Driven through Rajasthan

Another blast from the past, finally wrapping up my 2 weeks in Rajasthan (which ended 4 days ago). With luck, I'll get caught up in my next update. The short current version is I'm enjoying my last night in Amritsar, the Sikh holy city, located just a few miles from India's only official border crossing with Pakistan (that's actually a good thing, and the 2nd biggest tourist attraction in this state). Tomorrow, after a couple of long (but Deluxe!) bus rides, I'll arrive in the resort village of Manali, located about 7,000 ft up in the Himalayas in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

It's hard to know where to start to describe all sights of the last two very busy weeks in Rajasthan. I'm sure I would have had a lot more to say if Internet access had been more practical along the way, but the many photos and captions I've added will have to do most of the talking now (starting on page 21, through page 40, and I even cut almost 80% of them out!). I'll just highlight a few that require a little more explanation, and give a brief summary of the different towns I visited.

Agra. Taj Mahal. If you're not familiar with it, you're obviously not from this planet. Though it doesn't quite live up to some of the extreme hype it gets, it really is worth seeing in person. I don't really have a favorite photo of it, but you can browse some of my better ones starting here. The Agra Fort is also quite worth a visit, and certainly contains more variety of elaborate architecture than the Taj, but it lacks the simple elegance.

Rajasthan - the big, attraction-filled state I spent the next 13 days in. What probably makes it the most interesting is that it was still divided up into a bunch of little feudal kingdoms, each ruled by a maharaja, until about 30 years ago. Both the Muslim and the later British rulers of India allowed the maharajas almost complete independence if they would remain peaceful. Even after India became independent from Britain, the Indian government had to promise them almost everything to get them to loosely join India.

Finally, in the 70s, the government was strong enough to seize most of the property, assets, and titles from the maharajas. Many of these families have been in power for a very long time - one for over 1400 years, making it the world's oldest royal family. You don't hold onto power for 76 generations by being stupid, and they all managed to shelter most of their wealth and palaces by donating them to charitable trusts, which they continue to control. Some even live in the same palaces, and one is supposedly still the 2nd richest man in India.

Anyway, with all of these families having ruled for a thousand years or more, frequently battling each other, and their own families for power, the state is just jam packed with fortresses, palaces, etc., which were kept in great shape by the wealthy majarajas (even though the people of Rajasthan are nearly the poorest anywhere in India).

Jaipur. First stop in Rajasthan, known as the Pink City (everything was painted pink to honor a visit by the British king long ago, and the color stuck). It's the capital, and biggest, most poluted city in the state. But, there's still a lot worth seeing in and around town, including the Galta Temple (to the Sun God, Surya, though guides call it the Monkey Temple as it's overrun by them).

The main reason people visit Jaipur, though, is to visit the nearby town of Amber, home of Amber Fort, an impressive fortified palace complex. It's traditionally reached by elephant ride, which was included with my tour. However, due to recent events involving a cranky, overworked elephant killing a couple people, they limit them to 3 trips/day, which is usually booked within minutes. So, I missed out on this part of it, but it seemed like kind of a cheesy touristy thing to do anyway (kinda like taking a mule down the Grand Canyon - probably fun, but I'd rather walk).

Jaipur also had an impressive palace downtown (like most cities in Rajasthan, it was helpfully called City Palace), and another fort on the hill above town (Tiger Fort) that makes an excellent spot to watch the sunset (filled with more crazy monkeys, which unfortunately don't photograph well at dusk).

Next up was Pushkar, which I talked almost enough about in the post about the Camel Fair. Even with the frenzy of that going on, the town managed to be fairly relaxing. It'd be fun to see it during a more normal time of year too. On my last night there, I made an effort to visit the Brahma Temple, which is supposedly the only one dedicated to the Hindu creator god anywhere (there's a story where his wife wouldn't allow any others to be built due to an infidelity). That's part of what makes Pushkar such a big pilgrimage site, and it also leads to a lot of religious-related scams.

I got roped into one of these that night, but I ended up being pretty glad I did. It starts off with a "free" (and very detailed) tour of the Brahma temple (I saw all sorts of hidden shrines under it that I'd have missed, and learned the unique rituals for each). Then it leads to a free festival thing on the ghats (steps) into the sacred lake, where a brahman (priest) insists on going through complex rituals to pray for all your family and friends. At the end, of course, they demand an insanely huge donation, but I had my decoy wallet with almost nothing in it, so I was able to get off easy. Finally, you get a cheesy little bracelet (and flower necklace, and red forehead dot sprinkled with rice, etc.) to mark you as a sucker that's already been bled dry. The photo's of the bracelet, or "Pushkar Passport", taken right before I tossed it. :-)

The next day gave me another example of why it's often a good thing to go with the flow, and just trust that the right thing will happen. At the restaurant/bus stop place we stopped for lunch, after leaving Pushkar, a big tour bus of high school students from the nearby state of Gujarat poured out. The one in the blue shirt/black vest comes right up to me, and asks the usual question of where I'm from, then wants a picture. After several days in Pushkar, where you get almost the same routine from all the locals (where they ask you to take their picture, then demand a big fee for posing after you take it), I was suspicious. But then I realized they weren't particularly interested in having their picture taken - they wanted to take a picture of me, and all squeeze in the picture so they could prove they'd met a real, live American. It was a nice change from Pushkar - I was the freak show instead! Anyway, they were a friendly bunch, and agreed it was only fair if I got a photo too.

