Leaving Jodhpur and its powder-blue cubic maze of houses in the rear-view mirror, we picked up our journey northwards toward one of the best reasons to visit Rajasthan: the Thar desert. Rajasthan, in general, is a very dry and arid place, and the people that live in the state see a constant reminder that they live in a desert from the gradual and daily accumulation of dust. It gets on everything, and in particularly windy weather, dust storms can be particularly hazardous.
The road toward Jaisalmer, the largest desert city, was surprisingly good. Mr. Bhandari told us that Delhi is going to be hosting the Asian games in 2010, and in preparation therefor a lot of work is being done on the surrounding infrastructure. Roads are being built, repaired, or widened, and it was rare that we didn't go a few miles without seeing some trucks or tractors, diggers or teams of workmen doing some sort of work on the road.
Our original plan was to head to Jaisalmer and stay at a hotel where we could arrange a short camel trek into the desert, complete with sleeping overnight in the sand dunes. But as we tried to explain what we wanted to do, it just wouldn't translate. Saying "sand dunes," Mr. Bhandari heard us say that we wanted to visit Sam, a small desert village outside of Jaisalmer, to which he counselled us against it. We had no intention of visiting Sam - apparently, it used to be a quaint little place to take camels and tourists around, but as more and more tourists started coming, so did restaurants and hotels. But we couldn't say "sand dunes" without him hearing "Sam" and when you're trying to explain that you want to sleep overnight in some, it's kind of important. We did, however, reach a compromise: Bhandari told us about a small place thirty-eight kilometres away from Jaisalmer called Khuri, where one can stay in authentic Rajasthani huts, see an authentic Rajasthani music and dance show, and eat a traditional authentic Rajasthani meal. You get the idea. We went for it.
Bypassing Jaisalmer completely, a single-lane, completely untrafficked road brought us to Khuri, which seems to have lost its reason for existence: every house is now a guest house, and each offers a package deal of camel trek into the desert, music and dance show, and buffet meal. As much as we try to eschew the "package deal" it seemed to work in this case and we rolled into the Khuri Guest House under a blistering sun at around two o'clock.
A boy in his late teens came out to greet us, flanked by two or three others. He greeted us warmly, and offered that we could put our bags into a hut, and refresh ourselves. Bhandari wasn't having any of it - they immediately launched into a spicy conversation in Hindi about where we would be staying and what would be included. He carefully avoided the subject of price: however, he had mentioned to me what I should pay, so when the teen and I got to the subject of price, I did a respectable job of bargaining. Bargaining is such a part of buying things in India that in some cases, you know what you're supposed to pay, the seller knows what you're supposed to pay, but you go through the motions in case one of the two slips up and someone can get a deal out of it.
To visualize the guest house, imagine a large building at the front of the compound, providing interference from the road and clearly used for overflow in case there are more guests than huts. For that's what you find behind the main building: two poured concrete circles, perhaps forty feet in diameter, to which five huts flank a central area in both. In the centre, a fire pit, and the whole thing is encircled by a hip-high wall. The huts are circular, about twelve feet in diameter, with a roof made of thatched grass, supported by wooden poles: the walls are perhaps a white-painted clay. The door was green-painted metal of the clangy-creaky variety, with a lock and chain to keep you dubiously secure at night. The centerpiece of the hut, a metal-frame bed straight from an institution: or rather, two of them, pushed together, as we have come to expect as the low-budget version of a double. Two blankets, provide your own sheets or sleeping bags, as most of the time, it's so hot you probably don't need them. In ages past there would be sconces for your candles and small mirrors affixed to the walls to reflect the light in marvellous patterns: unfortunately the mirrors had been painted over and a single light bulb had been wired into the roof.
We refreshed ourselves, had some tea with Bhandari, and waited for our camels to be assembled for our "camel trek." In fact, this was to be a two-hour ride through the dunes to watch the sun set, and then come back. From what we'd heard about riding on a camel and what it can do to your backside, that was just fine with us.
Our camel drivers were Cellu and Maihpal, two pre-teens who had obviously been riding camels from a very early age. Cellu was tall and lanky, entering his growth spurt earlier than Maihpal; his peach fuzz moustache accompanied a voice that cracked as he sang camel-riding songs when we ran out of things to talk about. But both of them were friendly and knowledgeable about the Khuri area.
Our camels were of the single-humped variety: I gather these are known as dromedaries. It's convenient for two people as I imagine the saddle lets one person sit in front of the hump, and another person sits behind. We sat in front and were just along for the ride as Cellu and Maihpal did the driving. It's a lot like a horse, as you basically pull the camel's head in the direction you want it to go, and they're encouraged to turn by the rope attached to their nostrils.
