Out in the countryside

Yesterday I had a wonderful day in the countryside, touring the 2 big rural sights near Udaipur the Kumbalgarh fort and Ranakpur Jain temple. 9 hours in a taxi costing a total of $40!- what would the aussie taxi mafia think of that?!

The Ranakpur Jain Temple is probably the best temple i have seen in India, rivalling the Bangkok palace temples, it was built during the 15th century. It lies in a lovely forested valley that would be a nice place to stay for a few days, although its winter so most trees are bare, they say there are big animals in the forest, although who really knows in India these days. The temple is huge! It has an enormous area of 48,000 sq. feet. There are four subsidiary shrines, twenty four pillared halls and domes supported by over four hundred columns. There are carved nymphs playing the flute in various dance postures at a height of 45 feet. In the assembly hall, there are two big bells weighing 108 kgs. The light and ambience of the interior defied all the bus loads of euro tourists arriving, and it was easy to escape to a quiet corner and sit to enjoy its magnificence. Each of the four main walls is inlaid with many many beautiful marble and jade Jain idols.

An hours drive is Kumbalgarh fort, another 15th century achievement - almost a Wall of China experience, the fort wall being the the second longest continuous wall in the world, 25 feet thick, they say it is 36 km of walls, with 360 temples inside - i managed to visit 5. The top of the fort is 1,914 m above the sea level, topped of course by a palace, although it was closed due to vandalism, but I still could goto the top and look out across the dry countryside. The fort was unconquered and it is easy to see why. Jodhpur is still the best fort to see, but Kumbalgarh is a very close second!

Between Kumbalgarh and Ranakpur lies delightful countryside, green irrigated valleys full of rice paddies, sugar cane, date palms, some brickworks - the finished bricks piled in wonderful conical haystack like mounds, and many many small villages...we stop for delicious chai in a small village, they are all so similar, always women carrying large piles of wood or feedstock or water containers on their heads, the men crowded into local jeep taxi's or just hanging out at the chai shop.

The taxi driver does this drive 200 days of the year or more, we only had one slight mishap sideswiping a motorcycle, without injury, but mostly the country roads were quiet and a pure delight to drive through, observing the rural life going on much as it always has.

Onto Pushkar

Octopussy

So Udaipur, city of Octopussy, yes thats right, just get the James Bond 007 (An old and tired looking Roger Moore) film Octopussy and you too can visit Udaipur, for over an hour of the film is set here, in the City, Lake and Monsoon Palaces, even the Octopussy boat is still here, moored just offshore, it is a corny film but hey the scenery here is superb.

Udaipur: City of dreams, floating lake palaces, gleaming whitewashed buildings on the shores of the magic (although of course polluted) ghat lake, Rajasthans largest palace with incredibly beautiful rooms, the spectacular sunsets across the Araveli ranges (the worlds oldest mountains!!!!!- seriously). The Mewar people who built the forts of Chittor and Udaipur claim to have the oldest undiluted royal lineage in the world.

Although i have been here for nearly a week i had little inclination to write, perhaps i thought that here the intensity of tourism may be inversely proportional to my inspiration, fortunately a good exploration of the local markets helped right the balance a little today, 3 rupee chai and one of the best ever, fresh ground spices!, and a good 45 rupee thali, with never-ending refills of delicious vegetarian curries, oh i love those places, i am really enjoying the organic process and sensations of eating with ones hands (right mainly), conducive to appreciation of food i think, tip the small curry bowls into the rice and mix with fingers, then tear the chappati and soak up curry and yummo!, use 3 fingers as spoon for the rice mix.......

6.30 am awoken by mindblowing psychedelic jazz trumpeting and ultraloud amplified feedback-distorted Hindi vocals, mixed with crazy indo drumming and accompanying tuba and rhythm section outside my guesthouse.....the trumpeter is amazing, like Chet Baker on acid....they play for 1/2 an hour, then peace again, and the sound of laundry being thwacked on the ghat steps returns....i later see it was all just a rehearsal for the next evenings wedding through our local streets, i guess they had to rehearse before work...

Next day a large Hindi festival 100000 villagers parade through the city streets of Udaipur, elephants and camels, but mainly lots of local folk shouting i am glad to be Hindu, they are fed by a donated meal from city folk in a local park

" The Inheritance of Loss" - faded a little at the end, i think loss both for the culture one comes from when it is ravaged by colonialism, and for that which one can never be accepted into fully as immigrant, is a common theme for many Indian writers...

