The Wobble

There was no private bus to jodhpur from mount abu so we had to get the public bus which basically means you pay less but that the bus yer on is not quite of the same pristine quality that I have come to expect!! This trip involved a little stop in a town called abu road – we got ourselves into a little bit of bother here. As soon as the bus stopped the rest of the people on the bus got off, now this raised my suspicion that the bus was going no further. I asked shari to double check with someone outside whether we needed to change buses to get to jodhpur. Twasn’t long before we were pulling our backpacks out from under the rusty worn seats, onto our backs and off the bus running after a bus that was pulling off. We got on eventually and took our seats at the back, the ticket inspector was not happy though – we had the wrong tickets. Normally I would’ve just accepted our fate and stumped out the extra rupees to get us to jodhpur but that wasn’t right – twas a matter of principle. It was this principle that landed us on the side of the road on the edge of the thar desert, sitting with some indian women who were admiring sharis endless collection of bangles, waiting for the right bus to come along to collect us. Luckily that didn’t take too long and wouldn’t you know it was the exact same bus that we got off in the station about 40 minutes beforehand. Ach I suppose you kinda have to laugh.

The trip to jodhpur took about 6-7 hours – can be hard to remember how long trips take, at this stage I measure time on buses by the amount of times my bum goes numb, so this trip took 4 bumnums. The lonely planet is a scaremonger at the best of times, its description of jodhpur and the reception you can expect here I found was way off the mark. I was expecting a pirhana fish like attack from rickshaw drivers, touts etc etc but it was pretty hassle free. We got a driver who happily dropped us to the place we chose to stay without going for commission. The homestay was quite an effort, the people who lived there freely mingled with the people that stayed there to such an extent that we were shown a room that had a little girl in there doing her homework. Quite bizaare. The rooftop at this place was beautiful – on one side you had a perfect view of the dominant fort they call Mehrangarh and in the distance you can see the Maharjahs current residence and exclusive hotel – Jodhpur Palace. These are the two main attractions with regards to actual buildings in this town so I reckoned taking 3 days here to see the two of them before heading west again.

The fort was pretty cool – I didn’t take to it quite the same way as the one in kumblegarh – it was pretty crowded but the views of the blue city (which is actually blue – its meant to repell insects) were spectacular. There were lots of guns, cannons, pictures and stories of great battles which satiated the inner child in me. The second day in jodhpur I explored with shari – we went our own ways the first day which was fine, tis nice to get a bit of space on yer own every now and again. The second day was much more fun. First of all we took to the local market which was great fun – twas like we were on an unofficial mission to eat and drink as much for free. So many stalls offer you samples for free or some chai if you go into their shop – all in all it was a very friendly atmosphere. I even had to translate a message as gaelige written in an omlette shop comments book, what ya think of that paddy joe? The market itself was rampacked full of stalls with huge baskets selling fresh fruit, vegtables, herbs, pots, pans, sweets, spices, teas you name it – one guy asked me if I wanted some tea, I politely declined with smile and an acknowledging nod, he then shouts after me over about 100 people ‘Maybe you would like some viagra sir??’ Cue all those 100 people breaking into hysterics..twas funny I have to admit. The v stuff gets advertised alot in these parts – pretty difficult to draw a veritable conclusion as to why!!
We ventured on past the market till we got to the end of the old city – from here we took a walk thru a park before grabbing a rickshaw up to the palace. There was a private function in the main hotel and despite all our protestations about how important and famous we were they wouldn’t let us in – I think the fact that we showed up in a beat up rickshaw didn’t help our case too much. There is a museum exhibit there also which we had a look at – it was fairly crap but we did manage to get some homemade naan from the kitchen that was looking after the wedding (apparently elizabeth hurley got married in this place last year). The tandoor (oven) they used was basically a steel barrel which heated from the bottom got dough stuck to the inside walls until it cooked up. Very nice indeed…

Jodhpur was a funny kind of town, I didn’t like it at all the first night I arrived. It was noisy and the pollution seemed so much worse than even mumbai, but walking through the markets and down the sidestreets made such a difference to my impression of the place. A lot of people go flocking to the main sites before buggering off somewhere else which is fine when you are stuck for time but you definitely miss out on a massive aspect of india this way – the streets and the side streets is where the most fun is to be had.
After 3 nights we took the bus to Jaisalmer with the vague ambition of some camel related activities…

Later,
Phil

I was standing at the bus stop in udaipur for about 20 minutes before anyone had turned up. Initially I just ordered a chai from the guys along the road, before throwing on the recently acquired warm clothes, sitting down and waiting for the bloody thing to arrive. The first person to turn up was this dude from Belgium called Jonas. I was not messing before when I said that this guy was marks doppleganger – I seriously had to do a double take, freaky stuff. The street hawker had given me two cups of chai as he had no change for a 10 rupee note – was probably just a sneaky way to get me to purchase two cups of the sweet sweet drink. I didn’t mind as it gave me a kind of offering that I could give to jonas to get talking and pretty much have someone to talk to on the way to mount abu.