For those of you who haven't ridden on a camel, it's a lot like riding on an elephant. There's a lot of side-to-side motion as various legs are moved into position, and when the thing really gets moving, you get into a pattern of being bounced into the air from the saddle and slapping back down at an impressive rate. If you were doing this for any length of time, you can imagine the workout your leg muscles would have. As for the getting on part, it's fun: the camel sits down and you get on, and it gets up with the rear legs first, making you lean forward at a forty-five degree angle as it settles itself to unstretching its front legs and getting everything straightened out. If you're not expecting it, as I wasn't, it's an experience that will definitely wake you up.
We wandered out through Khuri village, following a well-worn trail in between village houses as we slowly made our way toward the desert. This wasn't before we had been shown two opportunities to buy things: the first from a local potter, who made his creations from a setup involving a car wheel and tire being fixed on its side and spun with a stick. The prices of the things we so low we had to buy something, so we bought a nice little bell: it's hard to just sit and look at an impoverished village and refuse to buy something that costs, literally, pennies.
The second buying opportunity was a local co-op where textiles of all makes and sizes were on offer: of course, it's nothing we can take with us, as our trip doesn't take us directly back home. However the quality was amazing, and I imagine the prices are better than what you would get in Delhi, as you're dealing more directly with the manufacturers and not with a middleman. We got back on the camels and went into the desert.
When I think of a desert, I think of a big sand pile, carved into static tidal waves by the wind. While I'm sure this image exists in the Thar desert, it was clearly going to be further away than we were going to go on our camels. There was plenty of life in the desert we saw, albeit it was in the form of scrubby, needly bushes and weeds. As well, it was in the form of two pre-teen boys who walked alongside our camels as we trod into the desert, their bags of potato chips and bottles of Pepsi on offer to us thirsty travellers. These kids are savvy business men who have heard every excuse in the book and work more on the principle of wearing you down than of convincing you that you deserve a nice sugary drink. No matter how much we told them we weren't interested, wouldn't drink soft drinks, wouldn't eat salty potato chips, they just trudged alongside us as we carved our path into the desert dunes. I don't think they had much better to do, and it was clear that they knew Cellu and Maihpal.
We got off the camels on a series of particularly picturesque dunes about an hour before sunset: we clearly hadn't spent enough time buying things, or at least, being offered the opportunity to buy things. So we had some fun walking up and down the dunes, taking pictures of dunes, marvelling at dunes. There were some interesting snake tracks leading to holes in the dunes: surprisingly large tracks. And then the sun started to descend over the horizon.
I'm sure there are days when the sunset in the desert is awe-inspiring. Perhaps it was the humidity; perhaps it was the light cloud cover. But for me, perhaps it was having been spoiled with sunsets in Portugal and Italy, and finally getting to the point where my criteria for a truly moving, open-the-champagne-bottle of a sunset have been really raised up. We took pictures, we had a nice time, but by the time the sun was down, it was enough and we trudged our way back toward the camp.
By the time we got back the light had drained away, but more importantly, we weren't going to be alone for the cultural exposition: my biggest fear for the event of the evening was that it was going to be just Amy and me clapping away to the singing and dancing. Not really a fear, I suppose, but as someone who's been onstage, it's always nice to have more people in the audience than in the production. We were in the company of many other tourists, but we were the only ones from outside of India: people from Mumbai had come in by the busload, so it was nicely packed for the evening's performance.
Six musicians with a variety of different instruments, and two dancing girls, were going to provide the entertainment for the evening. Of course we couldn't understand a word of what they sang, but as the only caucasians in the crowd, other people in the audience took great pride in coming over to us and explaining to us in sometimes exhaustive detail what a particular song was about. The dancers were quite magnificent, performing with a well-practised skill that involved not only dancing but also some dancing-related tricks, such as balancing a twelve-foot tall pillar on the head and dancing around the compound, or balancing a brazier of fire on the head and dancing around the compound.
One of my favourite moments was when one of our interpreters, an Indian living in Dallas named Ashok, took the dancing girls and one of the musicians aside after one of their early numbers for an impromptu photo session by one of the huts. I can imagine Ashok standing up during a performance of Hamlet and asking the Dane if he wouldn't mind posing with Ophelia over by the risers for a few snaps at the end of act two. But I guess this is all perfectly normal in India, as they were all too happy to be lead into position and photographed, and the performance resumed; in Shakespeare's time I gather if you paid enough for your ticket, you got to sit onstage and bother the actors.
