Showing posts with label jaipur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jaipur. Show all posts

Tuesday 7 July 2020

1986 India III: Jaipur, Udaipur

5.11.86 Delhi

Guy Fawkes' day, and here I am about to leave Kashmir.  As ever, I got to the Tourist Office early for the bus.  But it was no penance to sit out in the early sun, looking at the mountains swathed in haze, or the huge autumnal trees.  The ride out to the airport was uneventful, but did at least bring us close to one of the other girdling walls of the Kashmir vale.  Craggy snow-capped mountains broke through the mist.  Srinagar airport is unspectacular.  The security precautions were.  And with reason: we were to stop off in Amritsar.  I suspect the arrival of the Indian Prime Minister in Srinagar tomorrow may also have added to the situation.

First, we had to show our tickets to get in.  Then we checked in.  Then we were searched in various ways.  The standard X-ray machines and detector, emptying of pockets, explosive detector, and then full rummaging of hand luggage.  To get outside we showed our boundary pass.  Then we had to leave our hand luggage, identify our checked-in luggage.  We were frisked again, and finally allowed on the plane.  Armed men were visible everywhere.  Very impressive.

So was the flight.  As we reared up above the haze level, the Himalayas to the east bared their fangs at us.  Hundreds of miles of glinting, jagged stone, powdered with snow.  They looked like freshly-chipped flints.  It was a huge frozen sea of sharp rocks.  Behind us, the imperious peak of Nanga Parbat – 26,660 feet high – stood out in splendid isolation.  Nun Kun – a mere 23,410 feet – was visible to the left.  

Apart from the rugged beauty of them, it was the scale – the sheer extent of them.  Not just one or two, but hundreds of peaks.  Below us, the valley was mapped out in rivers and fields.  It all looked so peaceful.  Again, the Vale of Kashmir seemed a ridiculous miracle.  I felt that I had been right to go in by land: it felt as if I had achieved Kashmir.  Similarly, it was right to fly out: there was no unwinding of the magic.  Just an enchanted carpet flight away, with the memory untouched.

The contrast of the plain with the hills was startling.  Hundreds of miles of utter flatness.  The relentlessness was made worse by the regular division of the land up into neat squares: the whole thing looked like a crazed Mondrian, or Klee – but in drab, washed-out colours.  Only the huge snaking rivers cut across everything.  Together with the crumbled aggregations of houses that were towns.

After we flew out of Amritsar – after yet more rigours of emptying all the overhead compartments – we flew over that troubled city.  I could clearly make out the Golden Temple in its lake.  Pity I couldn't visit it.  Arriving back at New Delhi, into the liquid heat, was like coming home.  First the Ex-servicemen's bus, then the journey back along Janpath.  I am staying at the Imperial.  Its room are 18 feet high, and huge.  I am sitting at an escritoire, with a fridge, and three-piece suite.  Everything is very comme il faut.  Up betimes tomorrow: 4am.  Aaargh.

6.11.86 Jaipur

Yep, sure was.  I like large echoing hotels early morning.  They are mine.  As are the streets of Delhi.  To Old Delhi station.  As we approach it, passing through the older parts of the town, the streets begin to bustle.  The station itself is quite grand; inside it has 19 tracks, of varying gauges.  The Pink Express to Jaipur is a one-metre gauge: slow and wobbly.

There is something rather sybaritic in flying from Kashmir yesterday, bogging into a five-star hotel, then legging it off on the train into Rajasthan to another five-star hotel. Apart from the appalling hour, I do not feel tired – not in the saggy, weary, drenched way I used to get.  The secret is certainly money (and I have just finished Amis' Money – for me he is now the Amis – and a force to be reckoned with): don't compromise, travel first class, call room service, get your laundry done.

The train journey is about the right length: long enough to give a sense of distance, not too long that it becomes a huge bore.  One problem is the smuts.  I presume we have a real, live steam engine up front. As a result, gouts of smoke and dirt come through the unshuttable windows.  At the end of the journey, I am covered in it.  The land from Delhi to Jaipur is, as ever, totally flat.  Except for a few rocky hills, looking like bleached, prehistoric whales.  The sun is surprisingly slow in climbing above the mists; when it does come, the light hardens and the shadows deepen.

Eventually, we achieve Jaipur, or rather its outskirts, which linger on and on.  Jaipur Junction: so very Raj.  A big crush of people: I am almost tempted to hire a porter, but resist.  A rickshaw tout gets me: his fee sounds reasonable, we walk to his motorcycle.  A curious thing happens along the way: as great lump of a lout comes up and wallops this kid – late teens, say – about the head a couple of times.  He scoots off without protest.  I ask him what is up: he admits that rickshaw touts are not allowed in the station, accepts his cuffing as meet punishment, the quid pro quo.

To the Welcom Maringh, a pink edifice in this pink city.  I swan in and book without even asking the price. The room is acceptable, one plus, one minus.  The plus is the piped Indian music -  I am writing this to a sequence of shortish ragas – on the sarangi or sarod, I think.  The downside is that the luggage rack has a cunningly-placed shelf above it: I have now whacked myself twice, painfully.  These Indians are small, obviously – as testified by the low ceilings and doorways of the palaces.  I also whacked my head in one of those today as well.

