufi shrine, and I then waited ages for another bus to Pushkar, which never arrived, so I ended up getting a taxi with a group of Indian software engineers (most urban middle class Indians seem to work in IT!) to Pushkar, with my rucksack precariously resting on the roof of the taxi, and I subsequently arrived at a hotel in Pushkar, which was a pretty dreadful place to stay. So a mad hectic day but well worth it for a trip to Bundi.

Bundi stepwell

Chitrashala

Chitrashala

Chitrashala

Chitrashala

Tahargarh Fort

Tahargarh Fort

Tahargarh Fort

Jan 17th - Catching the Jaipur bus to Bundi

Generally spent the day trying to locate money changers in the city, and seemed to spend a lot of time in autorickshaws on terribly bumpy roads. On one ocasion my head hit the roof of the vehicle with considerable force, such that I felt it would penetrate the roof of the vehicle, and I momentarily reflected upon how the Manchester Evening News might report on my sudden demise ..... "Local Man Perishes in Freak Tuk Tuk Accident". As unpleasant as it is to be a passenger in these vehicles, you have to feel for the drivers in having to negotiate these insane Indian roads every single day. That seems a particularly ghastly punishment, on top of having to negotiate the price of each and every journey.

Having devised the itinerary for Rajasthan with Om, the hotel manager in Jaipur, I took a regular bus to the town of Bundi, which I'd never heard of but Om highly recommended in order to visit the fort. Catching the bus was quite a race against time in the end, as I managed to find a helpful guy in the Samsung store who gave me some straightforward advise on creating a blog - a rare find! 

The bus journey was extremely cheap but not particularly comfortable. It took quite a while to locate the bus stand where it left from. Om had kindly organised the ticket for me, which was actually a sleeper, that would have involved me clambering up to a sleeping compartment above a row of seats, and I could all too easily picture myself falling out of that narrow space all and risking injury to both myself and the passengers below given the absence of a protective rail. So I managed to obtain a regular seat instead, which at least meant I could nod off without risking life and limb. The journey seemed to  go on forever as we stopped in so many little towns. Nonetheless when we got away from the urban areas, the rural views were really lovely. 

Arriving in Bundi, i booked myself into a pretty cheap haweli which turned out to be probably the most interesting place I stayed in India. A haveli is basically a townhouse that would have enabled an extended family to live together under one roof, divided into separate sections, with a courtyard providing a space where the family could

Bundi Fort by night

Bundi haveli

come together. The haveli I stayed in dated from the 1680s and had been renovated over the past five years. Bundi's main draw is its spectacular fort, and arriving at the haveli restaurant in darkness, I got an incredible view of the fort over dinner, and I later discovered that the family who owned the haveli had been in the service of the Rajput kings, hence the fantastic location they had been provided with.

Bundi haveli