A more remarkable book is "The Hospital by the River" by Dr Catherine Hamlin, an Aussie doctor from an age gone by, trained pre WW2, pre general anaesthetics, she spent half her life in Ethiopia helping women there. Ethiopia - post Italian independance before the Erytrea war and the droughts/famines/regimes of the '70's and '80's, she frequented circles of the likes of Sylvia Pankhurst, Emilia's daughter - the famous suffragette, and was close to Emperor Haile Selassie (King of kings, Lion of Babylon, who was originally named Ras Tafari...now i understand where the whole thing comes from), and the whole Ethiopian aristocracy- i think she delivered most of their babies, now all executed or in exile, and met many famous and ground breaking surgeons and doctors of the 1940's and 50's.
It is a story of the terrible heartbreak of the life of Ethiopian women when their childbirth goes wrong, and the baby dies "in utero" and what happens to them, (thousands of them) from there in....she kept an immaculate diary of all her life and despite her old fashionness, being an old fashioned Christian and ardent royalist which does occasionally come through in her personal opinions in the book- she portraits the years of life their in vivid detail and it must have been an incredible time and country to be in before Ethiopia and Africa in general went to Hell...i guess i dont feel sqeemish at the fairly blunt descriptions of some of the medical disasters she had to deal with, but i doubt i could have coped with such endless tragedy as she did, and there are many parts in which sadness just pours off the page both for a lost Age and for the women there.... British stiff upper lip may have been an advantage for her i think.Highly recommended, deeply affecting, only published in 2001.

Finally real photos

Ok i am sick of these small and meek web jpegs on this site.... please goto the link

MAGIC INDIA

for a proper web gallery of my first 3 weeks here...some previously unpublished shots too.

thumbnail gallery and larger versions on clicking

It took almost 3 hours to upload on indian 'broadband', so these will only be infrequent events!

Scribbles from the first weeks

Jaisalmer: Every alley way has a little magic if one sits for a while to see through the daily life beyond the postcard and clothing shops. An old lady in a green sari spotted with peacock designs sings to her young grandson a beautiful melody that is carried by the walls of the fort into the desert air from where it came many generations ago. The grandfather takes action on a gridlock of cows outside the house with his stick- thwack- "ha", thwaCK - "HA" and with bovine reluctance they saunter on to the next potential food outlet, nosing into the doors of homes, sometimes thrown a chappati or green leaves. Lunch at 'Vya's meal service', Vya as it turns out is very old and is only just over 4 feet tall, her body stooped with osteoporosis, unable to get up the rooftop stairs with the food she calls down to me 'food as ready'.

Jodhpur: A spectacular setting atop an old city restaurant, 50 or so steps up, looking out at the east fort wall, 120 meters of rock lit at night to show the spectacle of its elevation and the terror it must have induced in would be invaders. Music is everywhere, floating in the calm evening air, Hindi ragas and calls from the numerous mosques, a mix with indo/asian modern beats from weddings, bells ringing in several lane-ways, drums and wedding noise in the streets, brass bands and women screaming in mock surprise from fireworks... a miraculous cacophony of existence, a city alive, and then a lonely flute floating through the air....haunting, floating like a scent of something long forgotten, memories triggered in a flashing instant, for me a beach in northern Bali many years ago at sunset...

The roads around the town display the trades of existence here, mechanics barely old enough to be in puberty black with engine grease, broom sellers, weavers, bucket sellers, road workers hammering the gas drill 10 hours a day without hearing protection, chai shops, sweet makers, high calorie packet lollies hanging off every available hanging place, potters and stone cutters, beggars across every road always with child in arm, stonecarvers, street sweepers, rickshaws packed with a wedding band- instruments hanging wildly out the open sides, or school children 10 to a vehicle, bakeries, flour millers, ashfelt pourers, sesame oil grinders, potters, carpenters, metalsmiths, clothes and textiles by the million, shirts, saris, underwear ( I am later to meet Indias largest underwear manufacturer at the airport- a very pleasant man who's family empire generates $500 million a year).how sterile we are in our european sanctuaries...

My next book the 2006 Booker prise winner " The Inheritance of Loss" - Kiran Desai...it starts with a beautiful poem, and has some of the best imagery i have read for many a time...appropriately set to the backdrop of the eastern Himalaya's in the late 70's.