This was the Hawa Mahal – the Palace of the Winds.  To get there, we passed through the massive pink walls, passed along the seemingly interminable Tiralia Bazaar.  A new element I'd noticed from the train: camels.  I don't think I've been this near to camels before; they look simultaneously pitiable and ridiculous.  Their feet in particular: great shaggy carpet slippers flopping along the road.  Their great stupid eyes with Cindy doll eyelashes; their risible knees, all knobbles, and even worse when sitting down.  They add a new factor to the traffic of bikes, rickshaws et al.: they slow it down even more than bullock carts. Jaipur is also unusual in having newer, bigger motorised rickshaws, as well as bigger motorbike buses.  These are typically Indian: an Enfield with half a bus tacked on the back, holding ten people.  

The Hawa Mahal is a front, designed for ladies of the harem to have a butchers at the bustle below.  Externally it looks like a wall covering from the Royal Festival Hall, or Barbican.  Inside, there is very little – a courtyard, some steps, a few small chambers – hence the bumped head.  Everything is pink.  The view is quite interesting.  Along Johri bazaar, a huge glitter of bikes.  There must be 100 million in India.  I hadn't quite grasped the central importance of bikes.  The bazaars themselves are wide - 18th-century town planning for you – with a unity of design that is quite unusual.   Otherwise the same unbelievable micro economy: I saw two stalls which were selling nothing except battered old battery torches.  People stood on the street with a handful of blotchy apples.  There are more beggars here than I've seen elsewhere, including some lepers with nasty looking injuries.

I walked down Johri bazaar, out through Sanganeri gate towards the zoo.  Then to the museum.  Wonderfully fossilised from Raj times: collections of Mughal paintings mixed with early East India Company stamps, line point drawings of Italian masters, collections of rocks presented by German institutes, national costume, patterns, model animals.  It was the first museum I'd been in with pigeons flying around.  Lots of Indians there, sort of mooning around.  I'm not sure what they made of the faded inscriptions in copper plate.

Foolishly – will I never learn? - I decide to walk back along Mirza Ismail Marg.  Although this is supposedly the main new town street it is indistinguishable from any other.  Like them, it is very long – a good mile and a half.  It is this scale – not the country, but the towns – which gets me.  They just go on for every, and there's nothing there.  I suppose you've got to put 750 million people somewhere.

7.11.86  Jaipur

An unsatisfactory day.  After a rip-off breakfast – 9 Rs. for two pieces of toast – I went in to look at the Palace.  This was a bit tame – nothing spectacular at all.  The first courtyard was large with a number of quite gracious trees.  In the middle was a building housing fabrics and such-like.  Off to one side there was the armoury – very impressive if you're into that sort of thing, I'm sure; certainly a testament to the warlike Rajasthan.  But I dislike guns – the "great equalisers".  Through an archway flanked by two splendid stone elephants.  The courtyard inside was sparer.  In the middle was the public Diwan, chiefly notable for two huge water urns.  Being a devout Hindu, the Maharajah was unable to drink the water when he came to England – the irony – so he brought his own.  So far as I could tell, both he and the Maharani still live in the palace, abutting on to the so-called peacock court.  This had splendid tiled doorways.

Then back to the hotel where I had to clear my room by noon.  I could have stayed until 6pm – for an extra £15; but my feelings toward the hotel were such that I was unwilling to put any more money their way.  So I sat around in the courtyard – the only place that got the sun – reading Mailer's Ancient Evenings.  

I got to the station early to try to fix up my berth.  As ever, the scene was noisy, dirty and bustling.  More troops around – Nepalese judging by their oriental looks.  My train was 40 minutes late, so it was soon time to go to sleep.  I was sharing a compartment with a family of five daughters – all young.  By night this was OK; but the next morning…

8.11.86 Udaipur

I woke up several times during the night.  I was cold and the berth was hard and uncomfortable.  Indians when they travel come well-prepared with sleeping bags and pillows.  But my biggest mistake was underestimating how cold it would get.  By morning I was aching everywhere.  Things were not helped by the little girls.  They had woken up, and proceeded to squeal and cry for the next four hours.  My head was splitting; by the end, I think I would gladly have split theirs.

I knew this was going to be a bad day.  I got to the Laxmi Vila Palace Hotel – full up; then Anand Hotel – also full, though I got the distinct impression he was lying.  The Hill Top also didn't want to know, so I ended up at Lakend Hotel (sic).  Afterwards, I wondered whether my bedraggled appearance may have counted against me: my trousers were stained and dirty, my jacket grubby.  Still, I was feeling in no fit state to argue or look further.  Lakend Hotel it was.

This is very nicely situated looking out at the wrong lake – that is, not the main one.  This is fine, except that inevitably there are lots of mosquitoes.  Worse, my room was on the first floor – too low – and as I subsequently found out, not only did not have air-con, but had gaping hole where the air-con had been.  I could close some windows in front of this, but there were more gaps you could have driven a bug through.

All in all, things were pretty bloody.  I felt awful, the room was 'orrible, and I stood a fair chance of getting eaten to death by mosquitoes.  I noticed in fact that I had been bitten twice anyway, one on each wrist: was I suffering from malaria already?

Trusting to my body, I decided to go to bed for an hour or two.  When I awoke, I tried to get some food, and pretty much failed.  I then went back to sleep for a couple more hours.  In the meantime, I had devised a strategy for dealing with the mosquitoes.  I would jam one of the blankets in the gap between the windows – I had already used a bit of cardboard to wedge them shut.  Then I would stay up fairly late and wait for such mosquitoes as were already in the room to be attracted to the light.  Then I would squidge them.  Another problem I had was lack of fly spray – I had wasted all on the houseboat in Srinagar.  So I had to use manual techniques of towel flicking.

