Jaipur (again) and Shekawati

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https://picasaweb.google.com/116253494913081133936/JaipurAgainAndShekawati#5732599332634029426

22/9
  We arrived early morning on the train, and made our way straight to our by-now familiar and favourite Pearl Palace hotel for an excessive, greatly appreciated breakfast. We had reserved a room in the nearby Pearl Palace Heritage hotel, that Mr Singh, the owner had proudly presented to us just as we were last leaving Jaipur.

  This hotel was a luxury way beyond our needs, at a price only slightly above our resources. The ambient lighting revealed a large room, with a huge double bed, dark wood furniture, heavy framed pictures on the wall, stone carvings and two giant sized wooden doors, decorated with brass elephant spikes. There was air conditioning, a large wall-mounted flat-sceen TV, a computer and wi-fi, a fridge and a bathroom big enough to play polo in.
 For some, the historic themed decor may seem too much, and the hotel, in exclusivity, lacked the buzzing atmosphere of its sister hotel, the Pearl Palace, but we had already tasted that, and were in the mood to be pandered in a little care-free luxury.


After a sketchy night's sleep, the three girls were ready to sink into soft pillows and be engulfed by a puffy duvet. They slept until 2:00 when we headed out to battle with rickshaws in negotiation. It was a sellers market - none of them were keen to do the trip, but finally it was agreed with one of them and we squashed in for the climb up the long, bone-shakingly bumpy hill to Nahargarh.

 The Tiger Fort at the top was built in 1734, by Maharaja Jai SIng II soon after he founded the city of Jaipur, and later extended. It stood magnificently on top of the hill overlooking the city, and we had often looked up to its inviting silhouette from below. The pink walls and cupolas of a past regal elegance were now crumbling and a home to idle observing monkeys. We were there though, not to see inside of this fort but to capture the setting sun over the city below.


We had a little walk to get to the best view point. Fia and Tamsin hitched a lift on the back of a motorbike, while Jacqui and I paced along behind.

 Jaipur, in all its exotic and chaotic, sprawling beauty, was laid out before us. The sun had shaken off its harsh yellow gloss to reveal its warm orange heart, and was playing with the veil of Jaipur's haze. The ummistakeable noise of Indian bustle hovered over the streets in an arabian nights balmy air. As the sun dipped below the end of an urban infinity, a chorus of mosques woke up in a unified call to prayer, as their chance to remind everyone of their subtle presence in a Hindu world.

 We had positioned ourselves at the top of a turret, with a beer to wash down the setting sun, and then stayed to eat dinner while evening surreptitiously turned itself into night, and Jaipur into a galaxy of sparkling lights. The city noise though, had no plans to sleep.

23/9
We were up early for a day trip out to Shekawati.
I had noticed an international brand (can't remember which one) coffee house near to the bus station, so thought that we could pick up a quick breakfast there on our way to save time. Unfortunately, though, it was closed and we started to hunt the area for an alternative.
 Through the windows of a building we saw people sitting down at tables, in a distinctly restaurant kind of way, though there were no markings on the front of the building to indicate that it was either a hotel or a restaurant. We decided to investigate and entered the front door to find a reception desk. The girl behind was tied up on the phone, but while we were waiting, we noticed a sign to the dining room, so followed it through to a highly institutionalised canteen. We started to wonder whether we were in a hospital, or a school, but before we knew it, one of the elderly waiters, dressed in a dirty white apron, ushered us to a table. We asked if there was anything for breakfast, and without answering he disappeared off, returning with hot cornflakes, omelette, vegetable cutlets chapatis and cups of tea. To avoid putting our breakfast at risk, we waited until we had finished eating before we enquired further, but later discovered that we were in a government rest-house. It was very cheap, but we never really felt sure whether we were supposed to be there or not.

 We took a bus from the bus station out to Sika, as a jumping point from where we could hire a taxi to take us around Shekawati - an area renowned for the remains of havelis, one-time lavishly decorated mansions. Our plan, that we had formed after advice from the tourist office in Jaipur, was to head for the tourist office in Sika, where we could firm up on a tour around the area, and get some assistance in finding a vehicle.
 From the bus station, though, the short walk that we were expecting, turned into a marathon, and one hour later, dripping with sweat, we were still walking, stopping every now and then to confirm and follow directions. We asked a group of young students. They relished the encounter with us, and competed with each other to give us the clearest directions - each one was interrupted before he had finished by another who was sure he could make it simpler - while we looked on passively. It became confusing, but in any case the banter was brought to a halt, when one suggested that it would be too far to walk - sudenly they all agreed. We gave up, and summoned an auto-rickshaw


The Sika auto-rickshaws had a style of their own - they were longer, more ornately decorated with chrome trimmings, and polished proudly to a sparkle. They also had a double row of seats with the back seats facing backwards - a novelty that Fia and Tamsin embraced like parading royals. He dropped us at a building that was marked "Sika museum". With one foot still in the rickshaw in case he had taken us to the wrong place, we searched further and saw a much smaller sign indicating "Tourist Office"

  We ventured inside. A man, that looked like the cleaner, or the caretaker, leapt up from his seat in excitement at the sight of us and shot into a nearby office. Shortly a stout man came out, with eyes that looked in different directions, neither of which was towards the person he was talking to.
 "You will be wanting to see the museum?" he asked us.
  "Is this the museum?" we asked. "We are looking for the tourist office".
  "It is the museum and the tourist office" he said. "You can look through the museum, it has very interesting artifacts". We looked behind us to get a feel for the museum. Everything was in darkness.
  He felt the need to clarify. "Today we do not have electricity, but it is not a problem. We can give you a torch".     "Um..actually, we really need information from the tourist office. Can you please tell us who is the right person to talk to".
  "That is me" he said, offended that we had even considered that the two roles might need two separate people.
   We asked about visiting different parts of the Shekawati region. He gave us a little information, but we walked out not much wiser, and worse still had to head back to where we had come from to find a car to take us on the tour.
  After a bite to eat, we set off to find a car in one or two places that had been indicated to us. Wherever we walked, the mere mention of hiring a car would bring a miraculously quick and enthusiastic crowd around us - only one of the crowd had a car, but whatever he said, the rest of the crowd agreed whole-heartedly repeating his words and wobbling their heads. It was a painful and frustrating process but we finally found someone who agreed to 7 rupees per kilometre and we set off.


