Jodhpur, Rajastan.
Diwali 2010
We went to Jodhpur via 3 nights in Ahmedabad. Not much to say about the latter other than our hotel (Hotel Volga) was pretty clean, had the first full room service we’d come across and served as a good base to crash and crash we did. Apart from two occasions to poke our noses out we really did not move, despite the lack of real windows. What we had was actually a curtained portal to the building’s central ventilation shaft. Both times we went outside it was busy, noisy and Lucy didn’t feel quite comfortable.
But our destination both of these times was The House of MG, clearly the poshest place in town. It’s a marvellous restored building with several levels/aspects to it. The first night we went we took thali on the roof terrace. This is an experience not to miss if in Ahmedabad. The mosaic lined roof holds host to a very challenging but magnificent set meal. For as many of its exquisite parts that were nothing like we’d ever tasted (some never again) there were as many again that were simply delicious.
Attentive uniformed waiters continuously served a rotation of guests against a backdrop of hazy city lights and an orange sky with traffic noise and azan from the many mosques. But the terrace placed it all slightly in the background and we enjoyed our most expensive meal to date.
The next night we went down to the roofed family eatery at ground level and were treated to the same but a couple of notches down.
The rest of the time in the city we spent watching cheesy films on HBO & WB India, trying to forget our shame of not going to Gandhi’s ashram, which was nearby. A more complex figure here that many in the West are led to believe, we thought it closely fair to sacrifice a bit of this history in favour of some lazy but necessary rest.
After this, the great Indian Railways took us to Jodhpur. This is the Sun or Blue City, where an ancient old town is walled in around the Mehrangarh Fort. Some of the buildings are very old indeed and many are painted blue. We stayed in this old area at the Cosy Guesthouse and to be perfectly honest we couldn’t have made a better choice.
But first we had to get there. Advised on many fronts to arrange a pick-up from the station, a rickshaw was waiting for us. It wasn’t long until road arteries became narrow veins which in turn split into capillaries. Jodhpur traffic is slightly slower but very strategic; the narrowness of the streets defy how rickshaws, motorbikes, cows, barrows and even cars knit themselves through them.
We were met by an alley by some smiling lads brandishing Cosy business cards who helped us get our bags from there to at least another 30 meters upwards, through alleys where more or less the same traffic can still be found and leapt out of the way of. Once at the front door, it was still another couple of flights of stairs until we knew where the hell we were.
We found our room soon enough – it was bedecked with carpets and Rajastani art plus it had the first bath we’d seen for a couple of weeks. Also aircon which we did not feel the use for, despite the heat.
Cosy is mostly blue, has a number of hand-painted bits of art on the walls and is run by Mr Joshi, his family and crew. The room terrace was where we spent most of our time with great views of the fort and the rest of the old city. The food was great, if a bit inconsistent (the English and short-term memories of the mostly young male staff was variable) but the place has a brilliant family feel.
Joshi is actually really hands on, great company with the guests and interested in spending time with many of them. His brother in law was also around a lot, buying beers and cracking jokes while arranging tours and viewings of interesting places.
We just happened to be there for Diwali and got persuaded to stay an extra night for the main event itself. The first thing you know about this festival in almost all of India are the fireworks. Seemingly bent on maiming and destruction this is week on week of explosions set by yougnsters and dads at all hours. Jodhpur seemed to shake most of the time we were there.
Cosy is a big backpacker magnet and we spent a lot of time talking, eating and drinking with our first real seam of fellow travellers from the UK, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium and the US. Funny that most of these places are those having recently had financial woes or are currently going through them…
Lucy and I took some tours on foot of the old city, went in search of cash towards the new part and walked around the frankly awesome fort. On one of the walks, our way was blocked by a bull. It would not let us go past for some time and threatened us with its horns and by stamping its feet. Not until we got past it with some difficulty did we see a cow round the corner with a calf that had just been born. The afterbirth was being circled for by dogs but we sat, we and some locals, looking at the new life for quite a while. Sometimes, it happens where it happens in India.
We also went down to Umaid Gardens, which were OK but Lucy got some hands-on harassment in the street by an old boy who we had to send on his way and the park itself was full of staring gangs of lads. She didn’t feel comfortable being out for the first time, really. We only saw one other western couple and they were being harangued by loads of kids. All in all you could give it a miss.
