All the ‘Pur’s

So have I mentioned up till now that India is hot this time of year?  On top of that, they’re also having a heat wave so apparently it’s hotter than it normally is at this time of the year.  It hasn’t been under 45 during the day since we arrived.

Luckily for us, it’s a different heat to Perth. There’s no way you could go outside on a 42 C day in Perth without being burned to a crisp in minutes.  The sun just doesn’t seem as burning – sure it’s hot, but we haven’t been sunburned at all.  Does make you crave water though – one thing you should never take for granted is ice and a cold drink..  When you can’t get them, you realise how wonderful they are!

Over the next week, we drove from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, Ranakpur, Udaipur and finally Jaipur.  By this stage we had seen enough hindu temples and forts to last us a life time, however the fort at Jodhpur was next on the list and Singh insisted that it was worthwhile. 

It was an absolutely stinking hot day and the kids were just completely done with the heat and India in general!  We got to the ticket office to find the usual “tourist racism” that we have come to expect in India.  Tickets for locals were 10 rupees, while we were 300.  For the whole family to enter we were looking at $46AUD.  Doesn’t sound like much, but in the scheme of things over a month of Indian forts – particularly when most of them that we had already been in were mainly a bunch of dusty rooms with no clue as to the history or significance – Paul pulled the pin.  While the gang sat outside sipping cool drinks, we decided I would go inside and explore the fort.

It actually was probably the best fort we saw.  They had some quite interesting exhibits of the booty the successful maharajas had carried back from their various conflicts, including golden elephant chairs and swords etc.  There was also great views out over the old blue city of Jodhpur and most interesting was the really steep hill up to the massive entry gates, which had huge spikes sticking out of them.  Most of the forts have these steep paths and we were always wondering what was the purpose as we puffed up the hill.  Answer:  to prevent elephants from building speed to ram the gates.  Very clever.

On the way to Udaipur, we stopped at Ranakpur for a while in the heat of the day before driving over the mountains.  Singh took us for a walk to meet some local people, which was a real highlight.  They were a small community growing vegetables around a lake in the middle of nowhere.  Their huts were made from sticks covered with leaves, which surprisingly were quite cool, as they stopped the hot sun but let through a breeze.  None of them spoke English of course – they all speak Rajasthani, which Singh can speak fluently (he can speak about 23 different  Indian languages!)

Udaipur is famous for its palace that was built in the middle of a lake.  The James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed here and the palace is now a 5 star very expensive hotel.  Problem is, Udaipur has not had a proper monsoon in about 5 years and the lake is drying up.  The palace is not really in the middle of the lake anymore – more like on the edge..  If you want to see global warming in action – India is the place.  Obviously it’s hot but we saw that many dried up rivers, with bridges over nothing but pebbles, that have obviously been dry for a long time.

Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and is quite a big city.  The day that we arrived, the former leader of the state died in his 80’s and Rajasthan went into a 3 day mourning period and closed all the tourist monuments.  No problem we thought, we can have a look from the outside.  No – they also closed a lot of the roads in preparation for his funeral procession.  Oh well, Singh drove us around through the markets and we were lucky enough to see a number of wedding processions.  Weddings are a massive affair in India and the parties and ceremonies can go on all week.  The common thing seemed to be a procession including a band, with the groom riding on a white horse to the wedding where there was always loads of flowers and red carpet.

We saw one procession that had 2 elephants as well as horses and Singh said this was a very big wedding and that the bride’s parents must have been quite wealthy.

In case you’re wondering, arranged marriages are still very common here – the papers are still full of “matrimonial” advertisements.  On the news, we saw at least 2 incidents of honour killings, where girls had decided to marry a man their parents didn’t approve of.