Next stop Udaipur...

Breathing the Universe

On the train it is a nice time to meditate on just how one accepts life or fights it, Andrew Weil is a genius, highly recommended for meditation techniques, leaves me calm for days on end, stops me forcing my will on uncontrollable situations, simplifies life and teaches me to breath in the universe....or at the very least the Indian experience...

I would prefer a web gallery with thumbnails and pics but i dont think i can get the bandwidth here. Images are in and around Jaisalmer, the palace, the Jain temples, the lake...

Camels

I had a request for more 'head shots' in the photos- so here you are Laurie..my camel especially for you... his name is Maharajah, they only use male camels for riding, the females are much smaller and only used for breeding. Maharajah was pretty cool, although they do not take a liking to petting. The camel drivers are desert men, with sharp eyes and faces engraved by the sun, they love their camels, feeding them, cutting their fur, calling them by name. Our 'safari' travelled through dry scrubby land, rocky plains, and small dune terrain, large succulents are in flower blazing purple and red flowers, there are sporadic villages where goat and cattle herders live, the small children tending the goats, the men thatching the mud huts, a very simple life, no electricity, like the hill tribes i visited in Vietnam, perhaps aware of the 'modern world' but not encouraging its approach into their lives. The camel drivers however are fully tech with mobile phones on the go so they can find the other safari parties for our evening rendezvous. Making camp, the fire is lit for cooking chai, dal and chapatti, then bedding down under the pure starry night - blankets upon the sand, its quite peaceful, almost no sound at all- except for camel burps, pure existence as the sun sets silhouetting the landscape and the camels.

Camels may well be the most flatulent animals on god's earth, if my time with them is anything to go by. Not that i dislike them mind you, in fact they are quite wonderful, as a rider one feels very safe, and it is not uncomfortable to ride them, a short "ha" and they glide off on a gentle trot never minding at all the terrain, for their feet are so tough and well adapted. I think their gas stems from their feed, a large bag of chaff is placed for them at night and they chew and belch all night long on this, - loud guzzling noises like water down a huge drain, then during trekking the rear guard results manifest, quite like fermenting straw, with a fruitish tinge, needless to say i ride at the front of the group whenever possible...

Dawn on the sand dunes is beautiful, incredibly sharp light where every feature is sharp and luminous in the same moment, across the plains goat bells jangle but no man made sound is heard - something of a luxury in India, the camels groan and protest at being saddled but once its done they are again the ships of the desert loping along to take us back to base camp.















Surprisingly I am not even sore from the riding, only a crinked neck from sleeping on the sand without a pillow.

Back in town, i tour the Jain temples, small but full of amazing carvings and history, nothing on Mt Abu i am sure. The Jaisalmer palace is, like the fort, much less impressive than amazing Jodhpur, but still an enjoyable hour to wander the sandstone rooms. Maybe it is me but today's offering from the fort security guards was not opium but bhang...'shiva day today sir, everyone celebrate', i decline the consumption of the muddy green looking ball that that could well be mistaken for camel cud, preferring Nepalese charras anytime. I had thought bhang was made from ganja but the locals say it is not...can someone enlighten me on its botanical origins?

Back to lovely Jodhpur tomorrow, a local guy who teaches IT i met wants me to do a 'masterclass' in Mac computers for his friends, Macs are rare in India, Calcutta and Delhi have shops but it will be years before any Apple products other than ipods are seen outside these centres.

Thanks for all the comments!

(Sand) Castles in the air

I am drinking far too much tea and I fear I am becoming a chai snob. The train chai is terrible, but the wallahs look at me with great offense when i tell them it is too full of sugar, it is much better in town here, however i am a little lacking in distraction here, small tourist town syndrome...3 more days then i am on the move again.

What day is it again? - holiday mode successfully achieved.





Nevertheless it is a stunning journey from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer through western Rajasthan countryside, the occasional greenery of irrigated agriculture, but mostly desert - populated with small villages of round huts, in every village small boys playing backyard (desert) cricket, women in the fields or around the ovens making chappati over cow dung fires.












The air is cleaner here, i dont wake with the sore throat and foul smog streaked phlegm that Delhi induced and Jodhpur maintained. A soft cool wind from the lonely reaches of the desert blows across this 'sandcastle in the air', the Jaisalmer fort hangs in the afternoon desert mirage. In comparison to Jodhpur it is a toy fort, although in parts its walls are over 50 meters high, but i like to sit on the ramparts and imagine the camel trains and traders, the invasions
and the rebellions that have passed through here over the centuries.