The first stop was Laxmangarh - a peaceful town with an active market. Parallel to the main road was a quieter more suburban-feeling street on which the havelis were.

 The Shekawat Rajputs established their kingdom some time in the 18'th century, and ruled it, with a nominal allegiance to Jaipur, up until independence. The wealth of the region however came from the Marwari merchants, descendents from Jodhpur, who settled in the region in the 18'th century as key players in the trade between Gujarat ports and the Ganges valley. In the first part of the 19'th century these merchants became favoured business allies of the British East India company and migrated to the growing ports of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras where they prospered greatly. Throughout the 19'th and early 20'th century, they built their mansions back home in Shekawati where their families had stayed, commissioning artists to paint impressive frescoes. These lavish houses became an egotistically competitive showpiece of their wealth.


With steps leading up to raised portals lined with pillars, heavy wooden doors sealing arched entrances large enough for an elephant, and fabulously intricate frescoes covering every centimetre of carved stone facades, the past opulence was not difficult to imagine.

 Sadly, though, they were mostly in a state of dilapidation. Faded frescos on  cracked walls, falling plaster and the fungal clouds of untreated damp characterised a neglected fall from grace. The streets were dusty repositories for broken tiles, mysterious piles of gravel and rubbish. It was hard to imagine that the descendents of the wealth that had created these beautiful masterpieces had lost their interest, allowing them to fall into hands that were either unwilling or unable to maintain their splendour. It seems though that twentieth century Indian wealth is choosing modernity over antiquity, fashion over tradition.

 As we left the town, our driver stopped at a strange round-walled fort built up on high. He knew it was something worth stopping at, but couldn't explain to us what it was.
 We had to research later to discover that it was Laxmangarh fort, built in 1862 by Rao Raja Laxman Singh, a feudal lord of the Sika region, as his first step to founding the town. Its apparent uniqueness was that it was built on top of scattered rocks, but it was privately owned without access for the public.

We drove onto Fatehpur, with a short stop at a similarly anonymous site, that our driver proudly presented to us but was unable to help us with any clarifying information. It was a stepwell, which became popular from the 11'th to 16'th centuries.

 They were initially built in semi-arid regions such as Rajasthan as a means of water storage and irrigation, with their steps providing access to the water. They became more elaborate in architecture when they started to play a social and religious role, mainly involving women as it was they who normally gathered here to collect water.

Fatehpur was a bigger city. We knew of a specific haveli, owned and restored by a French artist, Nadine Le Prince, that we wanted to see, but were keeping our eyes open for others. One opportunity suddenly appeared as we were walking down one of the back-steets, slightly lost in our search for Nadine's. We first saw the promising coloured wall painting of an elephant, and next to it was the ornamentally carved and painted facade of a haveli.

A man, in his vest and dhoti, that had been sitting outside, jumped up, beckoning to us to look inside. We were delighted and followed.
  We were led through an entrance foyer, and into the first courtyard. Every wall was amass with frescos, over ornately carved arches, inside decorative insets above doorways, and in between the balustrades below a second floor arcade. Images of hindu gods, mythological stories, elephants, lions and life, were set amongst intricate floral patterned decoration. Heavy carved wooden doors were studded with iron panels and rugged hoop handles. The second courtyard,  through a small doorway to protect the honour of the women who traditionally stayed in this part out of sight of the visiting men talking business in the first courtyard, was similarly decorated.


The current inhabitants, however, were clearly not a family with enough wealth to maintain this house in its glory. Aside from fresco'd walls that were stubbirnly resisting the test of time, the haveli was falling into neglect, and the necessities of daily economic survival were taking precedence over preservation of historical architecture.

 Doors were left off their hinges, electrical wires hung loosely across walls, rooms off the courtyard were piled with junk and unused, and black clouds of damp had invaded the upper floors. The wife of the family was squatting in the second courtyard, cooking on a fire on the ground, and a baby in torn clothes played in the dirt. The scant lifestyle of a subsistence family had been incongruously superimposed into this once-magnificent shell of affluence.
  Our host had been trying to act as a guide, but unfortunately unable to help us with any useful information about the house, either because he was unaware, or because he was unable to communicate it. His skeletal tour was reduced to pointing at random pictures and hailing the name of the depicted god "Krishna!", "Shiva!". When we arrived in the second courtyard, we realised that we were not the first that he had hooked in from the street to see the insides of the haveli. On the wall was a piece of cardboard, on which was hand-written:
 "Guided tour: 100 rupees per person". It was strategically placed at the end of the "guided tour", and with no mention made of it at the beginning. He graciously indicated that we would not need to pay for the children and asked for 200 rupees. I gave him 50, smiled and started to walk out. He reluctantly accepted.


Another opportunist appeared a little later when we asked someone for directions to Nadine's haveli. He indicated the way, then after we had thanked him and set off, decided that there was money to be made, overtook us and started to lead the way. The route was along a road that had become flooded with water that was now putrid with sewage, rubbish and one or two dead animals.

 We balanced along a ledge at the side of the road, trying to avoid breathing in the dreadful stench, and concentrating hard not to fall in the water. When we arrived, I offered our helpful friend a 10 rupee tip. He refused it and asked for 50 rupees. Disgusted, I withdrew my offer and left him. He was still there waiting when we came out more than an hour later, and followed us back to the car. I made my offer again, and this time, sensing that it wasn't going to get better, he accepted.
 Nadine Le Prince had restored her haveli with loving care, and meticulous attention. We were welcomed by a french student who was staying there, and given a comprehensive guided tour, with details of the history, the lifestyles, the rooms, and their usage.

 The most intricate paintings reserved for the first courtyard where the head of the household needed to impress his business guests, the room for negotiation, then the room for relaxing after the sealing of the deal, the high security hidden cupboards where money was locked away, the bedrooms, the staff roms and the very pleasant gardens.

 We started on a loop back towards Sika, hoping to stop at a temple at Sarahar. The road became more and more rural. Lines of peasant women wrapped in loose richly coloured saris were walking back from the fields in the setting sun, skillfully balancing overwhelmingly large loads on their heads, or herding their insouciant cow back from his day of grazing.