It seemed to work.  A couple came out and were duly dispatched.  As I read on, no more emerged.  Parenthetically, Norman Mailer is proving a godsend.  It is real, unputdownable stuff – I was most surprised.  OK, so it's a rude version of Mary Renault, but it has vision, it has sweep – and it's 700 pages long – just what I need.

9.11.86  Udaipur

Another crazy day.  Most of the time I feel bloody awful.  But it has its compensations.  It puts the rest of the time into relief, and it's good to be reminded what minor misery is.  It also has a certain romantic charm.  As I look out of my window I see triangular hills recede into the distance with nicely stepped haze.  The ground is scrubby, like something out of Piero della Francesca.  With the water in front, I feel like a feverish captive in the Holy Land – or Lebanon, perhaps.  Flecker springs to mind.  The sunrises are beautiful here.  First there is lightening of the sky.  Then gradually the first pinkening of the distant hilltops.  This gradually creeps down on to the lake, a picture of tranquillity.

This morning I staggered down to the City Palace.  Sunday, so it was fully of natives and – kids.  I have decided I hate kids.  It was worth it, though.  This is easily the most impressive pile I've seen.  It is huge and rambling, and the architectural style is more jagged and textured.  There seems to be a very noticeable difference between here and further north.  There are various sections to the museum, the largest being devoted to relics of Rajasthan, and a lot of coloured glass for which the region is evidently famous. Looked pretty tacky to me.  Even the peacock court was rather ho-hum.  As for the weapons…

The best thing about this part of the town was the views out over the lake.  At last I saw the fabulous Lake Palace Hotel: it looked rather dull to me.  A three-storey building covering a small island, with one or two trees sticking out.  It gleamed nicely, though.  The other palace looked far more romantic.  The setting of all this is superb, with hills all around, some with walls along their crests.

There was a small museum of sculpture and inscriptions, which was quaint if only for its air of gentle decay.  It also had superb views over the lake.  The final part of the palace was the best.  It was a huge courtyard with a covered dais placed at one end in the middle.  Again, the architecture was much more interesting than Jaipur, say.  

I sat in the sun for a while.  It was amazing what difference a few hundred miles south meant.  The sun's heat felt heavy, a tangible pressure.  I then shuddered my way back through the heat.  But first I went to the Lake Palace Hotel, or at least the land-bound bit.  A boy at the gate assured me it had rooms; the smoothy on the desk assured me otherwise.  Again, I got the distinct impression somebody was telling me porky pies.  What is it? B.O.?

I spent most of the afternoon in bed, and went to bed early, wrapped in a t-shirt, shirt and pullover.  And sweat I certainly did.

10.11.86 and 11.11.86 Delhi

I wake at about 5am, then 6am.  As ever, I try to convince myself I feel much better.  Trying some of my stretching exercises convinces me otherwise.  After breakfast I sit out on the terrace by the lakeside.  It is beautiful – I must be feeling better.  

As well as what look like cormorants or shags or something, there are the most wonderfully-coloured kingfishers I have ever seen.  Their blues flash like lightning – and they're big too.  Just to complete the idyll, the local fishermen are out on the lake.  They ply huge long oars – quite why, I couldn't see at first.  Their nets are pyramidal: what they seem to do is hunt in packs.  They drive the fish into a huddle, using their long oars to beat the water.  Then they drop the nets down vertically, standing on them agilely to push them down.  There follows a lot of obscure poking around, after which they bring back their nets.  I saw a few fairly juicy fish caught in the net; presumably they share them.

Into town to the railway station.  I wanted to confirm my berth for the night, which had been telexed through from Delhi.  As I waited for ages amidst the hordes of Beelzebub's favourites, I could feel in my bones that something was going to be wrong.  And sure enough, come my turn, they couldn't find my name.  After much scrabbling around they did find it – for the 11th – that is, tomorrow.  Great: I had allowed one day's slippage, but I still have to confirm my air ticket.  I don't know whose fault it was – the Indrail ticket clearly says the 10th.  Anyway, I got heavy, saying how I had a flight to catch etc. etc. They said there were no berths, full up.  I hung around.  Eventually, I was asked round the back – usually a good sign.  And after ages sifting and sorting, they eventually came up with something.  I must say that I have never seen an Indian lose his or her temper, or act hot-headedly, apart from the policeman cuffing the boy.  Equally, it is clear that you must never lose your temper either.  

A glutton for punishment, I then went back to the Lake Palace Hotel to go across and have some coffee.  Except that they now had a sign up restricting visits to certain hours – and not now. It's a conspiracy.  Stuff them: who wants to visit a mere Lake Palace when you've stayed in a houseboat in Kashmir?  

To the train without more ado.  As usual, the delays and waiting around.  However, as usual, everything was neatly organised and posted up: names, ages, sex, and berth.  I have been most impressed throughout with this organisational ability.  Their trains my be slow – the so-called Cheetah Express I was about to board took a cool 21 hours to traverse 500 miles – but everything seems under control; even when things go wrong, they are confident of an answer.  Perhaps this is born of 3000 years of civilisation.

I am still feeling yurghish when I board the train.  However, tonight I will be wrapped up: two t-shirts, shirt, jumper and jacket.  My main concern is keeping everyone else awake.  To try to avoid this, I take an unwarranted step – and a paracetamol.  Nobody told me it would taste horrible.

I wake at 5.30am after a couple of coughing crises.  I have been sweating – like a pig – and the mozzies are squealing with blood lust.  I have also anointed myself with anti-mozzie salve – god knows if it does any good: not really testable, is it?  Unfortunately, on waking up, and daring to put my contact lens in – a major worry on dark, dirty, moving trains – breakfasting and generally settling down, there is still a good seven hours of journey left.  Outside the scenery is splendid, if rather monotonous – not entirely flat this time, though.