While travelling meeting someone like this is a really good way to save money, you get a chance to make sure that the person neither is insane or inane and if they are not you can share costs such as taxis, meals and accomodation. The trip to mount abu was a reasonable 6 hour journey. The last 2 hours were spent negotiating hairpins as the road weaved its way up into the mountains. The town itself stands at 1400 metres while the surrounding hills and mountains dwarf this by at least another 300 metres. The town is one of the most popular holiday/honeymoon destinations for indians themselves, its incredibly picturesque and gives a kind of volcanic impression with a small lake in the middle of the town surrounded by steep rising hills which then quickly fall into the greater rajasthani valley. Almost every building was a hotel so most people there were tourists of some description. It was also the first place I have been in this country which actually had ecological processes in place such as no plastic allowed, there was waste management, many hotels ran off solar power and shock horror there were even some rubbish bins along the side of the road.

The hotel we stayed in was called the Shri Ganesh. A typically indian name but also the last place you would ever to expect to see a massive poster of Fermanagh sitting ontop of the front door, which is exactly what greeted me. This immediately gave me something to relate to the people there. It was a family run guesthouse, the only member of the family not working there was over working in belfast – hence the connection. It turned out that the mother and father had gone over last year to visit him. While the father seemed to like ireland when I asked the mother if she like it she just replied with a flat ‘No’, no explanation was forthcoming so I left her at it.

As you can probably guess, mt abu is made for trekking, climbing and lots of hill walking. It might come as a bit of a shock to some people who know me but I actually really love bombing around the place be it in wicklow in glendalough, the aran islands or even just back at home at lough sheelin. The hotel ran guided tours from 8 in the morning but I never got up in time for those. Instead I decided to tackle the peaks by myself. Yes it is a little nuts to go off walking in a place thats not only unfamiliar but is also home to many wild bears, tigers and the odd crocodile – what could possibly go wrong. Given the cup like shape of the area you never lost sight of the town so finding your bearings was never a problem. I made my way towards a temple that was marked on the map which was at a reasonable height – when I got there I really had a thirst for more. I climbed up the rocks, through the thickest bush I have ever come across having to cover several yards on my stomach at times attempting to make it to the highest point I could see which was marked with a red flag, at one stage I went to look up to check my route only to be met full on the top off the head with a bloody cactus, took blood n all – to sound all macho and hard I will not say that it was just a scratch and that it could well have been the strong sun in my eyes that made me see red on my fingers, but I think it should be left at – yeah the blood was gushing out of my head, I am hard, me!!! Reaching the top of the mountain was a great feeling, the view was panoramic to beat the band. You could see the town surrounding the lovely green lake, at the same height around you could see many different local peaks in the the distance you could see all 1400 metres down to the rajasthani valley which given that its in dusty old india was fairly well shrouded in a thick smog. Looking through a pair of sunglasses you could see the thickness of the polution that envelopes this country – even at the height I was at you could see it reacher higher still. I have heard that the only place that you can go to in the country to get away from it is the mighty himalayas, as it only disperses fully at 3000 metres or so.

On my way back down from my little adventure I had to ask for the help of a local farmer boy who guided me back onto the right path that led back to the village. After giving the lad a few rupees (he asked for 7 which was an unusual number, sounded almost like a rate – he got 10), I trotted back down towards the town. On my way I came across a most wonderful sight, for a few minutes I could hear kids singing but could not see them. Eventually I turned a corner to find about 20 5-14 year old kids in a tiny school, practising a play thru hindi under the guidance of their teacher. Now when I say school, this place was one metal sheet propped up by 4 rusty posts to act as nothing more than shelter from rain or sun. They had just one blackboard but no pens or paper to write with. The teacher saw me standing and taking this all in so he invited me and explained about how the kids were poor and couldn’t afford to go to a proper school, he explained the lesson he was giving and told me about their ages and other small info like that. I told him that my own father was a teacher and would love to have seen such a phenomenon – kids actually wanting to be in school and wanting to learn!! I took a photo of them all and its one I will defo keep for the scrapbook – if yer lucky I might even throw it up here.

Sunset is a big event here and is the culmunation of most day trippers days before they board the buses back to whereever they came from. There is even a site in town dedicated to the sunset, set up for the travelling hoards. On the side of the mountain they have constructed a fully functional terrace which wouldn’t look out of place on the town side of breffni park – when I was there at least a couple of hundred people stood and cheered, chanted while the sun took its daily dip into the horizon. It was incredibly surreal. I have pictures and I promise I will get them up on this page within the next week.

I stayed for 3 nights in mount abu – its a really enjoyable escape from the craziness that went before and the madness that was to come. Jonas headed on towards jaipur which was due east – unfortunately I was headed due west – onto jodhpur. I met a lovely if a little crazy australian girl called Shari in the hotel who on her summer holidays from college was on a 2 month trip around the sub continent. For the next week or so our plans were pretty much identical so off we headed west into the thar desert.

thanks for all the comments, keep them coming!!!

Phil

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