Travels in India with too many books

Leaving the imposing desrt fort of Jaisalmer, we made our way down to the stinking bus depot late afternoon. The bus was, even at first glance, disappointing. We had bought the ticket from straight-talking Ganesh Travels, but the reality did not match the photograph we were shown. After dumping our hand luggage on one of the dusty, probably flea-infested mattresses, we were informed we had to move to the back of the bus as a couple of Korean or Japanese girls were allocated that particular bunk. We made a short attempt at defending our right to the seat as no-one had told us this before, then gave up when it became apparent, after a confusing bout of proto-English, that these girls wanted a seat by their friend on the other side of the aisle.

Defeated, we made our way to the back. Our new home for the next 10 hours was a small cupboard, with glass on both sides but the curtains long since gone. The aisle side window refused to shut properly despite a heroic effort by both of us, so we were treated not only to the smells of the unwashed masses as they periodically clogged up and emptied from the aisle every few stops, but their unwelcome stares. The window to the outside world had to be opened every so often so that we felt we weren't breathing in the dust left by all the passengers that had occupied that cabin since the buses construction, circa 1970.

To illustrate further the joy of this particular journey, imagine being trapped in a small box with another person while an earthquake of approximately 5 or 6 on the Richter scale goes on. While you're trying to read and then sleep. For ten hours. Every time I got into a sitting position, the knackered suspension would encounter a pebble on the road and send my head careering into the roof.

Somehow, we managed to get to sleep, several hours after the electric light in our cabin mysteriously cut out and removed the possibility for reading (even though that was painfully slow anyway since the words of my book formed a constant vertical blur).

At about 3:30 am someone woke us up announcing we had arrived at Ajmer, about 35 km from Ajmer. This was our stop. We groggily got off. Of course (and fortunately for us) there were some rickshaw drivers outside, capitalising on the lucrative middle of the night business from tourists. Upon bartering one down from 500 to 300 rupees (I know, a lot, but it was 4am). We rode the 35 km to Pushkar.

So we found a place, and stayed a few hours. Wanting to move closer to the center of town in the morning, we went to check out. That's when we realised we didn't have our passports.

Understandably, we freaked out. We went first to the tourist info centre, who couldn't help us as he didn't have a phone, then the police, who couldn't help us as we thought they'd been stolen in Jaisalmer, and told them as much, and they said the police there had to deal with it. We phoned the British Embassy in Delhi and Mumbai, seeing what we would have to do. It would take 10 working days and 8000 rupees each, they said. As well as messing up our travel plans as we would have to go to Mumbai to collect our exit visa.

Then we phoned Ganesh Travels back for the second time. This time the boss was in - and the passports had been found in our room! We, dopy sods, had left them there, but no-one had told us despite our bags being left in the hotel all day while the room was being cleaned! Still, we were utterly relieved, especially as two friends of ours were still there and could pick them up.

That afternoon, my cold, which had already lasted a couple of days, got worse, and Emily started another bout of the dreaded Delhi belly. What a great day! Incredible India indeed!

Feeling better now, we plan to backtrack slightly to pick up our passports in Udaipur, then on to Jaipur, Agra, Delhi, Amritsar, back to Delhi, then Goa. We didn't plan to go to Amritsar but we have another 5 days up North as the train to Goa is unavailable first class until the 11th February. First class is expensive (as much as a plane ticket) but I think necessary for a journey of that length (about 25 hours). Experience is, after all what we're here for; and the last few days have given us that!

We took the train from Jodhpur at 0645. The Sun was rising as the train pulled away and we rolled across the desert. It was nice to be able to look out from the window of the train and watch the desert go by. At one point we saw another amazing looking temple somewhere that probably isn't in the guide book: they seem to be everwhere in India.