I finish Ancient Evenings: rather a disappointment.  Perhaps I prefer battles to bonking; in any case, it seemed to fall off, so to speak, after the first half.  An amazing achievement though.  And quite pointless.  The poor man must have utterly immersed himself in the culture.  I was pained to see at the end of the book the telling figures: 1972-1982.  Poor sod.

After that, the rest is silence.  Or rather diddly-dee-dum etc.  Very boring.  But I am feeling better.  Body has finally pulled through – about bloody time.  Just as well, since another family with young kids has joined us.  To being with they are quiet – cunning little bastards.  Later, they turn into clenched balls of screaming will.  My urge to kick the little buggers in the head was only just held in check.  This trip to India has put my family plans back by about four years.  

Back in Delhi.  It's good to be back in this hell-hole of dirt, heat and noise.  To celebrate, I have a really good ding-dong with a rickshaw driver.  30 Rs. he wanted; 15 Rs. I said. 25 Rs. - 15 Rs; 20 Rs. - 15 Rs.  He wouldn't budge, neither would I.  And he kept on queering the pitch with the other drivers.  I told him to go away.  Eventually another driver said 18 Rs., so I thought: sod the other bloke, that's near enough.  

To the Kuwait Airlines office.  On 29th October I had phoned them to confirm my flight.  The bugger than had the audacity to tell me I needed to bowl up in person.  What a cheek.  I told them that I couldn't do this until two days before I left, and got them – vaguely – to promise to keep my seat.  So now I went there to confirm the confirmation.  The offices were located in Barakhamba Road, just off the south-east corner of Connaught Place.  As I tried to enter, a carbine-wielding soldier persuaded me to leave my baggage outside.  I went in.  The first gent I spoke to waved me to another.  He looked supercilious, arrogant.  He kept me waiting some time as he dealt rather curtly with someone. Then when my turn came, he was equally curt, informing me that the check-in time was 3am.  Wot? For a 6am flight?  Presumably they are going to strip search us.

Finally, to the Imperial.  What a haven of civilisation – and the best room service coffee in India.  Toddled off to Connaught Place to buy some tapes and books.  A tape store was most helpful, playing me bits to judge.  The bookshop was very well stocked, including some old UK titles I hadn't seen for years.  Also bought a little study of the divergences of Indian English from British English: very interesting.

12.11.86 Delhi

One day to go.  A morning spent by the pool.  Today is going to be lazy – after all, I've to be up by 1.30am, which will convert to 9pm for the start of my UK day...

1986 India I: Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri
1986 India II: Kashmir

A Partial India

More destinations:

Sunday 31 May 2020

1988 India: Delhi, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Varanasi

11.11.88 Delhi

In India again, though exactly where, I'm not sure.  The Connaught Palace Hotel – the Imperial was, unsurprisingly, full – which is near Connaught Place.  I have yet to find out how near.  It is marginally more expensive than the Janpath Hotel – 600 Rp. vs 550 Rp. – but much superior.  It is new and cleaner.  The Rupee has fallen against the pound.  I am about to eat lunch, though my body expects breakfast.

Some thoughts on the way here.  Visiting new countries is like encountering truly interesting people, or reading exciting – intellectually exciting, that is – books: they confront us with their different world-views, they make us think again.  It is hard to say yet whether things have visibly changed in the two years since I was last here.  I certainly have, not least in financial terms.  Now, there is simply nothing here that I cannot afford to do.  Which is rather sad in a way: there are no constraints.

After lunch in the hotel, I sleep briefly.  My room gives out due west, looking over the dusty, scruffy city.  Then, by rickshaw to the Royal Nepal Airlines to confirm my flights.  I am afraid that the sight of terminals in India still gives me pause for thought.  A day of confirming: Indian Airlines at the airport, British Airways later.  In India, you can not only do something, but must keep on confirming you will do it.

I walk back from the Imperial, its renovations finished from my last stop – I hope things are not too different – across the murderous rings of Connaught Place – the drivers really go for you here.  The late afternoon is surprisingly mild.  The dust is rising into the air, masking the sun.  Back in my hotel room, I order my statutory coffee and biscuits and watch the great red sun go down – only to lose it behind the one tall building in my view.  Rich colours, then sudden darkness.

Now I am in the hotel's restaurant; it is deserted apart from me and the musicians doing a sound check in competition with a muzaked "Ständchen".  Everyone is coughing.  Earlier, I had started to plan out the next three weeks; my itinerary looks totally exhausting.  I must be getting old.  I am, however, impressed at my body.  Tuesday night I came down with a wicked 'flu, head pounding and body aching.  It has almost gone now.  I hope.

Curious stepping into Connaught Place again: the poor grass, the poor people lying on it, the litter everywhere.  The crumbling stucco of the incongruous colonnades.  It was instantly familiar, and not at all foreign.  Perhaps I am finding it too easy to adapt to new locales.  The taxi from the airport: so knackered it had the acceleration of a dead slug.  All the gauges – speedometer, fuel et al. - were kaput, the light in the ceiling had been ripped out years ago.  And yet these Ambassadors still keep going.