Udaipur was our next stop, and I think my favorite town in Rajasthan. Probably the most famous site is the Lake Palace Hotel, located in Pichola Lake. It was one of 3 palaces in Udaipur used as locations for the James Bond movie Octopussy, something that nobody here will let you forget. In fact, every restaurant I saw advertised that they show it every night at 7pm (always followed by unspecified Other Movie). That they still do this with a 22-year-old movie suggests that every hostel in New Zealand will still be showing LoTR nightly, even when I'm old and gray. Despite this, I somehow failed to catch the movie, and as I haven't seen it in years, I guess it's a homework assignment for you to rent it (or download it, if you're one of those thieving hacker types), and let me know if any of my photos look familiar.

My visit to Udaipur was particularly lucky, since the lake has been almost completely dry for nearly a decade (a recurring pattern in Rajasthan). Then this year, they had 3 days of rain, which was enough to completely fill the lake (and almost every lake and reservoir in the state). Apparently the town really doesn't look like much without the lake, and tourists quit going there. Now, though, it's a really magical place, and the locals seem to realize how lucky they are, taking advantage of every opportunity to enjoy the water. Strangely enough, it also reminded me of some of the better Greek islands I visited, with very similar little windy streets leading down to the water (or a dead end to get lost in). Though in Greece, I never had to dodge enormous elephants that completely fill the street! It also has probably the most extensive palace complex in Rajasthan, appropriate for the longest ruling royal family.

Not far from Udaipur was my next stop, Ranakpur. It's famous for both its Jain temples and just being a really relaxing place to escape the tourist frenzy of much of Rajasthan. It's not really even a town - just a string of rural motels along a one-lane road, each a half mile or so from any other building. The main Jain temple, though, is enormous, and all of ornately carved white marble. I talked a bit about the Jains before, and this is one of their 5 pilgrimage sites. Inside are 1444 unique pillars and endless other forms of elaborate ornamentation. The town also contained the friendliest locals I've run across, of the sort I really didn't expect to deal with before Thailand.

Next up was Jodhpur, the Blue City. At the center of town, on a big rocky hill, is the fort called Meherangarh. They had put together a really decent audio tour, included with the foreigner admission price, which made for a fascinating couple of hours of exploring. Even better, having the audio guide granted admission to a nice, clean restroom inside the palace.






My last significant stop in Rajasthan was Jaisalmer, which started with an overnight camel trek from the nearby village of Kuri. Though it didn't quite take the form I was expecting (ended up being a 3 hour afternoon/sunset trek that returns you to the village, followed by food, "traditional dancing", and a bed in a round, thatched hut). As I was kind of expecting, even though the camel trek and all my housing was to be included, they soaked me for the equivalent of another 3 nights just for the music and the buffet. But the camel trek made it all worthwhile - it's even more fun than it looks, especially when I got to steer, and the soreness went away in only 2 days! I think I'm ready to sign up for a camel trek across the Sahara now. Anyone want to join me?

The next night was spent in the town of Jaisalmer, the Golden City, where almost everything is made from yellow sandstone. It's the last outpost in the Thar Desert, before you get to Pakistan, and thus an important military base. It's not far from where both sides conducted their nuclear tests and where India, at least, bases most of their missiles (as the many Missile Division military vehicles around town testify to). Despite this, the old city is quite impressive. Several thousand people still live inside the old fort, giving the ancient fortifications a unique, lived-in feel.

My last stop in Rajasthan was Bikaner. It's not big on tourist circuit, and in my opinion, that's for a reason. Then again, that may have more to due with their decision to replace the entire sewer system at once, in a city of well over a half million people (or perhaps they're building one for the first time?). Just a half mile autorickshaw ride was the roughest yet, with me hitting my head on the roof several times before I figured how to brace myself just so. It did have a decent City Palace, though - probably more impressive on the inside than others I'd seen, but not so much on the outside. I'll have a few pictures of this up soon. My hotel was also quite nice, with an excellent rooftop restaurant.

Finally, it was off to Chandigarh to stay with Jimmy and Jen, the folks I mentioned who are there as Fulbright Scholars (well, she is, anyway!). They were very gracious hosts, who put up with me for 3 days and 2 nights and fed me very well. More on that in my next update.