INDIA

17th January - 27th February 2004

Jamesy, Andrew and I spent six weeks travelling around the subcontinent, speeding around in rickshaws, lounging on beaches and eating more curry than you'd care to imagine.

 

After the hustle and bustle of so many cities, it was lovely to escape to Ranakpur, in the middle of nowhere. It has renowned Jain temples set amongst lush agricultural land against a mountain backdrop - and no rickshaw touts! To the south lies, for me, the jewel of Rajasthan: nestling next to Lake Pichola and surrounded by misty hills is the city of Udaipur. It is famous for being utterly picturesque - and infamous for being a major location in that Bond classic, Octopussy, which is screened for amused tourists at practically every restaurant, every night. We then headed into the hills themselves and arrived at Mount Abu, though not for the traditional honeymoon!
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Ranakpur: Tranquility - and those crazy Jains

Hotel Castle, our countryside retreat. The walk from the hotel to the Jain temples. It was wonderful to be in wide open spaces! The entrance to the main Jain temple, which looks straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. It is huge, a structure supported by 1,444 marble columns, each of which is decorated uniquely.
Inside the temple: you can see some of those columns. There were a number of elephants to discover - and many smiling (but unphotographable) Jain idols peeking out from every alcove. On a nearby knoll, there was a mini-temple, from where this photo was taken, looking back at Jain Central. It is amazing to think how much skill and effort went into covering such huge buildings with such intricate carvings! There's that temple again - so damn photogenic!
We ran into this bloke and his humped companion on the road back to the hotel. He wanted us to hop on, but I'm sure my Mum told me something about strangers that tempt you on to their camel ...

Udaipur: James Bond on the shores of magnificent Lake Pichola

A crumbling haveli, or town house arranged around a courtyard, dating from the 18th century. The Biggest Turban in the World! A humbling encounter. Dusk on the ghats of Lake Pichola. Savage Garden - a swish restaurant with a bistro / wine-bar ambience, just asking for someone to muck about with arty blurriness on their camera.
Yeah, man - that's arthouse is that. Udaipur's City Palace, with more pristine lawns to make Cambridge graduates feel at home. More cartoon murals, very similar in style to those at Yogi's Guest House in Jodhpur A horse who thinks he might just be an elephant. It's good that, in this day and age, there are support networks for those like him - he needn't feel alone.
The City Palace was less remarkable for what was inside, more for what you could see outside ... I think the point of this photo was the Monsoon Palace, on top of the hill in the far distance - but that flat concrete roof is quite nice too! A pavilion on the very top of the City Palace. Probably THE place to stay in Rajasthan. The Lake Palace Hotel costs a good few hundred dollars per night - but what an utterly unbeatable situation!
If you can't stay there - look at it! The boyz and I decided to pit-stop with G&T overlooking that stupendous lake ... ... and we were joined by a couple of Indian classical musicians, twangingly atmospheric! If you do happen to stay at the Lake Palace (I'm saving my pennies), this is the launch on which you are ferried across. One aspect of the lakeside: the superb palatial architecture.
Another aspect: the ordinary people of the city washing their clothes on the ghats. When you whizz off on your launch to the Lake Palace, you are greeted here, with the full red carpet treatment. A view back across the lake towards the City Palace. The Monsoon Palace, up on the hill, was the lair of the evil Kamal Khan in Octopussy!
The city from the opposite side of the lake. Peculiar vestiges of the colonial period remain on the subcontinent. Take this troupe of bagpipers as an example, playing next to the Lake Palace Hotel's mainland pier. Incidentally, I read somewhere that the world's biggest exporter of bagpipes is ... not Scotland ... but Pakistan! Babu sells stationery, one of many such businesses in Udaipur. There are notebooks and photo albums, some made from camel leather, some from discarded saris! Babu's stock is made through a co-operative - so not only things of beauty, but ethically worthy. Brilliant! The "Co-operative Art School". (Hmmm, bit of a theme here - surely they don't bandy about the word "Co-operative" to draw in travellers who like to think they have a conscience?!) The bloke at front-right is called Mahendra Singh, and he took me through the techniques and traditions of minature painting, which was fascinating. He says he can paint 80-something characters on a single grain of rice!
Udaipur by night Jamesy by night, who seems to be involved in some kind of ghoulish seance.

Mount Abu: Craggy walks around Rajasthan's honeymoon hill station

About the first thing we did on Mount Abu was to go on a sunset walk with our fellow travellers at Shree Ganesh. What could be better than to sit on a big rock and watch the sun disappear? Next morning, it was all activity once more, hiking into the hills. The boyz, with Lalit on the far right. He is the guy that led all of the walks, never breaking into any kind of sweat, treating big hills as if he was just walking down to the shop to get his paper. Legend. Back down towards civilisation.
When boating on the lake, we resisted the temptation to procure a fibreglass swan. Captain Haddock - look, he's even on his way to the beard! Billions of blistering barnacles! Well, I wouldn't mind living there ... Pedalo wars. I tell you what, there was some rubbish driving on that lake. That'll teach us for getting the rower in our midst to steer.
It's a long way back - but in the active world of Mount Abu, what's a bit of pedalling? On the Shree Ganesh terrace, Em strokes her foot. Can't really remember why. It was one of those evenings. A bit later on, she set fire to herself. Crazy Australians! The Mount Abu massive: Jane, Alice, Em, Laura and Justin, plus we boyz, plus a few beers. Marvellous.
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© Ben James 2004