Adventures in Rajasthan

In an attempt to reconcile for past lack of blogging I am going to knock off North India: Part II.  My plan is to make some ground on travels in Rajasthan then finish up with a third post this weekend.  After Agra and the Taj Mahal we visited a city called Fatehpur.  The town was less memorable but our experience in the tomb was unique to say the least.  We began our tour in the usual manner with one guide and about 20 salespeople trailing along attempting to bargain us into buying their cheap trinkets.  The thing about these people is that they will not take no for an answer.  They bother you for minutes without provocation and any sign of interest, even as slight as looking at their wares, means it is only a matter of price and they will follow you to the end of the Earth.  These guys are everywhere in tourist areas and they really start to test your patience after weeks of travel.  After viewing most of the tomb some guys offered us individual tours which our original guide endorsed.  It was definitely the quickest and most forced tour on which I have ever been, and ended with “Oh look, here is a shop full of carvings made by the craftsmen of my family!”  We should have seen it coming.  These salesmen were craftier than the common followers, and their sale has been perfected after thousands of repetitions.  After getting you to the shop, they put on a sort of one-way auction where you are the buyer but certainly not the bidder.  They keep up a monologue of decreasing prices and what a great deal it is without giving you time to breathe.  Once they think they have hit a price you will agree to they wrap up the carvings and put them in your pocket, covering up your doubts with the simplicity of their request: “1000 rupees and done”.  The show really is a spectacle and tricked many of us into submission if only to get them to stop talking.  My original intention was to browse independently, likely buying nothing.  Instead, I received an excessively intense personal salesman who got me to buy two small elephants and a candle holder all for only Rs. 1500, or about $28.  The carvings are intricate, beautiful, and certainly cultural, but they are also at every store in the country and for better prices.  I, being the miser I am, had bought next to nothing in India and knew no better, and was fooled by the original price tags which were about three times as much.  Learning is the cornerstone of a cultural exchange and this day I certainly came away wiser, if poorer.

Our next destination was Jaipur, “the pink city” and our entrance into Rajasthan.  Although the levels of pink were a little disappointing, the city was not.  We visited some typical forts and visited an intriguing collection of astronomical instruments belonging to an old king who was enamored with the night sky.  It was quite amazing to see the impressive level of cosmic understanding this man discovered several hundred years ago with such meager technology, and to compare that knowledge to what the average person can explain about the night sky today.  A humbling thought.  As we left this place our Rotarian got pulled aside by security for questioning.  It was explained to us that they thought he was a fake tour guide fooling the naïve tourists and taking our money.  The stupid part was that they failed to listen to our collective assurance that we indeed we did know this man and that we were not completely moronic.  Though they threatened to bring him to the police station for further questioning, they eventually let him go and we moved on with our day.

One of the major themes of our trip was shopping.  Shopping, bartering, and buying gifts.  North India, and Rajasthan in particular, was filled with markets selling all kinds of clothing, carvings, and other keepsakes.  This was a cool piece of India not found as much in Pune as well as an ideal time to buy gifts for people back home.  Some of us took this to different extents than others.  While most of the guys bought a few interesting items, the girls spent about 3 times as much collecting scarves, bags, and poofy Indian pants with elephants on them.  In Jaipur Ana showed us her collection.  A little more extensive than ideal.  We are all wondering how she will get it all home come June.

The next day as we continued our travels in Rajasthan we visited one of the better known temples in India.  However, it is not known for its beauty or importance, it is known for the rats.  Yes, you read that correctly.  This temple is crawling with the vermin.  There are certainly hundreds of them skittering around and drinking the milk left out for them.  Just writing about it is giving me the willies.  The rats are considered sacred and I believe the whole temple is dedicated to the rat, probably as the vehicle for the god Ganesh.  It was a rattling experience and we were on edge the entire time.  I could not comprehend how some people could sit there so calmly surrounded by the creatures, or why they would choose to.

As we entered Jaisalmer we decided its nickname, “the golden city”, was better deserved than that of Jaipur as literally every building was built using the same gold-colored stone.  The city is centered on the large fort, unique in India because it is still home to 5,000 of Jaisalmer’s 50,000 residents.  The small population of the city is interesting because most Indian cities near on one million people.  500,000 is considered a town, not a city.  Anything smaller than that is usually just a village on the outskirts of some larger metropolitan area.  Rural areas are almost always less developed and do not have the modern technology of their urban counterparts.  Jaisalmer, however, is a rather famous city that stands completely alone and independent making it the most unique city I have encountered in India.  Its architecture is beautiful and its more traditional nature avoids much of the western influence that permeates the Indian culture of most cities.  I developed an immediate fondness for this place.

 

That afternoon we set out on a camel safari.  I love camels.  They are just so chill and nonchalant all the time and nearly everything about them is really cool.  If you have never ridden a camel I highly recommend it, as it is rather enjoyable once you get the hang of swaying with its walk.  We got to ride them through some legitimate sand dunes and it was a sad moment when Colby and I had to say goodbye to our camel with whom we had grown quite close.  After running around in the sand for a while we visited an oasis camp where we witnessed some traditional dancing and ate traditional food from Rajasthan.  The night culminated with a run back to the sand dunes to look up at the stars.  The only light for miles was from the small camp, so the view was magnificent and you could see about ten times as many stars as usual.  It was one of those moments you have to have every once in a while when you realize how big the universe is and it boggles your mind attempting to comprehend it.  We just lay there in the sand for half an hour.  It was a great ending to my favorite day of the trip, and one of the most calm and peaceful moments of my year.