Jak's Traks: February 2013

Thursday, 28 February 2013

Jaisalmer - sandcastles and perverts

Udaipur, Thursday 28 February 2013

Jaisalmer was what I'd hoped to find in Bikaner - a small town that really did have a desert outpost feel, and was visibly surrounded by desert.

Arriving in the late evening, I reached my hotel by tuk-tuk and checked in. It was the Dylan Cafe and Guest House - named for the two owners' love of Bob Dylan. I'd chosen it purely because it got good reviews on TripAdvisor, where guests talked lovingly of warm evenings whiled away on the rooftop terrace with views of the huge sandcastle of a fort. And it was cheap.

I got a warm welcome and, after dumping my bags in the mediocre room, was invited to the roof for a 'welcome drink' of chai. I'd had too many cups of chai that day already, but another was very welcome indeed, as it said on the tin. On the roof, enclosed by billowing, tie-dyed sheets, were mattresses laid out on the floor Moroccan style, with lots of cushions and a few low coffee tables. An Australian woman and one of the owners were online on a laptop, chatting about travel options, and we all said hello. After the chai, the owners promptly offered me a rum and soda, but the chai was my limit. I could see what people meant about enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in the place.

Tired from the journey, I left them there on the roof and headed for bed around 11.30am, but a combination of too much tea, the usual howling dogs, and noisey people somewhere outside kept me awake. By 2am, I'd had enough and went to see where all the noise was coming from. Was it people on the roof? I went up, but it was empty. Out in the street, a man was busy throwing stones at the neighbourhood dogs to shut them up and chase them off. I went back into the hotel, and realised the noise was coming from the room beside mine. I rapped the door and pointed out that they were keeping me awake. Silence at last. I finally fell asleep - but not before moving my alarm on a bit... this was a morning for a lie-in.

Next morning, up on the roof for breakfast, it came to light it was the owners who'd been making all the racket the night before. They apologised... a friend had come and they'd lost track of the time. With my Western logic, to me the main purpose of having a hotel is to have somewhere to sleep, and it should therefore be the hotel owner's main occupation to do what he/she can to ensure you can do so. But here was the owner keeping the whole place awake. But they were so friendly and helpful that I put my Indian head on and enjoyed my breakfast with my first views of Jaisalmer.

At last... here was a town that seemed 'of' its landscape, with sand-coloured houses dissolving into the desert landscape beyond. On all sides was desert. This was what I'd hoped for.

I'd finished the book I'd been reading the previous day on the bus, and so my first job was to buy another one. Wandering into the bazaar, I found a bookshop and got 'The Inheritance of Loss', by Kiran Desai, which was a Booker Prize winner. I really enjoy reading books that relate to where you are. So, happy that I'd be able to delve into it over a cup of chai somewhere, I went to visit the fort.

The fort at Jaisalmer rises up above the town. It's a walled city, and is a living fort in the sense that people still live in the maze of narrow alleys within its walls, alongside shops, restaurants, hotels and temples. It wasn't easy to find the way in. You go through several vast defensive gates and end up in a courtyard full of tuk-tuks and motorbikes, from which all the laneways spider off. I wandered round the lanes and then visited the palace building inside - another audioguide affair - before descending down through the series of gates and back into the bazaar.

I'll call home, I thought, and found a place that does international calls. No phone boxes or calling cards here. But after 15 or 20 minutes of talking to my partner, the owner of the place started gesturing to me, tapping on his watch. We finished off the conversation and I hung up.

The man explained that it wasn't good to be making long international calls at night, so close to the border with Pakistan. He seemed to think he'd get in bother, with the authorities asking questions.

The next day, I figured I'd explore the lake - Jaisalmer's other main attraction. It was lovely, with temples all round and tourists - Indian and foreign - milling around at town side of the lake, where the entrance was. I sat about for a while, watching the world go, before deciding to do a lap of the lake. It looked blissfully quiet over there - just a few people bathing, and a goat herd or two... a few lovely trees casting shade that would be lovely to sit under and read for a while. Working my way round the shore, I perched under a tree, roughly opposite the main entrance where I'd been eyeing up the spot, and sat down with my book. I saw a bloke approaching but he gave me a wide berth, prayed at a temple a way's along the shore from me, and went back the same way. I'd been ready to pack up and move off, as always.