 We seemed to be getting deeper and deeper into the coutryside, the road had narrowed to a single lane track, and signposts had become an unnecessary irrelevence. When our driver started to stop to ask directions each time we arrived in small villages, I decided it was time to use the GPS on our phone. We had, in fact, taken a very long route around to Sarahar. We had really appreciated the detour into Shekhawati village life, but I was sure that our driver had deliberately taken this route, purely to boost his days payment by maximising the kilometres driven. When we finally arrived at Sarahar, it was late, and we had no time to get out to see the temple for fear of missing the last bus from Sika back to Jaipur.

24/9
For our last day in Jaipur, we went to the Jamta Manta - an observatory created by the intellectually energetic Jai Singh II in 1728. It looked more like a children's adventure playground with giant concrete sun dials and astronomy measuring devices the size of climbing frames.

 It could have been very interesting, but our guide was a total disaster, spouting a complicated, heavy accented rehearsed speech about each construction and then determined to rush onto the next leaving Jacqui and I in total confusion, and helpless to explain or enthuse Fia and Tamsin who looked up at us waiting for some clarification. To make matters worse, it was a searingly hot day. We dashed from shade to shade, but still felt like we were melting in the heat. We left feeling deflated, and vowing (temporarily) never to take a guide again.


We took a cycle rickshaw to the government emporium - 4 floors of local crafts, sold at a higher price than the market places but with a guaranteed quality. We went in to buy bed covers and the colourful Rajasthani wooden puppets, but came out with rugs.

 We were by now on a mission though, and trailed the bazaar until we had all we wanted. With bags of purchases piled into the back of a rickshaw, we dumped it all on the desk at the post-office, where a man of few words but extremely fast hands, packed them all carefully into a box, and sewed a sheet cover over it before sealing it romantically with a hot wax stamp. When the parcel arrived in Nerville la Foret back in France, we were told by our friends Eric and Elise that the post office said they had never seen anything like it before.

UDAIPUR

Photo Albums:
1 http://youtu.be/i2Qi1mo6mvY
2 http://youtu.be/hfvmCWr31B4
3 http://youtu.be/Kp-5LNHeCXw
4  http://youtu.be/q8G-ROeo8Lo

17/9
Arriving very early morning on our night train from Jaipur to Udaipur in southern Rajasthan, we zig-zagged

down a barely-awake narrow street which wound its attractive way down to the lakeside, to find the best hotel option and negotiate the best price.

 We were delighted with a spacious and nicely decorated room at Hotel Udai Niwas, with a big double bed in the middle and arched cavities in the wall, lined with fitted cushions - the perfect little sleeping nests for Fia and Tamsin.
  We had breakfast in the rooftop restaurant, rewarded with our first view of Lake Pichola, with the gleaming white fairy-tale Lake Palace standing in the middle as if it was floating, and the surrounding hills reflected in glassy waters which twinkled with the early morning sun-light. Udaipur must be India's prettiest city.

 With a shortened sleeping night on the train, we retired to bed and then slept until 2:00 before we went out to explore.
 Down by the lake, we stumbled on an informal looking street show. Men were sitting cross legged, or squatting in the centre while the actors were performing around them in a circle, stamping and shaking their bare-feet with jangling bells around their ankles.

 The costumes were an explosion of colour, ranging from Rajasthan traditional to fancy-dress-ridiculous with all manners of head-ware, heavy jewellery and face-paint. With some men dressed as women, the actors put on a performance which looked almost farcical with dancing, mock-fighting and "Punch and Judy" chasing around the circle, though the aggressor beat the victim with a stick rather than the proverbial string of sausages. It was only two days later, when we saw a similar performance in a rural village that we learnt a little more. These performers were Bhils - one of the tribes thought of as "Adivasi" (indigenous to India, as opposed to the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian historic immigrants). Traditionally hunters, they were renowned for their ferocity, and became valued warriors serving Rajput armies. In the Udaipur region they fought in the Mewar (the local ruling Rajput family) army, and became a thorn in the side of the invading Moguls by their skill in guerilla warfare, luring the enemy into a valley before enclosing and slaughtering them. Now formalised as a caste, Bhil men are still recognisable by their bare feet and their ear-rings on both ears.

 Their warrior days were over when the warring between Maharajas and Moguls faded, and they have settled with a life of herding and occasional hunting, mostly at night-time because it's illegal. It seems they never stray from the poverty line. Women are traditionally highly protected, which explains why men take the women's roles in the acting spectacles that they perform as they tour nearby villages, and contrary to the usual Indian custom, it is the women that command a dowry in the arranaged marriages - the going rate being 10 goats (70 euros worth).

We had a late lunch at the nearby Minerva hotel - lured in vain by a satellite TV that we thought had a chance of showing the Rugby world cup - Australia were playing Ireland. Agonisingly, no-one seemed to know about rugby in India - and in the time we stayed in Udaipur, we had several bemused hotel staff switching through channels to find some sign of it before someone managed to put our hope to the grave by confirming that the only channel showing it was not available in Udaipur. We resigned ourselves to seeing the match reports for the time being.  

 Dinner was on the balmy rooftop of one of the many beautiful havelli guest houses, once homes of rajput nobles. Drinking beer out of a teapot, a common disguise used in Udaipur by unlicensed restaurants, we watched "Octupussy" on an antique television. The enchanting billionairess, Octupussy, lived in a palatial mansion on a women-only island in the middle of a lake. Udaipur's Lake Palace was used for many scenes, and the film is celebrated proudly across town, with every guest house adding "Octupussy shown" to their list of selling points advertised at their entrance. Two spaghettis mysteriously appeared on our bill without us having ordered any, and when I questioned it, I was summoned for the second time into the kitchen, where the manager surreptitiously explained to me that they also, were a cover-up for the beer.

18/9
 A torrential downpour drove us from the rooftop of our guest-house where we were eating breakfast. With no sign of stopping, we postponed other plans in favour of a french lesson.
 Later we managed to make the long walk, past dusty antique shops selling giant stone elephants and statues, to the tourist office, stopping for an excellent lunch on the way at the Lotus cafe.