Could they ever have imagined it would today be a living parody - a never-ending succession of tourists for the kashmiri boys to ask "hello, internet, cigarette, burn cd, phonecall, u look in my shop". Yet it is also a comparatively quiet place here, and has plenty of nice things to do as one on holiday, like bosenberry lassi, topping even the saffron lassi from Jodhpur, and it gives me time to think and become inspired with the books i am reading.






Mark Tully has one of the best descriptions of travel in India i have read: From the story 'The return of the artist':
"drivers of scooter-riskshaws, whose two-stroke engines emit particularly noxious fumes, battle both with their less fortunate rivals pedalling cycle-rickshaws and with pedestrians driven off the pavements by the stalls which have commandeered them. The streets are lined by small shops, tea stalls, puveyors of various sorts of cuisine, sweet makers boiling great pans of milk on gas rings- every sort of fire and health hazard. Nobody knows how many of its citizens live in one-roomed shacks whose roofs are held down by bricks, old cycle frames, pieces of wood or any other junk the owner can find".

Back live : At night the hindi jangle from the rickshaw stereos fades in and out of the night air, huge - possibly illegal and certainly dangerous explosions from wedding fireworks penetrate the night air, the cows are settled in the streets for the night, quietly chewing their cud of cardboard boxes and plastic wrappings, and it is time to admire the stars one more time before sleep.

In the market during morning chai at the germn bakery i watch numerous 8 year old boys trying to convince tourists of their need for a shoe shine, few female children are seen, perhaps these boys are unwitting victims of the illegal female gender identification and ensuing abortion that is prevalent across the
country. At sunset on the ramparts the same story, an illiterate women with three illiterate sons.

Cows and dogs lounge in various states of slumber in the streets, occasionally rousing to squabble over scraps of chaff or a plastic bag that might contain a few morsels. They somehow must get enough nourishment, for the amount of cow pat in the streets is phenomenal for the lack of any grazing fodder. At 10 am the tourist buses arrive, the euro's walk up the road to the fort entrance and the strange street theatre begins, the local string players and shennai's (oboe like )start up, the gaudy ex-village women with arms extended holding shiny silver ankle bracelets, the tourists pass and the circus lulls until the next bus load. The children of these people are ragged and filthy, hair covered in thick dust, they mimic the adults playing the string instruments, some perform cheap acrobatic tricks.

An older string instrument player comes and talks to me, showing me his instrument made form hollowed bamboo stick with a coconut bowl covered with animal hide at the base, metal piano wire stretches the length of the

stick providing tonal tension to the bowl, it is played with a bow and by altering pressure on the strings. He is a toothless man wearing a red turban, with clear eyes and an incredible grubby white suit jacket over his dhoti. I am skeptical about the whole thing until he starts playing and i am transfixed by the beautiful middle eastern notation, his dreamy playing like the wind whispering

mysterious tales of the desert, the lonely nights under an immense star filled void of the Thar landscape and the irrevocable sadness of his life.

His eyes remind me of the camel driver i talked with yesterday. Ramdan was of course selling his camel safaris, but the intensity of his piercing eyes and such pure features struck me. He is not from the city but from the far desert and looks every inch the descendant of a proud and strong tribe. If my bum wasnt so skinny i might try a camel ride but i fear the pain might be too much, remembering the initiation that T.H. Lawrence described upon his first attempts at camel riding in 'The seven pillars of wisdom'.

From the market I head off and walk several kilometers out to the luxury hotel area west of the city, it is a pleasant temperature to walk, little traffic, I pass sandy desert and and an army base, where not much seems to be happening, although 2 very large F1-11 fighter jets pass over at great speed, legacy of the adjacent Pakistan border. The hotels have small turrets and high walls, an appealing look for the impression of opulence it seems. I am in search of blue

swimming water, and I am successful. Do you have a pool? - yes the largest in Jaisalmer is the reply, ok lets go......