Then three young men began making their way towards me. I put my book away and got up, just to be on the safe side. I was about half-way round the lake, and so I could either continue my circuit, which would mean walking towards the me, or go back the way I'd come. Trying not to be too paranoid, I continued on my way. Two of the men helloed at me and wandered on their way after I muttered a quick hello and walked on. But the third had other ideas.

'500 rupees,' he said.
'Are you crazy?' I asked him, looking at him with disdain.
'Yes,' he replied. '100 rupees'.
I quickened my pace and ignored him. Out of luck as far as getting any money was concerned, he decided to see if anything else was on offer.
'Sex, sex,' he kept saying, his terminology then becoming somewhat more obscene.

Finally, he walked in front of me and I could tell from his gestures that he was exposing himself. I decided not to look down, and spared myself that wonderful image burnt onto my memory. I thought for a minute that this could easily turn out very bad, but I was angry and utterly disgusted that someone would think they could treat a woman like that, here in broad daylight. It spoke volumes of his view of Western women - not that Indian women don't experience the same thing in this unnaturally repressed society. I steeled myself in anger to pummel the guy if he made any moves towards me and continued my march towards a goat herd with two young children not far away. To my relief, the pathetic criminal slinked off back to his mates.

Later, in a cafe where I stopped for a hot lemon, ginger and honey tea, I got into conversation with the owner. We chatted about Indian society, and he was telling me how hard it is to be honest and straight in your dealings with tourists and neighbours. It was difficult, he said, even for him to know who to trust, given the corruption and dog-eat-dog society, where everyone's trying to get by and get a bit ahead. He said he sometimes questioned himself for doing the right thing, because he could see others getting on and making more money. But it clearly wasn't in his nature to do that. I found myself telling him what had happened at the lake and we talked about why these kinds of incidents happen here (not that they don't happen anywhere else...).

Back on the roof at my hotel that evening, I was telling the Australian woman about it. Two friends of hers had been on a train in recent days when a man began openly masturbating while leering at them. Disgusted, they filmed him in an attempt to shame him into stopping.

I guess this is the kind of thing that happens when you repress normal relationships between men and women, and when the media and films give a wanton view of Western women. It's noticeable that in all Bollywood music videos, the scantily-clad dancers in the background are always white women, while the Indian women look resplendent in their saris (albeit skimpy versions!). Couple all this with a society that discriminates against women anyway, and it's a tinder box.

And so, on to Jodhpur...

Tales from the desert - Bikaner

Udaipur, Thursday 28 February 2013

So, I've reached the 'Venice of India' - the beautiful city of Udaipur - but before I write about it, I should catch up on some of my desert travels.

To retrace my steps back to Bikaner, I've written about the camel safari, but not about the town itself. I was disappointed. Not having really done any research, other than reading the entry in Lonely Planet, I hadn't twigged that it was such a big city. I expected to arrive in a place surrounded by desert - which it was, I guess, except that you couldn't see it. From the centre of town, the urban sprawl stretched out so far there was no sand on the horizon. The guidebook describes it as 'a vibrant, dust-swirling desert town with a fabulous fort, a refreshing outpost feel and burgeoning tourist trade'. I just felt it was like any other modern Indian city, with an old area and a fort. This city of half a million people really didn't gel with me at all.

I arrived early in the morning after an overnight sleeper bus journey and took a tuk-tuk to my hotel. After a few hours' sleep, I headed out to visit the fort. I've visited quite a few forts and palaces now, and most were the stripped bones of their former glorious selves, but the fort in Bikaner really evokes what it must have been like to live there. In some other forts, you wander round the various buildings inside, where rajas and their entourages would have lived, and the audioguide describes what they would have been like. The walls and pillars would have been painted and jewel encrusted; the air inside would have been cooled by passing through hangings of fine cane soaked with water scented with flowers. You had to use your imagination. But, at Bikaner, so much of the interior decoration is still there or has been restored that it's not hard to picture the luxury of life there.