 Our walk turned out to be in vain, as being a Sunday, the tourist office was closed, but in the process, we discovered the real "living" Udaipur town, bursting with commerce, noise and odour, away from the concentrated tourist area surrounding the lake. Despite its central role in India's tourism, Rajasthan is one of Indias poorest states with the lowest levels of life expectancy and literacy.
 We took a rickshaw back, with a driver that had extraordinary amounts of hair coming out of his ears, to go to the city museum, but had to abandon that also when we discovered that we had only 1 hour before it closed (contrary to the indications in the guide book). Our day had slipped unproductively and frustratingly through our fingers - independent travel has its downsides.

Desperate to get some sights under our belt, the opportunity fell on us when we wondered down to the lake side. A small boat was just leaving, so we called it back, bought tickets and hopped on for a trip around the lake.

 We rumbled close up to the exotic Lake Palace (Octupussy's pad) on Jagniwas Island, gleaming white with a myriad of arched windows leading to enough rooms to house a small town. A launch had just moored up to allow clients of the 5 star hotel, that it has now become, to step ashore, welcomed by uniformed staff with well-trained professional smiles. The palace was built in 1754 as a summer residence for the Maharaja - an extravagant get-away from the City Palace just across the water.

Its sister summer-getaway (having only one must have been an awful limitation) was built in 1620 on nearby Jagmandir island.

 It was architecturally more interesting, with cupola roofs at different levels shading small viewing platforms, and a line of carved stone elephants, standing in the water around the front walls. Shah Jahan stayed here in 1623, and was said to have drawn inspiration from this for his construction of the Taj Mahal. Both palaces covered the islands completely, giving the magical effect that they were floating - it was romantic opulence at its most exquisite, and left us with dreams of Rajput magnificence.

 On the mainland, the grandeur of the City Palace is hidden behind tall defensive walls, but the view from the lake shows less modesty. Two more luxury hotels have been created out of part of it, and along with the two island hotels they all remain the property of the descendents of the last Mewar Maharaja.

  Further along from the palace, ruins of once glorious lakeside mansions hosted a group of boys, stripped down to their underpants, who jumped acrobatically from scaffolding into the lake. Further along, the ghat steps were now filling with the evening crowd of locals - washing, praying and just being there to see what was going on.      
 We ate a light dinner up on another rooftoop terrace (there's another living city on top of the roofs) just by the lake while we read up in the guidebook to fill in the gaps left by the boat drivers unintelligibly strong accent.

That evening we went inside the main courtyard of the City Palace to see the sound and light show.

 It was a typically over-dramatised performance with the requisite resonant voices and dramatic music, praising the wisdom , talents, loyalty and courage of the Rajput dynastic legacies, but the night lighting emphasized the stunning beauty of the Rajput architecture, and it gave us a good introduction to our full visit of the palace the following day.

19/9
 The building of the City Palace started in 1559, by Udai Singh, after meeting a wise holy man here on a hunting expedition, who advised, or at least supported, his idea to move his capital from nearby Chittorgarh. As Akbar and his Mughal armies laid seige to Chittorgah, the new city of Mewar was founded, later to be renamed Udaipur after its founder. It proved to be an auspicious decision, as with the help of its natural defense of the surrounding Aravalli hills, it remained one of the few cities in the north that the mighty Mughals never managed to conquer.  

The Mewar dynasty dates back to the 7'th century. Astrologers conveniently traced their roots to the sun, and the sunshine motif appeared regularly in the palace decor. They were Rajputs - of the same caste but with no family connections to the Rajputs in Jaipur, Jodhpur and elsewhere in Rajasthan, and indeed often at battle with them. Even when most of Rajasthan had been finally beaten into submission by the Mughals, the Mewar dynasty found themselves at the battlefield facing the Jaipur Rajputs, who after finally submitting to the Mughals, had been recruited into leading positions in their army.
  Different parts of the palace were built over the years by different Maharans that followed Udai Singh. The family is still present, living in part of the palace between the two excruciatingly luxurious hotels on the lake, though they have now exchanged their ruling executive powers for hotels in london, and other business interests.

  It is a beautiful palace of towers, balconies, intricately carved stone work, latticed windows, and marble. The interior reveals the sumptuous lifestyle that the royal families led, and the amazing collection of paintings told stories of their leisure pursuits - Maharajas, with handlebar moustaches, mounted on decorated elephants in the tiger hunt, elephant wrestling, polo, board games and the tug of war, where prize elephants stood either side of a tall wall over which they linked trunks and pulled, the loser being the first to touch the wall.
  Painting was enormously appreciated amongst the Rajputs, with different royal families patronising armies of artists, and as a result developing unique styles - the Mewar recognisably different from the Jaipur school etc. The miniature art style started in Rajasthan, initially as a necessary improvisation to fit a picture onto the available palm leaves, but continued as an art form even after the limitation was removed with the Chinese invention of paper.  As well as leisure, the paintings told stories of the legendary courage and honour of the Rajput warriors and kings, and there were constant reminders in the palace of the ceaseless pressures of war that they faced - mostly against the Mughals, and later against the Marathas (from Mumbai area). The outer doors were all studded with sharp spikes as a painful deterrent to elephants being urged forwards as battering rams by the enemies. We saw the leather armour with which they dressed their horses - a false elephant's trunk that allegedly prevented enemy elephants from attacking, mistakenly believing that they were facing baby elephants rather than horses. Honour was paramount, and the Rajputs were known for their determination to fight until death, with ritual suicide the last option ahead of capture. When it looked as though the City Palace was about to fall to the invading Mughals, the queen allegedly led the ladies of Udaipur into a mass funeral pyre in an honourable end to avoid falling into the hands of barbarians. The armies arrived back in time to save Udaipur, but too late to save their women.        

The Mewar resisted the Mughals, but the British were a different kettle of fish, and a vow of allegiance was innevitable though there is a feeling that their pride and independence shone through even in this era. When the Maharan of the time did not turn up to the coronation celebrations for George V, it was widely interpreted as a snub, despite the insistence of the Maharaja that it was because of illness. After the British, came independence and the Mewar signed up as part of the state of Rajasthan, to the new government of independent India, with President Nehru making the final signature in this very palace.

