The Trip

It is amazing how you can get used to the heat here. For the past few weeks in India, with the exception of Bombay, I have been in the state of Rajasthan in the NW of India. This is mainly desert and is very hot and dusty. The average daytime temperature has been about 42 degrees C with no humidity. Rajasthan is quite an interesting place. For many centuries it was a collection of small kingdoms ruled over by the Maharashas. Even after the British took over the rule of India in the 1850s they were allowed to continue. The relationship between them and us was a mutually beneficial one. They paid us tributes and we provided for their defence as before then, the Maharashas had needed to defend themselves against the Moghuls and the Muslims from across the border where Afghanistan now sits. They kept their palaces and forts and lived well. Some of the Maharashas were good benefactors and looked after their people while sometimes others were not. If you visit the towns of Udaipur, ...

Indian Roads Having spent almost a month in India now and traveled a large part of it by road I though it best to write some things down in case I forgot about them. In the past 5 years there has been a massive investment in the infrastructure of India, with many new roads being built and the old ones getting resurfaced to a high standard and busy roads getting extra lanes. The National Highways now have 2 lanes either side, though many drivers still drive on the left hand carriageway the wrong way into oncoming traffic. This is apparently normal, as when a tractor comes to the junction of his dirt road the and gleaming NH and he wants to go right, he'll do just that not knowing that he should first cross to the opposite carriageway. In being driven between Delhi and Jaipur the other week we were doing 100 kmph down the outside lane when we saw an ageing Mahindra jeep coming towards us in our lane. This did not seem to worry the driver as he calmly stood on the brake pedal and ...

From Bombay I took another train to Ahmedabad, the capital of the state of Gujarat. This was nothing special. The train ran on time, more or less, and Ahmedabad was a normal Indian city with no tourists in it, except for us. Now this was nowhere near as bad as Hefei in China (see previous) but it was not that enjoyable. We only had one day here as our connecting train to Udaipur was in the evening so Matt and I spent the day watching another Bollywood flick called "Masti" and watch as one of our taxi drivers thump a "beggar" who was pestering us as we exited his taxi. This impressed me so much that I tipped him heavily. So on to Udaipur. We had to take a special narrow-gauge train to this place as it is somewhat isolated from the railways. This turned out to be nicer that I had expected as there were fewer berths on the carriages and as a result the journey was much quieter. Again the scenery was superb coming into Udaipur in the early morning. I arrived fe...

I forgot to mention something that happened to me in Jaipur. We were eating at a restaurant where there was some traditional Rajasthani dancing going on. There were two guys on the drums, or tablas, and two women doing the dancing. They were whirling like dervishes. Towards the end of the performance they did a dance where they had balanced pots of burning fuel on their heads and their dance involved keeping their backs straight. During this the younger of the two women was making eyes at me! I got very embarrassed and clumsy although I liked the attention. She wasn't bad looking either. Matt will back up this story, fantastic as it seems. Indian trains do not look like much when you see them. They have no creature comforts. A few facts: every day the network carries about 2 million passengers across the country on the world's most extensive network of track. They are the world's largest employer, with over 1 million staff on its books. So Matt and I went to the...

I stand humbled and more wise since my last dispatch. Mohammed turned out to be the genuine article and he was very helpful and a generally nice guy. He took us to the sites around this city and introduced us to a cloth wholesaler who sells things like throws, pashminas, bed covers, suits, etc. This stuff was good quality too as it was geared to the export market. We even got shown around the factory where it was made. I admit I did buy a couple of things (Mohammed made his commission, though we were clear on this before we went in) though there was no sales pressure and the whole set up was professional and genuine. There are many things to see in Jaipur of interest. It is quite a young city, having been founded in the mid 18th century by one of the Moghuls. There is an old astronomical observatory near the City Palace that is full of massive astronomical instruments made of bricks and mortar. A giant sundial stands about 100 feet high and is still accurate to within 20 second...

Apparently Rajasthan, a province in NW India, is India's poorest and least developed. A few years ago the monsoon rains failed here which ruined many crops and caused many of the region's farmers to lose their livlihoods. The Indian government responded with a large financial package to try and get the water table back up, but this was largely messed up by corrupt officialdom and the companies who were supposed to be transporting the water here. Eventually the farmers had to pay exorbitant fees to get the water they needed. Not only that, but since the state started to dish out water and aid in times of need, the locals have not retained their traditional frugality with their resources. So a lot of them come to the cities looking for work. One of the cities, Jaipur - the provincial capital, is the one I am currently staying in. It is a world apart from Delhi but only about 160 km away. We decided to take a jeep here after the train times that were available were crummy. ...

Getting to India was probably one of the easiest journeys I have made so far. Getting to the border of Nepal was easy in a short bus journey and then from there onwards to Gorakpur was easy in a hired jeep. Though I will always be amazed that the Indians manage to get 16 people in a 12 person jeep. Still, it was cheap. My first night in India was a curry and then sitting on a station platform waiting for our train to come through. Indian trains are very long and normally make massive journeys. Ours had traveled all the way from Assam in the North East across the top of the country ultimately stopping at Delhi. This takes a couple of days. As a result our train was about 2.5 hours behind schedule which is not too bad so we got on and surprisingly managed to find a berth each in the sleeper carriage. As this was 0230 in the morning I just fell onto my bed/bench and slept through until about 1000, where I was woken by the men walking along outside the carriage at the station or ac...