After the fort, following the guidebook's advice, I strolled down to the old town. I say 'strolled', but after being followed half-way down the main road to the old town by some cretin who claimed he wanted to spend the day with me to practise his English, my pace was more of a determined march. Once through the old city gate, there was no charm that I could see in the narrow streets. The usual rubbish everywhere, fighting with tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cows, goats and other people for space to walk along the street. Coming back to the old gate, I took another street this time, thinking maybe I was missing something. I stopped for a tea at a stand on the street (picture in the previous Bikaner post), and then wandered to the train station area. Enjoyed some Indian sweets along the way - something I'll miss when I go home. And that was about it. I arranged my camel safari for the next day, and that was about it.

The camel safari was a welcome desert fix, but I was glad to move on to Jaisalmer afterwards - an afternoon bus journey, this time.

This was the worst journey I've had in India so far. It started off OK. I got on the bus at the starting point at the bus company's office, found my seat, and we set off. Our first stop was the main bus stand in the town, and that's where the fun began. People piled on and piled on. I was sure they must be going to the back of the bus and getting off and coming round again. So many people. It was like the cast of thousands. How could this bus hold so many people? Where were they all going? Down one side of the bus, where I was sitting, it was all fitted out with seats, two by two all the way to the back row. On the other side of the aisle and above me were sleeper berths. There were half a dozen people sitting on each of these sleepers, both upstairs and down. The aisles were completely rammed with people, stuck to each other's backs.

Within the first half hour or so of this five-hour-or-so journey, an older couple materialised at the row where I was sitting and the bus conductor began gesturing at me and the guy sitting beside me to squeeze up and let the typically portly woman sit down. I suppose they were in their late sixties. My first instinct was Western outrage - I've paid for my seat and if anyone else is going to sit in it they can pay for half of it! Then I checked myself. It's an old woman, for goodness sake. What are you thinking. It didn't matter anyway because she shoved herself in between us, sitting forward due to the lack of space. After taking off my Western head after a minute or two, I gestured for her to sit back and even lent her my fleece to fill in the gap between the two seats. But it sure wasn't comfortable for anyone.

Eventually, we stopped for a tea break and about three-quarters of the passengers got off. There was no way I was going anywhere - I knew how difficult it'd be to get back to my seat again, particularly with new people getting on and just taking any available seat. A woman with two children sat down on the seat beside me and I knew the scene was set for a show-down! I wasn't disappointed. Granny arrived back, shoving her way up the bus and flew into a rage when she saw the mother in 'her' seat. She practically hauled the woman out of it mercilessly, crowing at the top of her high-pitched voice. Well, that was it as far as I was concerned. She could go there. I occupied the whole of my seat and let her and the other guy (who eventually made his way up the bus) fight it out for his seat. Luckily, he got out less than an hour later, and she then shared the seat with her husband.

And it was thus that I arrived in Jaisalmer that evening, heartily glad to descend to the waiting snake pit of tuk-tuk drivers.

Monday, 25 February 2013

Ahhh... back in the hills at last

Mount Abu, Monday 25 February 2013

It's bliss being back in the hills and away from cities for a while. Here are some pics from the past two days in Mount Abu, which is a hill station in southern Rajasthan.

Words to follow...

The view from my hotel balcony

As above

My hotel room window to the front, left and patio area further along the balcony

Looking down on the hotel's courtyard and restaurant

The shops selling ice cream on the way down to the lake

The lake, and the Hotel Jaipur up on the hillside to the left, which is just above my hotel

Popping out to catch some rays - and any unsuspecting insects

My hotel

On the way home from school

The lake, viewed from the hills above during a sunset trek

Hard to make out, but the place where my guide took me to see the sunset was a lot quieter than the official 'Sunset Point', seen here, with hundreds of people shouting and whistling as the sun went down!

Me, at the much more tranquil sunset spot

Me and a French couple who did the sunset trek with me

Grover and I poking the sun. It ain't half hot, mum.

The plains below and a winding river bed just about visible in the haze

This pic was taken at sun rise, at the start of the full-day trek I did yesterday. This is at the highest point in Rajasthan. I just love how the ranges of hills are divided by haze like this.

The hills here are formed from granite, a volcanic rock. They've been weathered in a way that I've seen only in sedimentary rocks before. Extraordinary. This formation looks like an elephant!

One of our rest stops, under the shade of a weathered rock formation

Our lunch stop, with a large slab of rock serving as the table

The villagers who live in these hills have used the rock formations and caves to make houses and out buildings. Here you can also see dung patties drying, which are used for fuel for the fire.