The City Palace was a wonderful insight into Mewar Rajput times, made all the more interesting by our guide, Nitin, who was able to answer all of our questions, and bring in lively stories that brought it all alive for the girls.
 It was rare fo us to accept a guide, and even rarer that they turn out to be good.

We walked from the palace through the lakeside streets dripping with Rajasthan charm, diving out of the way of horn-blaring auto-rickshaws or mopeds with fat bottomed wives perched side-saddle on the back. Moustachioed sellers sat at the entrance to their stalls, where handbags and fabric handicrafts hung down, forming a curtain of reds and browns.

 Some sat cross-legged on the ground with their simple wares - saffron, spices, hand-made bracelets - displayed on a sheet laid in front of them. A cow drifted down the street in his monotonous life of oblivious nonchalence, snuffling in the rubbish left between crumbling centuries old buildings, and pausing to eat his way through a discarded cardboard box. Donkeys returning from a delivery, strode down the street that they had trodden many times before, not needing any indications from their accompanying owner.

 We turned a corner to be faced by an elephant with a boy in near rags on his back, bare feet wedged behind the elephant's giant ears. The elephant stretched out his trunk to us, inviting us to place a coin, on the end, at which he deftly arched his trunk over his head, without losing the balanced coin, small as a pimple, and dropped it in the hands of his handler.

We had a fabulous over-our-budget lunch at Ambrai hotel, in a blissfully peaceful setting at the side of the lake, opposite the Jagniwas island.


 There was a ghat (steps down to the lake) in front of us, where two women, one as slender as a super-model, the other plump and wobbly from married years of chapatis and rice, were slamming their clothes mercilessly against rocks to wash them. They later turned with a little more tenderness to washing themselves. They stayed clad in their saris for the most part until suddenly the large one, lowered her sari to wash bouncing breasts, leaving us fumbling to hide our cameras.

 The scene would have passed unnoticed in the South of France, but here in India, it shocked us to our core. Fully clothed again, they finished by submerging themselves completely in the lake, before they loaded their laundry baskets onto their heads, and sauntered off. Further on, a group of boys were swimming, and competing with their acrobatic leaps into the water.



 After lunch we headed down for a belated visit to the tourist office. We found out one or two other things that looked worthwhile to see and decided to stay in Udaipur for another day, but the agent proved to be laughably out of date on many things, and we wandered when he had last stepped out of his tourist office.
 We walked onwards to get to the station, through a painful stretch of busy road lined by one or two sellers, but mostly by decaying rubbish, and submerged in vehicle smoke and fumes. It was refreshingly easy to book our sleeper tickets back to Jaipur, as they had a reserved desk for foreigners - a fair compensation, we reasoned, for us having to pay three times as much as indians for entry into the museums.

That evening we went to a traditional dance performance inside one of the havellis - a mansion of the affluent, all stone pillars, balconies and carvings.

 Though a little touristy, it was highly enjoyable with some energetic music and dancing, a genuinely entertaining puppet show, and adorned with the colourful Rajput clothing that was traditional with peasants and royalty alike - brilliant scarlet turbans and saris shimmering with gold and silver. They finished off with a half-circus half-dance act of a lady, who was no spring chicken, dancing with an increasing number of claypots on her head until she was floating around the dance floor balancing a column of 10 pots.

 Fia and Tamsin edged back from their positions on the floor just in case she mis-judged.

 We discovered that gypsies are thought to have originated from travelling performers from Rajasthan tribes, gaining their name from the years they stopped in Egypt, before moving onto Romania. Their language,
Romani, is closely linked to Rajisthani.



20/9
We were picked up early from our guest house in a Land Rover to head out of town to a farm in a nearby village, where we had arranged to go horse-riding for the day.

 Aside from the pleasure of riding horses, which was a particular thrill for Fia and Tamsin, having sacrificed their weekly riding lessons since we left France, the day was a unique trek through untouched rural life. The owner, an Indian man who had been brought up on the farm, was married to a Dutch lady, and the combination meant that he was able to share the history and culture of the Udaipur countryside and village life with us, with excellent English and knowing exactly what we would find interesting.

  Following small tracks, we passed through trees of mango, banana and guava, and past small landholdings cultivated with coriander, maize and chillis. Water buffalo, the pride of any rural household, were everywhere, often sunken lazily in muddy water holes, nostrils and eyes remaining the only visible tip of the submerged iceberg. The villages were a picture of peaceful rural life - around a simple temple were houses built from stone and plastered with a mixture of mud and cow dung, which was also laid out meticulously on the tops of walls to dry so that it could be used as fuel in the winter.  
  We were shown into a "middle class" farmer's house - typically 2 to 3 rooms, (bedroom, kitchen and animals), but spacious, set around a courtyard with beautiful heavy wooden doors. Middle class meant normally that they had their own source of water and their own modest land-holding. A working class farmer, with a smaller house of only 1 or 2 rooms, may also own a small amount of land, but did not have their own source of water so relied totally on the monsoon rains. In a poor season they would need to work for other farmers to sustain a living.

We asked about schooling, and whether rural education was benefitting from India's rapid economic development. The schools in any case do not charge fees, but the costs that often lead to children being held back from school are the peripherals - lunches, transportation, school uniforms etc.
 In the past, boys were given completely free schooling to a later age than girls - now it seems it is reversed in an apparent effort at positive discrimination in favour of girl's education. Additionally, if someone lives more than certain distance they get a free bike to help them get to school, and if they perform well in exams, can earn a moped. More children it seemed were able to go to school for longer. The villages themselves seem a long way from the glitzy software and call-centre worlds of Bangalore, but it seems that education at least is feeling some benefit from the increased wealth in India. It contrasted with another development effort that was topical in the newspapers - to offer free pharmaceuticals. An excellent initiative that had not yet reached the population as the pharmacists had since been on strike in disagreement with their unfavourable participation in the distribution network.  

  The trail led us to a peaceful lake, where crocodiles, too timid to see, swam.
Fia and Tamsin fell in love with their horses, caressing them all the time, and insisting on taking them to feed after we had returned, They gave them sad farewell kisses when they parted, and afterwards the horses were the subject of the moment, and became the theme of their role play games for weeks. As we left, we were shown a foal, lying lifelessly on the straw next to his mother, with a group of men around, tending. He had been born only that night - and was weak, and his mother had not stopped bleeding since, but two worried faces were calmed when the local vet, who was there, reassured the girls that both the foal and mother had taken medicine and would be alright.