Mandore Gardens, on the other hand, is a 10k rickshaw ride away and is much better. It has tourist police (which we didn’t need but we friendly to chat to), loads of tame chipmunks and some pretty, if ramshackle bits of landscaping. Of course it also has a museum (suspend your need for quality labelling here) and some very nice cenotaphs of past Rajastani rulers.
On the culmination of Diwali, our unplanned night, all the guests were treated to a massive thali and took part in blessings in the family puja room. A few of us went out earlier that day and purchased a large amount of fireworks from a shop in the town, out of which everyone stepped clutching large bags of explosives and grinning very widely.
With recognition of the many worried Indian mothers and also the many (sometimes fatal) firework accidents every year, let’s look instead at the (undeniably male) joy of creating ear-splitting bangs and huge clouds of sparks. Joshi had already bought a huge arsenal and, combined together, we made a hell of a lot of noise and scorched their marble floor quite badly.
British people have been nannied and cordoned away from fireworks and although I don’t think there should be quite the described level of recklessness back home, there is much to be said for exposing Joe Public to a wee bit of real danger. Thickens the blood.
The restaurant lads were really sweet and let us know they were glad to be with us that night, seeing as they had had to work on Diwali. Joshi is building a new, more modern place down the road and I wish him & his crew every luck.
The next day we were off on the road again, now to the capital Delhi. And I already knew the feeling I had was one of dread…
We survived Mumbai.
As I expected, it’s hard to sum up the largest city I’ve ever visited. We stayed in Andheri, a large slum in the north that is currently experiencing incredible change. But that’s India all over by what I can see, read and what the few people we’ve had chance to speak to so far tell me.
The problem for us was that the area is far away from the main tourist traps and when I say far, I mean it. Fortunately, we only had three nights (two of those taken up by adjusting body clocks and getting rid of what felt like nitro-narcosis from the flight) and so didn’t feel we missed out on much because we simply didn’t have the time.
We were picked up at the airport and seamlessly taxied out to our hostel through traffic that has its own rules. If you don’t let go and abandon yourself to it immediately you’re just going to up end up as a scarf, wrapped around your driver’s head and screaming, which will get you killed. They know what they’re doing.
There is no right of way, lights mean nothing unless there’s a traffic cop and even that’s optional because they very often turn up on each other’s patches and start competing for domination, negating any directing effect either might have had.
The smell was the first thing that struck me (after the heat of course, which was fierce at 34C) – I thought it was dusty, smoggy and initially lemony but the citrus undertone was one end of a spectrum, the other being unadulterated sewerage.
We stayed about 2 kilometres from the airport, at a tiny hostel called the Anjali Inn, nestled down a side street between a wire extrusion shop and a grill bar. This was typical of the way space is used across much of the city; little units recycling bearings or cardboards right next to showrooms packed with HD 3D LCD TVs. If the means are available to them, Indians love their technology.
Our room was clean, if a little rickety, and we had satellite TV and intermittent, but fast, wireless net access. I was very glad to discover that the Radio 4 portion of the BBC iplayer was accessible and duly caught up on the latest episode of The Unbelievable Truth.
Our hosts were friendly, helpful and full of advice on what to do and at the cheapest prices.
The cost of most things we bought was comparable to the UK, except street stall food such as chai (sweet, milky and spicy tea that alleviated both of our raging caffeine-withdrawal headaches) and dosas (nommy little pancakes packed with things like cheese and veg, served on a steel tray with three types of sauces). We held out on diving into such stuff until we found a stall that was surrounded by Indians; heed this advice.
We ventured out on two major reccies. The first was on our first night to find a hotel for a beer. This was a major culture shock. Within 2 minutes we were picking our way down a major avenue through piles of rubbish, open sewers, prostrate dogs, browsing goats and subsiding pavements. A gent walked past us and shouted over the endless car horns – “welcome to India!” – and laughed his arse off.
After 10 minutes I had seen more rats than in my entire life, including stomping hard right on top of one by accident. By its yelp, I thought I’d broken its back but it kept on trucking.
We ate at one hotel restaurant, vegetable kebabs. Tasty as but the lesson was, the blander the veg the more fiery the spice. Approach cauliflower with asbestos gloves and silvered welding mask.
