Stuck in a Car in India!

Delhi - Mandawa - Bikáner - Jaisalmer - Jodhpur - Ranakapur

It’s just over one week into our trip around India and we’ve been sick, we’ve been scammed, and we’ve broken and repaired our computer, we’ve met some lovely people, some crazy people, we’ve seen a lot of cows, we’ve sweated, burned and we’ve been soaked by monsoon rains.

As I write I’m sitting on a hotel veranda in the middle of the jungle town of Ranakapur. The trees around us are full of monkeys and just across the road is a lake where we saw crocodiles earlier this afternoon.

We had planned to get here by train but an unfortunate chain of events lead us to be stuck in a chauffeured tourist car with a slightly unhinged driver named Manoj. We were at the train station ready to board our train at 5.30am when an apparent station employee approached us and told us the train was cancelled. Before we knew it we’d been passed between numerous “officials” and we were handing over far too much money to set off on a chauffeured road trip. Only after we’d set off did everything fall into place and we realised we’d been had.

The most annoying thing is knowing that we let ourselves be conned, especially as we’ve both travelled all over before so we should know better. But we’re making the most of it and trying not to worry about money that’s already been spent, and it’s certainly been interesting. We’ve seen plenty of things from the car that we’d never have experienced from the inside of a train: buffalo bathing on flooded plains, women carrying huge pots of water for miles on their heads, holy men on a pilgrimage, insane wildlife, tractors carrying bales of hay treble the width of the vehicle... and it’s only day six!

First of all though we spent three nights in Delhi, staying in the main bazaar. We met up with Ripul, a friend we met in Korea and he took us on an eating tour of Old Delhi. Whilst we were there we visited the Lotus Temple, a temple for all religions; Jama Masjid, the main mosque; the Golden Temple, which is a Sikh temple; and Akshardam, a beautiful Hindu temple, so it was a nice introduction to the multi-ethnic land of India.

Although it took me a while to get used to the smells, the noise, the filth and the craziness, I ended up enjoying Delhi; it’s a fun place, even if there was a smelly public urinal at the end of our street. We’ll be going back there again soon.

With Ripul (right) and an Ozzy girl outside the Sikh temple

The day we set off on our impromptu road trip was an emotional one. Tears were shed upon realising what we’d got ourselves into, although they came in handy when negotiating room rates as I was sobbing so much the poor guy at reception gave us a room at half the original rate! (Might have to try that trick again!) The first day involved an arduous 13 hour drive along unpaved roads, and due to our recent failure (being super scammed) we were extremely foul tempered passengers and I don’t think we got off to the best start with Manoj, our driver. Manoj looks like a serial killer most of the time, apart from when he laughs; unfortunately he only laughs when he’s shouting/singing at us in Hindi and watching our perplexed expressions in his rear view mirror. I managed to offend him straight from the start by trying to kill a fly that had found its way into the car. Manoj reminded me that Hindus don’t harm any living thing and that I should politely ask the fly to leave the car. The fly ignored my gentle pleads but flew out of the window immediately when asked to go away in Hindi!

Riding in a car all day along questionable roads through the India wildness is certainly interesting:

First of all it’s monsoon season and a lot of the roads are flooded. That’s no problem for the mysterious Manoj though, he ploughs through enormous puddles, swearing in numerous languages and filling the foot wells of the car with water with water. It’s only a small Toyota hatch-back, I’m amazed it’s survived this far!

Along the way we saw some wild deer, which Ric tells me are called nil gai (blue cow). The deer are a problem in India because they eat the crops in the countryside, and because they’re named after the holy cow, farmers aren’t allowed to harm them (shoot them).

We saw a couple of dozen men dressed in orange robes walking along the road side. They were carrying holy water from the Ganges River for the festival of Saava. People from all over the country walk for as long as a month to collect the water and take it to their villages in holy pots as an offering to God.

After far too long weaving around trucks, cows, rickshaws, people and pot holes we arrived at a town called Mandawa. As the rain poured down on us we climbed around a castle and looked at the painted Havelis in the town. Havelis are ornate houses that were previously owned by the rich merchants who traded silk and silver across Asia, Rajasthan is full of them.

So thrilled to be in Mandawa, overlooking the city from the fort/palace

We stayed two nights in Bikaner, where we visited the old fort in the scorching heat, and then watched a beasty storm roll in from the comfort of the hotel’s roof top restaurant. From Bikaner it was a wet 6 hour drive to Jaisalmer, the “Golden City”, where we visited another (better) fort. The locals told us it hadn’t rained in over a year but while we were there it poured it down constantly, flooding the streets with dirty water, cow poo and litter. We celebrated Ric’s 27^th birthday in Jaisalmer with a bhang lassi, a local herbal drink said to heighten your “spiritual” connection to the Gods! Totally legal and government registered. We also visited a lake made by a maharaja. As you can imagine, a lake in the desert is not ideal and in spite of the torrent of rain we’d seen, the poor fish were still flopping around on the surface barely covered with water.

Train dodging in Bikaner

Ric enjoying the rain on his birthday, Jaisalmer

From Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, the “Blue City”, and yet another fort, where a middle aged man pinched Ric’s bum and called him beautiful – twice! After visiting the fort we ditched the car and the driver and took to the streets on our own, ankle deep in dirty rain water yet again. In search of higher ground we ended up walking through the streets under the fort where all the houses are painted blue in honour of the God Krishna (hence, the Blue City). The people living there all wanted their photo taken. I was quite hesitant at first as I thought they might pester us for money once we’d taken the photo, but as it turns out they were just excited to see themselves on the camera screen, so we got loads of lovely photos of the local people and children, which usually I wouldn’t have dared to take.

Jodhpur fort

Nice ladies who wanted their photo taken in Jodhpur

Today we arrived in Ranakapur, at the foot of the Aravalli hills. It’s amazing how different the climate is here, it’s a few degrees cooler than anywhere else we’ve been and it’s SO tropical! We visited a Jain temple complex and had lunch in a canteen that’s supposed to be for pilgrims. Lunch was amazing, for 40p each (less than a dollar) we had unlimited food: three types of curry, two types of bread, rice, chutney and water, by far our best value for money meal so far. After visiting the temple we took a short walk to a lake, where a baby crocodile crossed our path (and almost gave me a heart attack!)

Jain temple, Ranakapur

Monkeys everywhere!

From here the plan is Udaipur, Pushkar, Jaipur, then Agra, where we can end this tour and get on with some independent travelling!

Namaste!