12.11.88 Delhi

Not so impressed with my body as it decides to regress and go through tiresome stages like coughing etc.  Up with difficulty: I hate going east.  The Times of India under my door, its comforting mix of 30s-style English, and pure Indianness.  Then off to the railway station – more preparations.  This time, tickets to Varanasi.  It takes some time getting a look at a timetable.  The Tourist Office at least is better organised than before.  No queuing up several times, and everything is online (DEC kit).  And yet they were unable to book the return leg.  Useful… I thought to get round this using a travel agency next door to the hotel.  They tried, but the old allocation was too small this end; ho-hum… Also rang hotels in Jodhpur today.  Amusing then that my voice has dropped an octave – it is the high frequencies you need for phones… Somebody up there has a sense of humour.  

To the Red Fort.  Delhi is much bigger than I remember.  It takes quite some time.  And the driving seems to get worse – and noisier and smellier.  The Red Fort is packed with people, mostly Indians.  It is warm and balmy, not hot and muggy.  The haze seems very thick.  The gardens and diwans are pleasant, but pale beside those of Agra.  Back and everything early: I need to rise at 3.45am = 10.15pm body time – for the early morning flight to Jodhpur.

13.11.88 Jodhpur

Up at 3.45am, then to the domestic airport.  Surprisingly busy for 5am.  All the security blather is quite comforting.  Lots of Euros here, far more than I saw in Delhi (almost).  

The land over which we fly is so flat and barren, it is disheartening.  Gradually the Delhi smoke haze lifts.  We land at Jaipur, then on to Jodhpur.  Amazing airport – though this is far too grand a word.  It looks like a temporary soup-kitchen-cum-school hall – a rudimentary café, plastic chairs, people milling around.  It is easy to miss it completely until you are on top of it.  A half-hour wait for the luggage – which has to come all of 200 yards.  Then an autorickshaw to my hotel, which is disconcertingly close to the airport – and so far from the city.  It is very modern, with pool, but possesses the characteristic peeling and cracking of all India, however young or old.  It takes an hour before my room is ready.  Before – and after – the sun is so strong yet benign I am forced to sit in it by the pool for a few hours.  Purely restorative, of course.

14.11.88 Jodhpur

For the first time this trip, I remember why I came to India.  Jodhpur fort is stunning.  I had been to the station to buy tickets to Jaisalmer, and stopped off at the tourist bungalow to check on my Indian Airlines tickets.  Too early.  I haggle with an autorickshaw driver: 10 Rp. to the fort.  This seems a lot to me, it is not.  The fort is a couple of miles away, up a long, steep road.

The rock it stands on is impressive, but the screen walls even more so.  If I were a besieger, I would have given up.  As I enter, two musicians – nakers and shawm – play totally apposite music.  Above the filigree stone walls a perfect blue sky.  Well, here I am, on the battlements of Jodhpur.  Huge birds of prey wheel slowly above me.  Below lies the jumbled, bustling city.  Many of the houses are blue rather than whitewashed.  Looks like Cezanne gone mad.  Jodhpur is big.

PM.  Incredible market here, centred on an improbable clock tower like something out of rural England.  The fort looms magnificently above.  It is hot – but pleasantly so – smelly, with a general lively hubbub.  Flies everywhere.  Few tourists – I am enormously visible, but that is life.

These great, stupid cows in the middle of the road, the camel-drawn carts, beggars, old women, bicycles, the motorbike-powered buses.  Everything is stretched beyond reasonable limits – the rickshaws, the animals, the people, the land.  No wonder everything is cracked. It is amazing how all markets look the same: Samarkand, Jodhpur, Guangzhou.  Neat piles of vegetables and fruit: an almost 20th-century obsession with presentation.

Indian cities are bad for tourists: they are too spread out, too empty of incident.  It is not really possible to walk everywhere.  It is almost the ultimate challenge of travel: to be yourself, remain yourself.  If you are away from your daily life, its routines, its contours – who are you?  On your own you lose every more of your sense of self.  It is therefore, paradoxically, the best time for introspection.

Jodhpur Palace.  Rooms full of cradles, howdahs, miniatures, weapons, palanquins.  I am forced to go with a guide, and therefore see nothing.  

A crazy phone call through to Jaisalmer, the Fort Hotel there.  Even though only 300km away, his voice could have come from the moon.  What with my fading but present laryngitis, the hotel operator had to join in on my behalf with his stentorian baritone.  They claim to be full there.  I hope they are lying.  Turning up in the middle of the desert with nowhere to stay should be interesting.  I am lapsing into my old Raj ways: coffee and biscuits brought of an evening to my room as dusk falls.  Very civilised, very me.  I am a quarter of the way round the world from home.

15.11.89 Jodhpur

The day started badly.  My best-laid plans – of taking an extra night at the hotel but leaving for the 11.45pm train – foundered.  I am therefore here on sufferance, a waif.  In the morning, to the Government Museum in the park.  Half an hour early, I stroll round the park in the already pounding heat.  The gardens are reasonably well-tended, with splashes of colour (bougainvillea?).  Old men and children sit around, people on bicycles go about their business.  There seems to be a zoo here too.

Inside the museum – entrance 1 Rp. - it is pretty much as I expected.  Everything old, decaying, tended by tiny, uncaring old men.  Rooms of preserved animals – a scorpion with two tails – sculptures, model aircraft, miniatures, rubbings of engravings.  Nothing held the attention.  Back to the hotel to pack.  Zillions of Japanese around now.  Also, French, Italians, Germans – but not many Brits.  After lunch, I haggle with the autorickshaw boys for an all-in – less successfully than usual.  First to the Umaid Bhawan Palace.  I had seen this pink monstrosity lurking on the brow of the hill facing the fort.  Built ridiculously late in the Raj – 1940s – and designed by a PRIBA, it is huge and ugly and sad.