I am taken to the pool area by a Nepalese bellhop, it is a romanesque scene- archways of sandstone surround a beautiful 12 meters squared of undisturbed cool blue water and accompanying deck chairs. Finally some exercise, it is cool but not cold, silky smooth swimming conditions. I manage an hour to myself before the resident euro tourists arrive, a group of ageing French it seems,

all complaining about the coolness of the water, having appearances of having returned from their assigned day trip, safari suits for the men, the women more informal, some with poor body condition, much arthritis, several with sternal scars marking heart surgery, somewhat content with a lap or two of doggy paddle, ahh the joys of the upper-middle classes. They are paying at least 3000 rupees a night at least, me 300 and i get to stay inside the fort walls...i

wander off back down the desert road feeling content and energised.

My current book that I found in the local bookshop for a mere 200rp is a collection of novellas by one of Indias most celebrated writers AMIT CHAUDHURI- winner of stacks of awards and vast praise for his beautiful imagery. The book is called Freedom song. I read a book every 2 days on holiday normally, so its great that there are always great book shops in india. In Delhi I found several desirable medical and herbal texts for less than 1/2 Au price. Some end of trip shopping could be on the cards.

I watched a new movie on my laptop last night, "the science of sleep"- beautiful and funny- go see it! I think it has the guy from 'the motorcycle diaries ' in it.

On the ramparts today a friend I met asked me what my objectives were for this trip...a clear and quiet head and heart i think will suffice... and with that as little attachment as possible, it pays to not expect anything from this country, except surprises of course!

Jodpur scenes

These are pictures that seemed to describe Jodhpur in some way or other that i liked.

More Jodhpur

I am in the desert on dialup so limited pictures for a week, until i get back to Jodhpur.... btw, the photos are small and dont do justice to the Canon camera, full size pics on the return...

It is a true pleasure to just walk in the streets of Jodhpur where surprises (at least to my somewhat naive tourist eyes) are everywhere, amazing colors of the women in sari's, the old men playing cards in the afternoon sun, relatively less intense that old delhi, but still noisy enough to be exciting - mind the camels! etc.

Today i did a tourist day tour of the local outlying villages, but it was tastefully done, the maharajha is supporting these villages and the traditional craft co-ops here to keep people from the city and its associated problems. The driver visits the Bishnoi people, a million stong tribe that lives in the dry deserts between here and Pakistan, founded in the 15th century on the principles of eco-conservation of animals and plants. They even famously sacrificed themselves for the local food producing trees at one time. We tried the local opium tea but i am sure it was very mild and not really good opium, visited weavers and potters etc, had delicious traditional lunch with wholemeal millet chappathi- getting wholemeal in india is a treat because all the tourist restaurants serve horrid white toast. The Bishnoi men wear beautiful turbans and have amazing moustaches, the women have huge gold nose pieces.

In the evening i wander home through the alleyways passing 3 indian weddings (it is wedding season), drummers and tromboneists play a kind of trance like doof, they hire a generator and poor women to carry the mobile lights as the procession winds through the streets. The groom is immaculate in white, garlands of flowers around his neck upon a horse. When i stop to admire the commotion they saw me taking pictures and grabbed me pushing me into the 'mosh pit' of the dancing men that are going nuts with the music, putting a small child on my shoulders, then inviting me to the wedding dinner. Quite an intense experience!!

It rained heavily all night, and was very peaceful (for once the streets emptied and the dogs were silent), today is chill out, wandering the amazing market, revisiting the fort bastions, local food- one of the best thali's ever! and saffron lassi's!!

Jaisalmer tomorrow by morning train-- called the Golden City...and here i am...

Out near the Pakistan border, an army base with a thousand year old fort in the Thar desert. Essentially a tourist bazaar and fort town, but its sense of history is still vital. A camel desert safari seems to be the general tourist thing here. Upon arrival i wander the narrow fort lanes, no rickshaws allowed thankfully, it is serene and peaceful. I found an Ayurvedic massage place here, trained in Kerala they are as close as one gets to the real south indian thing, they do great work on the inner thighs, i think because after camel safari's t hurts there more than anything. Great tibetan food tonight, and my guesthouse is high on the fort walls with amazing views- only the palace in the fort is higher.

I think i am the only person in India without a mobile phone, indians and tourists like all sit at dinner fiddling with their phones, its quite weird. The guy who touts and drives for my guesthouse earns $300 a month and all he wants is to own a phone (2 months wages). Travelling lone gets you many more conversations with locals which is a real pleasure. They call me buddha or full moon on account of my shaved head, but always with a cheeky smile.....