Rajasthani Road Trip

So, we piled all  of our gear and ourselves and our new best buddy Singh into an 8 seater and off we went for a “casual drive” around Rajasthan for a week or two.

The first thing Singh told us was that it would take about 2 to 3 hours to get out of Delhi.  We thought he was exaggerating.  Actually he was probably being conservative.  The whole city is upside down with roadworks, metro works, sewer works – you name it, there’s “works” for the upcoming Commonwealth Games.  As a result, the traffic crawls along over piles of concrete and around massive holes and open sewers and all the rest of the normal road hazards – ie people, buses, trucks and rickshaws.  I was expecting to see cows as well, but then I found out that the government has moved most of the cows out of the city centre. 

The other thing that effects the traffic is the standard of driving.  We thought Vietnam was bad – it’s like preschool compared to India!  There are lanes marked on the roads but I think most drivers see them as a suggestion.  In reality, the order of the day is to drive wherever you think will get you there faster – that includes on the wrong side of the road; the verge; over median strips etc etc.  There may be 2 lanes marked at the intersection with traffic lights, but there will generally be about 5 lanes of traffic waiting.  My personal favourites are those intersections without traffic lights.  It seems like 25 lanes from 5 different directions all try to go through the intersection at the same time.  We just shut our eyes and prayed that Singh knew what he was doing.

Fortunately, Singh did in fact know exactly what he was doing and turned out to be the best driver – ie he knew how to drive carefully and we got home alive!  He has been a tourist driver for 15 years and somehow knows how to get around without road signs or any other form of obvious navigation.  He took an immediate shine to Michael (as does every man in Asia) and we liked his accent and his funny chuckle.

We started our trip with visits to Mandawar and Bikaner.  A lot of Rajasthan is virtually desert, so it was hot and sandy.  Mandawar is well known for its “havelis”.  In former glory days, this was the area on the camel caravan route for spices and merchants were very well off.  They built houses which could accept important visiting guests and one of the trademarks of these houses is the artwork painted on the walls.  The front of the house was more fancy so as to impress the guests; followed by an inner courtyard and then another area where the women stayed and included the kitchen  and sleeping areas.

Bikaner is famous for its fort and palace, having had a hugely successful maharaja.  It’s also famous for the Karni Mata Temple.  Singh insisted on taking us to what we thought he said was the “red” temple.  We really are completely templed out after all this time but he insisted that we wouldn’t want to miss this so we caved. 

After handing over our shoes to the shoe boy, I was approached by a man selling bags of what I thought were flowers.   He said “you buy food for rats?”.  I said “food for WHAT?”  He looked at me like I was stupid and said “for mices.. in temple..” 

I suddenly had a flashback to a documentary I had once seen about a temple where rats are considered holy because they are thought to be reincarnated spirits.  The rats are fed milk and it is considered to be a good day if they scamper over your feet when you visit.  The ultimate good luck is brought from spotting the rare white rat.

Yes Marrissa – I can hear you laughing as you read this – you guessed correctly.  There was NO WAY I was going into that temple!!  The girls very sensibly decided to stay outside with me while Paul, Michael and Singh headed off in search of the almighty white rat. 

They didn’t find it.. but saw plenty of your garden variety grey types.  If you’re up for it – check out the really disgusting photos and video on our Flickr page.