Grand Voyages, Great Lies

The next morning we set out for Jodhpur, a fairly easy 5 ½ hour bus ride, though it was Kates turn to feel unwell. first impressions arnt everything I hoped as we arrived at a suburban bus stop in the newer part of town. I was reassured when we reach the old town within the city wall. the market we drove through looked full colourful and full of activity. We saw a few guesthouses within the same area and ended up with a lovely spacious room ornately decorated with statues shelved all the way around the perimeter above our beds. we were staying in sunrise guesthouse, owned by the infamous Mr.Prakash. ( there were posing photos of him all around the sitting room – in some of them he was wearing aviators)

Merav and myself explored the market around the old clock tower while Kate rested.It was busy, full of beautiful fabrics, cheap (some tacky) jewlery, spices and vegtables. we sucessfully bought chai and i came across some red hair henna, it was only as i looked up to ask the price i found the old man grinning a me and pointing to his beard. As red as my hair had been before i left! He proceeded to remove the bumby multi-coloured Rajasthani turban and pointed at his flame cloured hair. I was impressed. and vowed to myself to return to purchase the henna the next day.That evening with my favorite invalid on the mend we all visited a fabric handicrafts shop where i owed the owner a few rupees for some water – their so trusting here. As promised we looked round his workshop to find the most amazingly embroiled and mirrored bed spreads- made he told us from scraps of shirts and materials used and made by women out in the deserts…. The prices were so good and we would of bought if there hadn’t of had the burden of carrying them in our rucksacks. 

We didn’t eat brilliantly that night, we ate late at a seedy hotel where worryingly there were no other diners…we were pretty certain the waiter had just gotten out of bed as he rushed in apologizing for being late and took our order. Also we were sure that our bottles of water had to be retrieved from a street vendor as it took so long for them to run and get it. This is India.

Shopping the next day in search of cooler weather necessities, I tried and failed at two interval sin the day too find the red bearded man….I began to think that it had been a once in a life time opportunity to buy red henna off a man with a beard as red as rubies.

After a cheap tali again for lunch we rested for the afternoon and played with the toys we had bought (notepads, gorgeous threads and books) then we set out in search of the famous saffron lassi’s and weren’t disappointed. The lonely planet had recommend a place across from the clock tower, naturally since its appearance in the world famous guide lots of other stalls had set up claiming also to be recommended by ‘books’. Fourtantly we easily located the original place and expericed a lassi so sweet and creamy it had to be eaten with spoons. I couldn’t Imagen what saffron tasted like on its own and neither could i remember if i had ever tasted it mixed in a dish. This lassi tasted like the Indian sweets we loved so much and we described the drink as a glass of creamy heaven. Impressed by the guide books recommendation we stopped on our walk home at the famous omelette’s shop, every time we had passed it previously the owner called out; 

         ‘One stop famous omelette shop, highly recommended by lonely planet!’ In a horsey Indian voice that made  me laugh. As we sat we red the signs and news paper clippings around about the businesses that claimed to get through 1000 eggs a day. the story behind the small business that had grown after its write up in the guide book made the diners at the very small food stall feel that the experience was a must. Jodhpur fort is not to be missed we rickshawed up at a sensible time in the morning before the sun got to hot. it was an expensive admission which came with an audio tour that generally i would of opted out of…though as i had paid a sizable amount of ruppees i accepted the guide and placed it round my neck. i was glad i tried it, it was by far the most informative and interesting audio i had listened to…though it couldn’t compete with the views of the blue city from the fort and palace. intricate architecture, magnificent views (pictures can only hope to do it justice) and glorious artifacts throughout the palace made for an amazing morning.

At one point we were in our room when Merav came rushing back from checking bus prices to jaislamer. ‘I think we’ve just been invited to a wedding.’ ……’Im not sure’ she added. Well that was the next evening planned. Merav had though right, we had indeed been invited to a wedding party that night, by Mr.Prakash’s relative that we’d affectionatley named ‘Skinny’ Mr.Prakash and who worked at the guesthouse. Apparently its good luck for westerners to be present at an Indian wedding. Since this was just the after party we didnt need to be to formal and could dress in western clothes. Damn, no excusable sari buying.

There were many wedding parties that night as this year November and December were the  auspisoius time for weddings in southeern Rajasthan. Our celebration was a splendid display of sparkling sari, the one the bride was wearing clearly putting shame to all the others. She and the groom (him beaming and her traditionally moody) stood in front of an embellished swing seat on a stage, so all present could go and have there picture taken with them. Naturally we didn’t miss out on the opportunity to get a better look at the mesmerizing sari and jewels.