Arriving at Jaisalmer around noon, we were set upon by hordes of guesthouse touts trying to get us to stay at their guesthouse and go on their camel safari. At one point two well dressed men attempted to get us (including another couple we met on the train) into a snazzy looking jeep, saying they would take us all to town for only 30 rupees. It seemed too easy, so we found another jeep, paid for by the guest house we wanted to go to anyway.

Ganesh guest house turned out to be an excellent choice, although we actually stayed at another place (Siddartha) that was owned by his brother or something, as Ganesh was full, but that was good too, nice clean rooms for only 250 rupees. The owner, Ganesh himself, seemed to be one of the few straight taking Indians we've met. In very clear English he outlined exactly what we would get for what price. We decided to plump for the 2 day option, with one night in the desert.

The next morning we left Jaisalmer in a jeep and drove out to where the camels where. There were too guides, both of whom spoke decent English and were very charming. One of them was full of the English cliches and catchphrases that seem to have done the rounds to amuse tourists: "don't worry, chicken curry" (or a variant); "no woman, no cry, no chapati, no chai" was probably our favourite. At one point he changed from singing a song in hindi into a partial rendition of Barbie girl, the annoying pop song from a few years back.

Camels are even more bizarre than I thought. At the moment, they are in season, which means that the males, when feeling a bit horny, stick their tongue out and inflate it into a giant pink ball while frothing at the mouth. Apparently this impresses the ladies. Emily's camel was particularly horny, so much so she was afraid it would either start a fight with other males or run off and mount an eager female. Alarmed by this possibility, she sought reassurance from the camel men. "No worry, no chicken, no curry", she was informed "I tell him work now, woman later."

In the evening we all sat around the fire. Sleeping wasn't too bad, it didn't get very cold until about 5am. I wanted to see the stars unobscured by moonlight, but it was several hours after I went to sleep that the moon dropped over the horizon. At one point I woke up and got a brief glimse of the Milky Way but it wasn't long before I dropped off again.

The day after and we both have a cold, with the possible onset of Delhi belly in the making. This afternoon we leave for Ajmer on the sleeper bus, from which we can travel to the desert town of nearby Pushkar.

Today we explored the excellent Meheranger Fort in Jodhpur. The fort is built on a craggy mountain overlooking the city, a sea of mostly blue buildings. The views from the fort are excellent, and it has a nice accompanying audio-guide, which you can play as you feel when you walk around.

Just before we left, we decided to try the palm reader. Naturally sceptical but willing for once to indulge just to see how convincing he was, I let Emily go first. It seemed fairly convincing, in a superficial way. Emily wrote down the time of day, date, and place she was born, as asked. I asked him if, since I couldn't remember what time of day I was born, could he still read my palm? Of course, he said yes. He then rattled off an analysis that sounded largely similar to what he told Emily. Except that the stuff that was different, was totally wrong! I won't reveal exactly what for fear of broadcasting major personality flaws to anyone that might read this, although those who know me would probably agree.

He rarely offered any critical or negative points anyway, which is of course partly how these things work since people are more easily convinced by flattery. Some of it was a bit too obvious though, like the question/assertion "someone in your family has had allergies or cancer?" This was asked of both of us.

The point is that after Emily, it seemed pretty plausible, but after we had a chance to compare each others, it was clearly garbage. The funniest thing was though that during my reading, he kept falling asleep mid-sentence!

Our hotel manager convinced us that a stopover in Ranakpur to see the famous Jain temple there, was worthwhile, both to see the temple and to take advantage of the horse riding available at his resort. Trying not to be needled into staying at his resort, we tried phoning ahead to another hotel, but alas it was booked up. We were then persuaded to hire a car driven by a friend of his. He have us a price from Udaipur to Ranakpur, and another for Udaipur to Jodhpur with a night stopover in Ranakpur. We decided that we would make our own way from Ranakpur, but just to check that we weren't being ripped off, we went to a travel shop in town to ask his price.

It turned out to be much cheaper. When we returned and told the hotel owner this, he made excuses that the person in town will use a poorer car, or be inferior in some respect, but then accordingly, lowered his price to a similar level.