We cross a courtyard, around whose edges men are repairing gilt upholstery.  Then past cabinets full of glass or silver services; to the ballroom, dark and echoing, with unlit chandeliers; finally to the private theatre.  Everything cold and unlovable.  From the gardens, a beautiful view of the fort. Thither.  Not to see anything in particular, just to finish in the right way.  I sat on the ramparts, looking down on this town, picking out my few landmarks.  The bubbling blue houses I now knew to be Brahmins'.  The clock tower in the market, the Bhawan Palace.  The street cries are clear though not distinct.  A religious functionary is singing.

Wonderful cabaret going on here.  A bunch of Germans arrive, their rooms are not ready.  Irate Englisch-sprechende Panzer commander-type gesticulates wildly.  I fear there may be knock-on effects for my Thursday night stay.  After, there are now three huge groups here.  Bah.

In to town, to obtain berth number at the station.  All the bikes without lights, my driver "car" drives on the right-hand-side if it suits him.  A Sikh grabs a lift.  I say "paying half?", and to my surprise he offers – and pays – 10 of the 30 Rps.  People at their stalls in the pools of light; the evening air dusky and dusty.  It reminds me of Bali, except that the temperature is dropping.  I must not get caught on the train tonight as I did on the way to Udaipur two years ago.

Outside, the groups are eating a hot buffet.  Swallows (swifts?) swoop and skim the pool: mozzies, methinks.  Glad I'm here.  On the way back from the station, I had one of my periodic yummy "isn't life interesting?" attacks: things are looking up. 

16.11.88 Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is pretty extraordinary.  The long, slow, cold crawl to it was hours across barren desert.  The railway station was far from the town, and nugatory; was this a good idea?  But from the train I saw the city walls, rising up like some vision of Jericho.  Inevitably the hotels I wanted were full, so I have ended up in a Rs. 30 place – no facilities, mandi not WC etc., etc. - but I'll survive.  I hope to take the early morning train, getting back to Jodhpur – and relative civilisation – by early evening.

I am now sitting on the roof of the fort, itself perched high above its own walls within the city.  The unbroken horizon is almost flat in all directions.  Tiny dark scrubs dot the desert surface.  Disconcertingly, the railway line ends here, emphasising that this is nowhere.  There are high clouds providing some welcome shielding from the sun's hammer.

Walking through the old town in the fort reminds me of Srinagar – open sewers running in the street, snivelling kids, refuse thrown out of windows.  But even more than Srinagar, this felt about 2000 years ago.  It is all so Biblical.  Some of the buildings are decaying.  Jerusalem after the fall.

Wonderful Jain temples sprout like bushes everywhere.  And everything made from this glorious stone.  This is not the Golden City, it is the Honey City: honeycombs everywhere, dripping with it.  The havelis are extraordinary: and they are so widespread – not just the famous ones.  Everywhere the ornate stonework – like carved wooden screens.  And yet everything is in decay – it is a fossilised world, on the edge of dust.  What was this place like in its heyday?  Pretty impressive, I imagine.  Interesting how the balconies reach out over the space.  The intricate carvings lend themselves to the light which makes the surface bustle.  Reminds me of San Gimignano – the heat, the back streets, the stones.

From the top, having passed through all these empty desolate rooms that were once so rich, I look across to the fort, and over a lumpy sea of sandstone and bricks.  From up here it is easy to pick out the famous havelis; not so easy from below.  One noticeable thing, practically never found: almost no TV aerials. Much of medieval Italy is spoiled by this.

I sit now on the cool roof-top of my Hotel Renuka, an occasional evening breeze wafting my way.  To my left, the fort's walls, to my right the setting sun – not very red, disappointingly.  This place feels very Middle Eastern, not Indian at all.  Partly the camels, but more the whole Holy Land sort of feel.  I confidently expect to go down with some dreadful disease soon: it is a long time since I have been so plagued by flies at a meal.  Unfortunately earlier in the day, I had seen where they had been stamping… Yuk.

The sandstone here becomes quite oppressive, as if the city rose from the sands, and will soon  sink back.  The desert is disturbing.  As I watch the last rays of the sun catch the vertical walls, it reminds me of when I was in San Gimignano, sitting in the fort, watching the sun on the great towers.  But comparing the two, the Italian experience is just so much richer: the art, the culture, the density.  Even things like food: eating good Italian cooking, looking out into the valley, was in its own way a key part of the whole civilised experience.

Having sealed my fate by eating at the Trio Restaurant, it makes sense to limit the damage by eating here again.  Inside, rather than outside [the lights have just gone] is nicer – warm, fewer flies.  There are three musicians playing the usual tabla/harmonium/voice stuff.  Very pleasant too.

This restaurant was also recommended – for what it's worth – by a fellow guest at the hotel.  He and  his lady friend have just returned from four days in the desert – and are ill-ish.  No wonder, some of the garbage they tried.  They youth of today… [lights on].

17.11.88 Jodhpur

Most of today on the slow train from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur.  I slept surprisingly well for my £1.20 accommodation.  Breakfast was frugal but filling – the coffee especially good.  Great fun at the station, trying to find the right coaches – along with a party of assorted WASPs.  Alas, I was stuck with five of them for the trip, including a crazed, fat, Chinese Hawaiian called Edith who wore a turban and had an insane laugh.  Almost as bad was the heat, the dust, the hard seat, the boredom of the endless desert.  Apart from that, OK.  Perhaps it's just old age, but I don't seem to relish these ten-hour train journeys as much as I used to…

Safely at the Ratanada Hotel, an oasis in all this hardship.