We had lunch at the horse ranch before heading back to Udaipur, stopping briefly in a village where another group of Bhil were performing their spectacle, surrounded by villagers, who, embarrasingly, found us more entertaining than the show.
 Unintentionally, we ended up at "Savage garden" for a wonderful but far too expensive Mediterranean dinner of pasta, bruschetta, humous and baba ganoush.

21/9
For our last day in Udaipur, we had promised Fia and Tamsin a lesson in miniature paintings.  They sat on cushions under the arches of a gorgeous courtyard, while a gentle teacher led them through their very own Rajasthan miniature painting of an elephant decorated in vivid reds and golds. They loved it.
I meanwhile sat in the courtyard, amidst the alluring romance of the historic surroundings - mosaic patterned walls, carved stonework and balconies - whilst the harsh reality of the 21'st century was being injected into my mind through a mobile phone. I was talking to one of the two banks that were charging us repayments for the same mortgage after the transfer between the two had gone wrong and both were refusing to accept blame.

Later we headed up to sunset point, a nearby hill served by a ropey cable-car, to watch the sun playing hide-and-seek behind scant whispy clouds, alighting the world of lakes and palaces in a warm red and pink as its last act, before dipping beautifully behind folds of silhouetted hills. A fitting romantic end to our stay in India's most romantic city.

As we came back into the town, we made a visit to the 17'th century Jagdish temple. Inside the outer gates, guarded by two large stone elephants, is a tall colonnaded tower, totally embellished in intricate stone carvings - not a centimetre left uncarved for as far as you can see. We chatted to two swamis, sitting cross legged in a side-temple, who had taken to Fia and Tamsin, and then wandered inside, where we became part of a puja (prayer). We followed the beckons to sit down with everyone else, and listened to their heartfelt singing. There did not appear to be any Brahman priest leading a series of esoteric rituals, as we would normally have expected - it was more like a sing-along around the camp-fire, led by whoever remembered the tune best. But it was numinous and compelling, and we found ourselves drifting to the mystic sounds, before the reality of our impending night train back to Jaipur stepped into our dream, and we left. 

Jaipur 

Photo album link:https://picasaweb.google.com/116253494913081133936/JaipurSeptember2011

11/9
 We had to be up at 3:00am to get a pre-reserved taxi to the station to catch a 4:40am train. Amazingly, even at that time in the morning, the 24 hour activity at the Golden Temple complex was as frenetic as ever with early morning prayers and pilgrims on the move.  

 On arrival at the station, we showed our tickets to a soldier to ask for help on locating the train. Going beyond the call of duty, he took it upon himself to look after us, leading us from one station offical to another, trying to get our reservation confirmed in to seat numbers, succesfully in the end. He then directed us to our train - we were one of the first on it, and it was only beyond 4:40 that people started to climb on - a little strange with hindsight seeing as the trains run with punctuality and normally passengers board well in advance of the departure time.
  Then someone arrived with the same seat number as ours leading to discussion and a mutual inspection of tickets, with the  requisite small crowd of interested onlookers gathering around to offer their opinions or at least follow the saga. We shortly came to the sobering realisation that we had been directed to the wrong train by the soldier. I had had some doubts when the number of the train looked inconsistent with our tickets, but not enough to challenge his direction. One of the relations of one of the real passengers climbed off the train with me to ask a station master - we had now missed our reserved train, and the best bet for us now was to get off, and book another ticket to Delhi. We were all livid - particularly as our almost adopted train was a very smart modern one.

  Huffing with the frustrations of India, and unsure now whether we would still be able to travel to Jaipur that day or not, we hauled our bags off the train and went to join the funnel shaped queue at the ticket office.
 To nurture our seething tempers further, the station master in the ticket office was curt, and did not hide his own frustrations at my apparent incompetence and lack of understanding of the protocol of booking and travelling by Indian trains. But just as my temper was strained to its limit, he looked at me as if suddenly realising something, and asked if we had been to Dharamsala.
  "Yes" I said "we were just there for 9 days".
   His face suddenly changed completely, and a big smile opened up,
"My home town is Mcleod Ganj - in two days I will be returning there to see my family". Suddenly I was no longer the annoying ignorant customer and became his best friend. He beckoned, inviting me round the side door to enter his ticket booth. It wasn't easy with my heavy wide rucksack on my back but not wanting to shirk any sign of friendship at this critical stage I shuffled through the narrow gap to be able to reach him, then stood at a slight angle, unable to straighten because of my wedged back pack, shook his hand and started to listen attentively to his life story while Jacqui and the girls looked in at us from the other side of the glass, joined by other rushed travellers needing tickets, who were obliged to wait patiently for the end of our banal chit chat. He was all smiles after this, and explained clearly everything that I needed to do, dismissing anyone that tried to interrupt him. In the end, we lost some money but managed to get another train in time for our connection to Jaipur.

 This time we were on a sleeper train, though we would be leaving the train before the evening. We had a full carriage, including a large man, with excellent English and a self professed wide knowledge on everything and everywhere, which fascinated us before it started to annoy us. The girls climbed up onto the bunks to catch a nap, while we sipped tea out of miniature plastic cups and fed on a dry omelette from the passing train stewards while chatting to our co-passengers.

  We had to change trains in Delhi, requiring a painful rucksack-encumbered maneouvring of the metro to get across to another station. Dripping in sweat, we rushed into a sort of upmarket indian fast food joint at New Delhi station, then onto the platform to get our next train. This time our seats were all together, and apart from a couple who joined us briefly we had the section to ourselves. Jacqui slept, and then I climbed up onto a bunk and had a sleep while the girls were having a distracted french lesson. The time passed quickly.