Along the way to Ranakpur the next day, our driver tried to persuade us that if we really thought about it, we wanted to hire him to do a personal tour of the whole of Rajasthan. After politely declining, he went strangely quiet.

The resort turned out to be quite pleasant, about half a kilometre from the temple. However we were assigned a tent room (with adjoining bathroom) and while it was actualy quite a nice tent, it was pretty cold at night. The swimming pool, which I had looked forward to using, was also, of course, freezing cold (despite the warm sunshine), although I did manage a few lengths before I had to retire to the room and shiver under a couple of duvets.

The local food, we discovered, consisted almost entirely of buffets. As we were informed by our guide that a buffet is the quickest route to uncontrollable bowel fluctuations, we tried to avoid this by asking for the a la carte menu. After a kind of nudge nudge wink don't let the other people eating know performance, we discovered that it was a little pricey for lunch, and managed to get food at a nearby restaurant, which also had a buffet, but we could order from teh menu if we wanted. The funny thing is, hardly anybody seemed to be eating from the buffet in either place, which gave us even more reason to think that both places were offering lentil curry with a side of gastroenteritis.

The temple was amazing by the way. 1444 pillars (although, so we were told, you never count the same number twice). Very nice carving.

The next day we boarded the local bus. First, we waited an hour and a half outside the hotel. Then some bright spark came up with the idea that the bus might not stop at the hotel, so we got a lift to the bus stop, waited another half an hour, and got on. It was pretty crowded for the first hour or two and I felt quite self-conscious about my obese rucksack taking up room at the back. During this time, I attempted to communicate with a man who claimed to be a performer with a Rajasthani cultural group, who would be performing in Pushkar soon. He knew very little English, but I attempted to learn a few more Hindi words from him which I've promptly forgotten. At some point, his mobile phone went off, and it seemed strange to me somehow that this man who seemed so disconnected from Western society should be holding such a recent product of it, characters from the bizarre looking script framed in flashing green on the tiny screen as he talked.

We arrived five and a half hours later at about 8 o'clock, our eyes stinging from tiredness and pollution, and made for Yogi's guest house, by the impressive fort. Nice rooms, and cheaper than Udaipur.

Finally, relaxation! Sitting in a cafe in Udaipur, sipping banana lassi, life is easy. Been here 2 days, and it's magical as the guidebook says: all winding alleyways with motorbikes whizzing about, failing to startle the stoic cows. We arrived, on the night train from Ahmedabad, at 8am, unfazed by a forced early rise as a result of inverse jet lag from flying across the world the easier way: East to West. With a nice hotel in mind after two nights on trains, our rickshaw driver persuaded us to try Hotel Hill Lake, a brand new hotel only open 2 weeks. The views from the room, and the fact that it's 30% cheaper than Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel, won us over (even though having been to the latter, it's not quite there in the restaurant food and ambience departments. Plus the room is a little chilly).

Yesterday, we rickshawed to the Monsoon Palace, visible from the town as a distant fairytale castle on a hill, and enjoyed the stunning views. However the best thing about Udaipur is just the relaxing atmosphere (despite the constant motorbike honking) and lakeside views. We were lucky; in the last two years the lake has been dry due to a poor monsoon.

It is especially relaxing after the frenetic pace and pollution of Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Mumbai was charming at first with it's decaying colonial buildings and early morning atmosphere; however this quickly wore off as we tried to get around. Ahmedabad was a surprise: when we arrived, early morning, it seemed almost a ghost town. By mid-morning, it had erupted into activity that lasted until late on. However, we found a great guide, "Johnny", a rickshaw driver who spoke excellent English and drove us to places like a stunningly carved stone many-floored 16th century well/temple, or Gandhi's Ashram (prayer centre) where he started his march against the British salt tax. This made us think that India, even off the tourist trail, has sights that in other countries would be central attractions.