18.11.88 Delhi

Travelling is like learning.  It is easy enough to walk through knowledge – facts, a theorem – with a guide or teacher; but is only when you work through it on your own that you understand it.  Similarly, travelling with a guide gives you that superficial acquaintance that is no substitute for journeying on your own and really knowing.

A day of travelling then, with one characteristic incident.  We stopped at Jaipur airport for an hour longer than scheduled: Delhi airport was closed, to allow Mr Gorbachev to fly in.  Strange this: he was here two years ago, again at the same time as me.  He should cast aside his furtive coyness: if he wants to arrange a meeting, he should just come right out and say so.

Delhi seems drab after Jodhpur.  For one thing, the air is so polluted, there is a constant haze.  By the end of the day, the sun has lost all its power.  To the Indian Airlines office, where I boldly pay for my Delhi to Varanasi ticket, even though I am still number 2 on the request list.  Worth a gamble.  I still have my train ticket, though I do not relish another overnighter.  One factor that helped me decide was the absence of accommodation at the Connaught Palace.  India is getting too full.  And no luck in booking in Varanasi.  Ho-hum.

19.11.88 Varanasi

A day of gambles.  I decide to buy a blanket in case I travel by night.  But I am hoping that my request position of number 2 on the flight to Varanasi will get me there.  I go to the airport – a curious feeling since I do not know whether instead I will have to hot-foot it back to Delhi Railway station.  First bad news: the flight is put back to 12.45pm, cutting the amount of time I will have to get to the station.  Second bad news: I am second on the waiting list, true; but only for those travelling Delhi to Varanasi, of which there are four in all.  Three have so far turned up.  I need (a) for the fourth person not to appear and (b) for the request number 1 not to appear. The man is not optimistic.  I cannot tell if I am or not.  But I do know that I am getting uncharacteristically restless.  Partly, I suspect, because I am forcing myself to read my first Anita Desai – totally contentless.  But mostly because I keep looking at the clock, looking to see if the person has turned up.  Every face seems to be my executioner.

Come 12.15pm, and I start to edge towards the counter.  My name is called, I am given a boarding card – I'm through.  And yet I keep expecting that fourth – or first reserve – to turn up, and for my ticket to be torn from my hands.

The flights – to Agra, then to Khajuraho – are like the other internal flights – big bus trips.  Safety precautions are pretty minimal, and the landings are the worst I've encountered: the plane comes in too fast and is effectively dropped on to the runaway.

I am amazed to see the plane half empty: after all the fun.  But things are clarified when we arrive at Agra.  Almost 100 passengers, mostly Italians, pile on.  I fear they may be going to Varanasi, taking valuable hotel rooms.  But they all pile off at Khajuraho.  Unfortunately another party almost as big piles on, definitely going to Varanasi.  These groups do spoil it for everyone else.

The terrain from Delhi to Varanasi is rather more interesting than down to Jodhpur.  A great river – the Ganges – heaves into view, and there are outcrops of hills and lusher vegetation.  Near Varanasi, the Gangetic plain shows itself: well-irrigated arable land.  [It is funny: I am drinking coffee in my room again – but probably the best coffee I've had in India was in Jaisalmer, seemed ready mixed with milk and was deeply satisfying.]

Into Varanasi.  Great fun at the airport, which is some 14 or 15 miles from the city centre.  I had been told by a tourist board chappy that the fee would be 100 Rp.; he suggested sharing.  As it happened, this pair whom I thought were part of a group also asked about taxis, and we agreed to share.  Then the saga began.  One tout offered us 20 Rp. each as a price, but said we had to pretend to be going to his hotel.  At the door of the airport building, it was utter pandemonium.  So many crazed-looking men offering their services, shaking keys and god knows what.  I really experienced information overload: too many competing structures of equal intensity meant that for a minute I was unable to make a decision.  Finally, I decided the only non-contingent solution was to stick with the first bloke, but then he palmed us off onto someone else.  We followed him, with me shouting at him to wait, and to agree the details, knowing that there would be plenty of latitude.

First, he said that the price originally quoted – to go to the Ashok and another hotel on the river – was in fact only for the former.  We re-negotiated, agreed, and moved off.  Then he said that because of the narrowness of the lanes, his car could not actually get to the second hotel.  My companions were outraged, but eventually decided to follow me to the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) office.  We then began the long and incredibly slow journey to Varanasi city centre.  The landscape was lusher than usual, but the hamlets along the way looked depressingly indistinguishable.  Nearer Varanasi itself, the hamlets began to merge into one urbanisation.  

The driving in India never ceases to amaze – and appal – me.  Their concept of left and right hand side of the road is shaky: often they will blithely cut across the incoming stream of traffic, or even drive the wrong way up the inside lane for a way.  They turn whenever, stop whenever, and pull out without signalling.  I'm no chicken when it comes to motoring, but this is pretty hairy stuff.  

Finally we reach the ITCD – after a fairly significant detour to look at two favourite hotels of the driver.  The office closed, but just as we are about to leave, a man appears, and starts offering to phone hotels for us.  We go into his office, dark and full of strange objects, together with the paraphernalia of his job.  He starts phoning: all full.  It is at moments like this that I wonder why I do this; why don't I go on a tour like everyone else, no worries, no hassles?  But I know it is for  precisely these challenges that I do it: my "holidays" are more travelling/travailing: extra juicy problems, more so than in daily life.  I must be nuts.

Finally, the Taj Ganges, the best hotel, ironically, has a room – but only for two nights, not three as I wanted.  So, still a little challenge there, not to mention the problem of getting back to Delhi in time for my flight to Kathmandu…

20.11.88 Varanasi

Problems, problems – just as I want.  No train available Monday, ergo Tuesday.  Which means I'm cutting it fine for the flight to Kathmandu.  However, a plus is an extra day in Varanasi – which I rather like.  

