Travels in India with too many books

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.