Jaipur, Rajasthan

  Knowing that we would arrive at 8:30 at night and not fancying the usual deluge of touts around us taking us to their preferred hotels or tourist offices we decided to book a room in advance and in so doing having someone pick us up at the station. It proved to be a wise move, as we were whisked away from the madding crowds, and climbed into a worn but charismatic Ambassador car. Ours was only 13 years old but the design, including its nostalgic and guileless interior would not have been very different from the first model that left an Indian production line in 1958, produced by Hindustan motors based on the Morris Oxford car. The cars are ubiquitous in India, as taxis, personal vehicles and in particular for politicians, who bring cities to a standstill as they are raced around officiously with flags waving from their wings and surrounded by convoys of siren blaring police.
 Salim, the driver, who also ran a tour business in Jaipur, was very friendly and immediately passed us his "visitors book" so that we could browse the hundreds of multi-lingual messages that western tourists had written, singing the praises of his tours. We made the right noises, which unleashed a predictable determination to book us up on his services: "I pick you up 9:00 tomorrow". We had to patiently endure, humour but ulitmately turn down his sales efforts repeatedly before we were allowed out of the car.
  The Pearl Palace hotel was delightful - well maintained, with an overall pink feel befitting of the pink city, (as Jaipur is called since 1876 when Maharaja Ram Singh had all the walls literally painted pink as a welcoming gesture on the visit of the British Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII) and decorated with character by murals of iconic indian images, brass and wooden artisan sculptures, wall hangings, brass elephants etc.

 The faces that greeted us were so engagingly friendly that we were disarmed of any of our usual negotiation tactics and we moved into a lovely ac room. It was immaculately fitted and tastefully decorated with painted insets in the walls, a peaceful ceiling, antique style ceiling fans, wooden furniture and topped off with the towels wrapped into the shapes of swans sitting in the middle of the beds.



 On the roof was a partly covered restaurant terrace, dimly lit, with a cool Rajasthan evening air brushing through the plants, and overlooking the ancient walls of the nearby fort.
  In short, we loved the hotel - it was an "almost budget" hotel (though by no means the cheapest) but with the trimmings, the attention to detail, and the service of a luxury hotel. Apart from the Raj Palace in Mandi, which was an unprecedented explosion of our budget, this was certainly the nicest place we had stayed so far.
   We went to eat in the restaurant on the roof terrace, but the girls were understandably exhausted after our 3:00 am start and our 17 hours on trains, taxis and metros, and were not on good form, with complaints of sore throats and ears, so we all had an early night.


12/9
It was not a good night - both girls were up with sizzlingly high temperatures, sore throats and ears. I have to shamefully admit that I was completely unaware of the drama until the morning, but Jacqui was up most of the night, comforting and  administering dispirin to one or the other. They were no better in the morning and spent the day in bed (apart fom a short interlude when we changed room to a family room that had two double beds), and with Jacqui and I mostly floating around the room.
 I found a pharmacy, and bought some antibiotics, and by evening time they were both looking much more lively, so we ventured out for a little wander aound the streets. We found an "English wine and liquor store" - a shop selling alcohol, and bought two bottles of beer, wrapped up in newspaper and stuffed into my bag, giving a suitably illicit feel. We had aperitives and played cards on the balcony in the balmy warmth of the evening before heading upstairs to the restaurant for a delicious tandoori dinner, with the girls allowed for once, under the cirumstances, a plain pasta.
  We were now in prime tourist territory - from the worn, bohemian, dreadlocked Israeli travellers that we had come across in North India, the tables around us were now alive with clean-shaven faces, chatting ethusiastically in familiar Engish and european accents, dressed in smarter clothes fresh from new-looking rucksacks, and poring over still un-tattered Lonely Planet Guidebooks. For the first time in our travels we came across another family - with children even younger than ours. We were on the famous golden triangle, between Delhi, Jaipur and Agra which makes an excellent itinerary for a visit to India for people travelling on more normal timescales than we were.


13/9
  We took it fairly easy in the morning, with Fia and Tamsin still in recuperation phase, but then headed into town to replenish our medical supplies, visit our first tourist office (we had avoided until then anything with the word "tourist" in it, but after the incredible information we received at this one, vowed never to miss one again), and then book tickets at a seemingly reputed cinema before walking on to the old town.
  The glittery streets of glass-fronted brand shops, coffee house chains and marbled hotel lobbies disappear when you pass through the time-warping gates in the old city walls and enter into the old town, which with chaotic bazaars of carpets, textiles, pottery and jewellery, latticed windows of crumbling buildings unchanged in 250 years, cycle rickshaws over-loaded with boxes fighting through the crowds of sari-clad lady shoppers, and the bustling noise of indian life is evocative of something out of the Arabian Nights.

  We sat in a small clothes shop, fighting for space in the air-current from the fan, while a moustachioed shop-owner dispatched instructions to his boy workers to pull out different variations of indian pyjama-like trousers and tops for the girls, which were laid out in front of us, one on top of the other, for our approval.

After a miniature fashion show, and a session of good hearted haggling, we walked out with a bag of clothes and two smiling children, impatient for a night out when they could dress up in full Rajasthani style.            
  As we wandered further along the bazaar, a man on the street beckoned to us and pointed up a narrow staircase that led between shops. We recognised the name of Ganesh restaurant written on a barely noticeable dusty sign, and followed the steps leading up onto the top of the old city wall, with views out to the modern metropolis in one direction and the historic past in the other. In the hot balmy night, we sat at simple metal tables in this magical atmosphere, while our meal was being cooked in a make-shift looking kitchen of pots and coal fires, then fed on curried vegetables and rice, while the mosquitos fed on us.


14/9  
We found a tailor working at his sewing machine in a room hardly wide enough for my shoulders, in a dilapidated part of town.

 My shorts were nearing their last days, with holes worn in them and the zip broken, but for 20 rupees (0,25 euros) this industrious tradesman picked and stitched while we waited, and with a new zip and patches, gave them a last breath of their now hard-wearing life.
  We accepted one of the many overly persistent rickshaw drvers that hung outside the hotel like vultures, then regretted it when he stopped his rickshaw cutting our much needed lifeline of cooling air flow, to allow us time to browse his visitors book of glowing comments of his day tours to local sights, written in all languages. Managing to restrain our tempers we repeatedly declined until finally, as our bodies were reaching boiling point, he restarted the engine and we moved on.