Later, we went on to another hotel that had a bar the like of which I wouldn’t get into if I were delivering napkins to it back in Blighty. Watched India woop up Australia in the first cricket test and chatted to some import/export guys who explained about the massive investment currently going on in Mumbai. The road we had just picked our way down is overshadowed by a vaulted superhighway being built along its middle. This is happening in a lot of places and I worry about the life down at ground level when these are finished. It’s bloody tough now for working classes/castes but when the money is flowing seamlessly 50 feet above them, what then? In 5 years, they said, it will be a different city. Of that there’s no doubt.
Our second sojourn was into the main city the next day. We took a terrifying taxi ride from Andheri to the Hanging Gardens, some 30 clicks away. I’m sure our driver Dinesh did it just for larks but I shall now never forget his traffic jam aversion skills. This amiable nutter saw a blockage, stopped and reversed the wrong way down a 3 lane dual carriageway. Soon after he nipped over the central reservation and drove 200m the wrong way down the other side, into traffic going at least 40mph. I was very glad then that no right of way exists.
The Hanging Gardens sit on a rock above the city, just up from Chowpatty beach. They’re pretty basic, plant-wise, but have shade and crows and dragonflies by the truckload. I do wonder about British dragonflies, which seem to keel over at the slightest environmental touch. The double-hard Mumbai versions thrive on the air which by now was strafing my throat and making my teeth taste funny. Couples (chaperoned and not) mingle here with bunches of students and families, lazing around and chatting in the shade. A tout came up to us and tried to ply postcards, which as soon as he found out we were British quickly turned into abridged versions of the Kama Sutra. Go here to escape the madness for sure.
We then ambled, via a nosh stall, through a park for kids on the other side of the road and down the hill to Chowpatty beach for sunset. This was good, seeing Mumbai families relaxed and eating sweetcorn, paddling in the sea (do not do this, we’re told – very toxic with city run-off) and harassing French travellers to speak to their kids in their native tongue.
From there we went down Marine Drive and witnessed a change. Elsewhere the people have the minimum of body fat but here it was mostly middle class and mostly portly people exercising with pedigree dogs, which as far as we could tell involves donning trainers and walking slightly faster than the average.
I saw a sleepy-looking street dog and set myself up for a point of view camera shot as he slumbered between his outstretched front paws. This enraged the beast and he chased me with the loudest, most primal sounds I’d ever heard a dog make, much to everyone’s amusement.
Marine Drive is long and well-lit along the sea front and leads into a massive commercial area with skyscrapers and the promise of a future India. We treated ourselves to pizza at a place recommended by Lonely Planet and decided, stupidly, to take a walk. This is where it got a bit scary. We got totally lost within 5 minutes.
It got hotter by the step and darker by the turn. In the end we were starting to panic, realising how far we were from home. Flagging down taxi drivers firstly resulted in vile looks and refusal or demands of 1000 rupees (c.£14) to take us back. Not much you might think, but seeing as we got there for 450 Rs, it was taking the piss. In the end we got a driver to agree to take us to the airport for 450 then got a motorised tuktuk from there back to the hostel for 30 Rs. We got back a bit shaken but we’d won and quite cheaply.
The next night we were gladly off, our friend Ed’s advice not to stay in Mumbai ringing in our ears because we were tired, hot and soaked with sweat. The smell of the Mumbai slums sticks to you too.
Our mate Dinesh picked us up at 3:30am the next morning to get the reserved express train to Anjuna in Goa, our next stop and from where I gladly write to you now. Driving through Mumbai in the dead of night was an experience – the place does kind of sleep between 1am and 4am, with only massive trucks dropping off industrial quantities of marigolds and coriander as the main activity.
We had an air-conditioned carriage that bore our names (and everyone else’s) on a piece of paper on its side. The chai and tomato soup flowed all day, with breakfast and lunch too. Spoilt children fought over their parent’s laptops and we devoured books, slept and got annoyed, in the end, by all of this and the 2 hour delay.
We’re now in an edgy paradise, staying in a friendly Goan family’s complex of guesthouses with AC, good wifi and a more nature than you can chuck citronella at. I’ve spotted 3 types of ant and spider so far with butterflies as big as your hand, as standard.
Life, so far, is good.