After some food and sweets, a few stares and conversations our chaperone ordered ‘Lets go’ just as he had done before we left the guesthouse. We were surprised he didn’t want to stay longer but then I realised he’d probably frequented so many wedding party’s that season he was probably bored stiff.(He looked it) Kate and Merav had ridden to the party in the rickshaw with the man from our guest house and as he had instructed one girl to ride on the motorbike with his cousin I stepped up. The ride there went smoothly. the ride back was a different matter. After he attempted taking me to a bar instead of home I threaten to jump off his bike and waved my arms knowing to attract attention….after some long repetative negotiationns while he drove to the bar I convinced him to turn around and take me back to the guesthouse…no I didnt want a drink nor did Iwant to put my arms round his waist. All this done in a friendly manner obviously as he was ofcourse in control of the bike I was riding. When we reached the guesthouse Skinny Mr.Prakash looked worried seemed to scold my driver. Amusingly or not the guys at the omlette shop had warned us of a  creepy guy with a mustache who worked at the guesthouse…we had laughed at them as so many indians have mustaches…..however thinking about it afterwards my driver seemed to fit the bill.

After our fun in jodpur we hit jaisalmer. We were touted on the bus by a really nice manager of a hotel and the offer sounded too good to be true. we checked it out anyway and an it was even better then ot had sounded. the quivalent of a small four star hotel for the price we’d paid for beach huts in gokarna. We felt like we were in luxury and the hotel arrange camel treks like we’d hoped to do here. Only the thought of riding a camel four 2-3 days  made my legs sore so we arranged to ride to some sandunes in the afternoon the have a bedouin dinner and camp out in the desert. the camel ride was as i had experienced it before, fun, bumpy and beautiful when we reached the dunes as sat down near a man who conviently turned out to be selling cold Kingfisher beer.

We had the rajastani  muscians and dancers almost to ourselves at the bedouin camp and then our driver (see also: the hotel manager) brought out some fouton matresses up onto some dunes accompined wth plenty of blankets and we set about making a fire for an evening gazing at the moon.It is such a happy feeling to wake up to a rising sun in the desert whilte the sand and th air are still cold. we werent that far to far from civilisation with desert camps in view but still it was so serene we could have been in sleeping in the wilderness.

Another night in our gorgeous hotel and then it was time for the bus to bikaner- this time it was Merav’s turn to feel unwell. There wasnt much to see in Bikaner, the main attraction being the rat temple near by (well 1hr and 15 bus ride away). It had  intrieged us from the first time it was mentioned an was the main reason to stay in the small dirty town. Our rickshaw from the bus stand was insistant we look at his brother’s guesthouse before we go to any others. It was nice enough and as we were only stying for one night we once again gave in to the touts- feeling lucky though a tad defeated as we prided ourselves in beating touts at their own games. We walked in to the town to book our bus tickets out for the next day-there really wasnt a lot to see save a lot of rubbish and cows on the streets.

We adopted an older british guy who told me facinatingly he had lived in Papau New Guinea for two years, or PNG as he called it (my ultimate goal is the south pacific). He accompained us to the rat temple and upon hearing of our plans for Amritsar booked on the same bus. From the tales I was expecting to see the temple over run with rats- don’t get me wrong, there were lots of them, well feed on vats of milk and allowed to run roit through the walls,pipes and any cracks they could find to cram themselves into. A lot of excitement was shown by the Indian worshippers over the ‘white mouse’ which sensibly had chosen th darkest corner to hide in. The rodents slept and play everywhere, alone or in big groups runnign over one another or scurrying in the way which rats do, quickly across the marble floors.

later that evening we boared our bus to Amritsar (a good 10hrs) at 5.30, this meant that after many crotches and arses rubbing against my sholder on the ride -invitable on most indian buses, we eventually arrived in amritsar at around 5am. We had planned to stay in the Golden Temple, the holiest place for good natured sikhs which opens their doors to everyone and provide beds for visiters. Unfortuanly our luck was outas  we were told  it was full and we opted for a rude and unfriendly near by guesthouse. We later found out that there were rooms spare and we could of stayed at the temple (for free i might add) in a special area for foriegners, in a room more comfotable then the guest house. You win some you lose some I guess. We’d wait to see how the rest of Amristar panne out, before we judged our luck.

Tags: india, Travel

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