 We visited the City palace, a beautiful architectural example of the era and full of fascinating paintings of Rajput rulers and life. This proud clan has inhabited the Rajasthan area for more than 1000 years, leaving a historic legacy that fulfills our most romantic visions of India's past: fabulous palaces with stone and wood latticed wondows and giant brass doors, warriors whose courage, dignity and honour are the subject of fables, maharajas bathed in extravagance, majestic clothing rich in characteristic reds, yellows and gold, thought to have originated as a contrast to the dry dusty desert landscapes, mounted on elaborately decorated elephants as part of the all-important tiger hunting expeditions. The Rajputs ruled in independent, sometimes warring states, initially resisting when the Moguls conquered most of India in the 16'th century, before finally acquiescing and co-habiting with Mogul rule. Similarly, the British allowed them to maintained their positions of royalty, and sumptuous lifestyles in exchange for a convenient allegiance to colonial rule.

 Jaipur, the capital of Rajsthan, was named after its founder, Maharaja Jai Singh II, who moved his capital here from nearby Amber hill in 1767, shortly before work started on this palace. His huge silver urn is on display inside. It took Jaipur's silversmiths two years to make, in time for him to carry sufficient supplies of holy water from the River Ganges to last him on his trip to England for the coronation of King Edward VII, it's recorded in the Guinness book of records as the largest object made from silver.  
 Hot and tired, we stopped for a fruit lassie on our way back, served in throw-away terracotta conical beakers, while we stood in the street. This creamy, lumpy curd drink was so delicious that we never forgot it, and on our return to Jaipur several weeks later, we hunted out this stall, salivating in anticipation, only to find that they had finished their curd for the day.


After some catch-up on the diaries and a little snooze, we were ready for our night out. Fia and Tamsin looked like two Maharan princesses in their new outfits, as we entered the mythical Raj Mandir cinema. Reputed to be the number one Hindi cinema in India, the outside is retro cinematic style with 70's neon and coloured lights, and the inside decorated in theatrical elegance, velvety seats, high swirling ceilings and pink walls lined with lamps.
  We saw "Bodyguard" (a recent Bollywood blockbuster and not the Whitney Houston one). It was all the rage while we were there, with posters of the much adored Karine Kapoor, staring down on every street, and the upbeat modernised Hindi soundtrack dominating air waves. It had everything we could have hoped for - soppy romance, fast action fight-scenes where the hero defies overwhelming odds to send goofy baddies flying in all directions, dance scenes where whole villages join in innocent synchronised movements behind the heroine, and farcical comedy, and we cheered and clapped with the rest of the audience. Fia and Tamsin absolutely adored it, as did we. It was of course, completely in Hindi, but the mostly predictable story was easy to follow, except for an unexpected twist at the end which left us a little confused. We sat afterwards drinking pomegranate juices at a street shack, far from the escapist world of Karin Kapoor's character, and crowded around Jacqui while she googled on the phone to clarify this last tantalising link. The girls were glued to every word that she read, and that night, went to sleep with the joys of Bollywood romance in their hearts.


15/9
The next day we fumbled our way through the buses to get out to Amber fort, visible from Jaipur on its gracefully elevated position on a surrounding ridge, but 11 km out of town.
The fort was built in 1592 by Maharaja Man Singh and served as the palace until Jai Singh moved the capital to Jaipur when Mughal power in India started to crumble. We climbed up a steep path to get there, pausing to wait for a train of regally decorated elephants to pass, with sheepish looking tourists clinging onto the platforms saddled to the elephants' backs.  
 The fort-palace was beautifuly integrated into the rocky hillside with defensive walls snaking along the ridges in either direction like the Great Wall of China. It was a labyrinthe of pinkish sand-coloured stone walls, courtyards and corridors, with audience
halls gridded by grand pillars, and elephant-sized entrance gates, intricately decorated in magnificent mosaics.

Fia and Tamsin were able to run around and explore secret passageways before donning Rajasthan turbans to sit down and join our first snake charmer, who whined away on his pungi while a bored looking cobra wiggled its way upwards out of his basket, before being stuffed back in again with the lid.

In the evening, we dropped in to the rotating restaurant, the top level of an expensive hotel, and built on a cirular platform that gradually rotates to give you the full stunning panoramic of Jaipur and the surrounding hills. The price of our longed-after aperitive was prohibitively expensive so we ended up drinking a dreadful cup of tea, just dragging it out long enough to see the sun set over the horizon. Dinner was then at LMB's - a slightly more reasonably priced restaurant in the old City, but the exaggerated number of smartly uniformed stern-faced waiters managed to create a suppressively stuffy atmosphere with their own sense of self-importance, and we were glad to leave as soon as we had eaten.

  16/9
After strenuous negotiations with the gaggle of trickster rickshaw drivers outside the hotel, we went out of town on a  long rickshaw ride to the temples at Galta.

It is known as the monkey temple, not because of any worship to Hanuman, the Monkey God, but because it is inundated with hordes of monkeys. Nestled into rock faces, this amazing, dry and dusty complex of crumbling walls, cupola towers and bathing pools feels like the lost city, with the scavenging, nit-picking monkeys adding the final touch to complete the picture of Rudyard Kiplings Jungle book hideout. We wandered around the ruins, passing only a handful of pilgrims coming to pay their respects, and a group of locals enjoying the bathing tank - the men and boys stripped down to underpants with two fully-clothed ladies showering themselves from a bucket.

 Later we went to the Hawa Mahan - the palatial residences built in the midde of the old city for the ladies of the royal household to indulge in their frivolity, playing games, taking scented baths and dancing to musicians, and to observe major street events through eye-sized holes in latticed windows while remaining hidden from the harsh world outside. The circular steps up the 5 floors were accompanied by a ramp to allow the servants easier access when the ladies, too encumbered by their own weight and their jewellery to mount the steps themselves, needed to be carried.

 We had a night train to Udaipur to catch, and went back to the hotel to pick up our rucksacks. Mr Singh, who together with his wife, was the impressive owner and manager of the Pearl Palace Hotel, insisted on taking us to see his new development, the Pearl Palace Heritage hotel, just opening. We agreed, and left with him in the car to share his enthusiasm for this new project of extremely well appointed rooms, styled in Indian themes, and adorned with archaeological touches, before heading to the station.