I am sitting now on the banks of the Ganges, a huge rolling river stretching away as far as the eye can see, left and right, and wide.  The steps down are surprisingly steep – perhaps a 50 to 70 feet fall.  The view along the banks is one of the most interesting I have seen, with temples and bathing ghats interspersed with high, veranda'd buildings.  Everything is a-bustle, with boats plying the river, people bathing, stallholders everywhere – apparently today is a festival.  Flowers on sale everywhere, everyone carrying bamboo (?) stalks.  On the opposite bank, crowds of boats and people.

This is the real India.  Moving further south along the ghats, I am now surrounded by the sound of bells: a deep bell above me, presumably religious, and the high tinkling tintinnabulations of the hawkers.  Flowers – bright yellow, orange, red, purple, white – everywhere [a goat has just eaten part of a stallholder's wares; goats, cows, but not camels, here.]

To my left, a high orange-stoned temple, in the characteristic style, topped with small pinnacles – and a tree.  Small temples with statues and garlands along the way.  Everyone wearing the red head spot on their brows today.  Big parasols – like something out of Canaletto.  A mass of roiling people, bright saris everywhere.

These is a lot of mud, high up on the steps – presumably from when the Ganges floods.  Where I came down to the river, they were hosing some of it away.  Nearby, a doorway has HFL and various dates – the flood levels, I assume; they are about 40 feet above the river level… The women washing fully-clothed, the men in their minimal dhotis or undergarments, the kids naked.  Holy men sitting reading, or just wander, chanting.

Now in a small rowing boat, going upstream.  We pass a burning ghat.  There is a small fire, some logs, a man standing by unconcerned.  Then I notice the two human feet stick out at one end.  It is a very strange sight.  No other burnings.

I am sitting now by the pool at the Taj Ganges.  The sun is very pleasant, filtered as it is by the omnipresent haze.  The journey back here was interesting.  The boatman dropped me off by the Golden Temple.  The voyage had been beatifically peaceful.  After passing upstream to nearly the last ghat, we moved across the river to the great sandbank.  Opposite Dashashwamedh Ghat, pilgrims were bathing in the river's waters. The view reminded me of Venice, of Hong Kong.

On land, I go downstream, past another burning ghat – great piles of logs everywhere, a few roaring blazes, but no bodies visible.  As I continue, a man stops me, saying there is a "family burning" up ahead, and that it was forbidden.  Could be.  So I strike off into the maze of alleyways, hoping to make it back to the main street.  But maze it was, and I soon had no idea where I was going. After about ten minutes of non-panicking I finally made it.  But an interesting experience.

Safely ensconced now in my hotel, I am struck again by the chasm which separates having a hotel and not having one: tiny in time, in gesture – yes/no – but a gulf in effect.  Before, you are homeless, doomed to wander an unknown city.  After, you are king of the castle, master of all you survey, a quite at home amidst all the foreigners.  

Another thought: whatever happened to the fourth person on the Delhi-Varanasi flight?  I feel strangely linked to this total stranger.  It makes me think of all the lines and stories which lead to me: the cotton balls which were plucked for my shirt – there were a finite number of them – the rain clouds which produced the Himalayan water which I drink, and so on.  Too many even to think about, let alone know.  Life is about simplifying all these threads.

Back down to the river for a walk downstream.  Past the main burning ghat – lots of bodies.  Then on to quieter ghats.  Late now – 4-5pm.  I take a boat again for half and hour in the dusk. Nearly full moon rising bright opposite the last nacreous touches of the sun.  The Ganges again very peaceful.  People are floating lit offerings on the water.

I take a rickshaw back.  It is now dark.  Without lights, amid the hurly-burly, this could be quite frightening.  The smell of wood smoke all but obliterated by all the noxious fumes – worse than any other big city.  But with all the shops lit by their single bulbs, their neat wares, it looks strangely like Christmas.  The road goes on and on, endless shops, endless stalls selling similar goods.  600 million people – ten times that of the UK.  Will this country ever lift itself out of poverty?  Such a task.  

Civilised: this restaurant has a sitar and tabla playing live.  And Beethoven, Tchaikovsky in the lifts… makes me a teeny bit homesick, culture-sick.

21.11.88 Varanasi

Down on the Ganges.  A great red sun rising over the sandy shore.  Cold.  Many people braving the waters.  Varanasi surprisingly quiet at 6.30 am.  A big red sun turning yellow, but it gives out little heat.  After about 45 minutes on the river, I take a rickshaw back to the hotel – and warmth.

Where I am then thrown out, and take refuge in the Varanasi Ashok, which is nominally 4 star, but a tip after the Taj.  No flights available, so it is 17 hours on the train…

It is interesting speaking English where the language is used as a lingua franca.  It is like being a wizard, eavesdropping on everyone…

22.11.88 Delhi

A long, long day.  In my reasonably crummy hotel until 12 noon, then to the station for 17 hour (nominal) trip.  Shared compartment with jolly young Sharon, a doctor near Varanasi.  Then read for hours, ate, slept reasonably well – after hiring blankets et al.  Aircon is definitely better.

Train 2.5 hours late – so I get to my hotel at 10 am, to leave at 12 noon – for which I pay £25.  But it's worth it for the shave, shower etc.  Now I sit waiting to take off for Kathmandu; is this possible…?

1988 Nepal: Kathmandu, Pokhara

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