After the singing and dancing (at the end of their performance, we all got up and danced: all inhibitions are released when you have forty Indians of all ages up and dancing around a fire pit) the food was wheeled out, and we ate extremely well. As people piled out to more comfortable accommodations, we closed the metal door on our cell, and waited for the last bottles to be consumed so we could enjoy the blissful silence of the desert.
We rode out for Jaisalmer the following morning, hitting two monuments on our way into the city: a man-made lake that stands in direct contrast to the dusty, arid city: and the old city of Jaisalmer itself. The lake was a bit scary: there's some glorious greenish algae floating just under the surface of the water, and the telltale rainbow patterns of pollution floating throughout. This isn't water you'd want to willingly fall into, also because of what Amy and I assume to be the vast presence of eels, for whom people buy packets of food in order to feed. The thrashing of eels on the water is just something I can't see myself getting used to.
The Jaisalmer city fort stands like a monolith in the centre of the city, at least a kilometre long, rising up to dominate the horizon. Most forts are impressive: this one was pretty astounding. Looking at it from our hotel, I was struck with the thought: "If I had an invading army, how on earth would I attack this thing?" The ground rises at an angle of at least sixty degrees, and you'd have to climb up about forty feet before reaching the base of the fort. The walls are probably sixty feet high, so forget about placing a ladder and climbing up. Meanwhile, there's the trifling matter of defending soldiers firing on you as you advance. I think the direct approach would have been decidedly out.
Nowadays, the answer to taking over the fort would just be to wait until it falls apart. The interior of the fort is in quite poor condition: much of it is crumbling away, and litter is strewn everywhere. There's the usual matter of wandering cows and careening motorcycles, but in India, it's commonplace. The streetie vendors are good in Jaisalmer, a bit more aggressive than in Pushkar, but less so than in Delhi. Our defences were down, so walking around the streets, we had to remember to stop returning greetings to people and keeping the eyes forwards, if we wanted to get anywhere without being overly delayed by offers to buy.
Our arrival in Jaisalmer coincided with the opening of the Jaisalmer desert festival, for which we were told we were very lucky to have timed our visit so. We strolled over after dinner with Bhandari, toward an outdoor stadium (Indira Ghandi stadium) with a stage set up in the middle. People were wandering around the periphery, taking camel rides, buying things to eat, but mostly just standing around and chatting. The event seemed to be organized by multiple branches of India's armed forces, and men in uniform were absolutely everywhere. The bleachers overlooking the stadium grounds were divided up into different sections: various sections of the armed forces, "foreign tourist," "VIP" and interestingly, "VVIP." The grounds between the bleachers and the stage were segmented into sitting areas, the entry for which had a sign labelled "Indian tourist."
When we arrived in the stadium, Bhandari marched us straight toward the VVIP section, pausing only to ask for directions. To his credit, I don't think he saw or knew there was a "foreign tourist" section: we were stopped by soldiers who politely moved us on toward it. While we thought Bhandari was going to stay with us to watch the show, he stayed a moment to make sure we were all right, and then left.
It was fascinating to watch the forthrightness with which the soldiers who had been assigned to crowd control did their job. Especially, as one would imagine, those assigned to ensuring that only very very important people sat down in the VVIP section. As people filed in, they made a first attempt at sitting in whatever good seats were available, only to be shooed on by soldiers with bamboo prods - the level of politeness scaled exactly with how foreign (or how rich, perhaps) you appeared to be.
And after a long delay, the show began.
Of course, we couldn't understand a word. It seemed to be a mix of various Rajasthani / desert culture acts: three guys with clarinet-sounding horns sat and belted out a number, the speakers cranked up to eleven; four dancing women performed seemingly incongruous styles, reminding me of the clichéd scene in the movies where the protagonists have to dress up in drag and do a ridiculous dance number in front of an audience; and finally, a very long, drawn out ceremony in which dozens of commanding officers in the armed forces received special turbans.
When there appeared to be a pause in the show for the next event, we decided that perhaps we would make an early exit: inspired by the other hordes of foreign tourists who figured that you really had to understand what was going on to truly appreciate the festival.
The next day we hit the road for Bikaner, now on the return trip to Delhi. Bikaner is another city on the edge of the Thar desert, perhaps smaller and less developed than Jaisalmer, but no less dusty. We had a hotel recommendation from the fellow who had arranged our trip with the government office, and rolling into the Harasar Havelli, it seemed to be right on the money.
I'll be honest with you: we probably did some sight seeing in Bikaner, but I can't remember any of it. With the pace we were setting, the details have started to melt together near the end. I'm sure it has a fort on a hill, and a whole lot of street vendors looking to separate you from your cash.
We did spend a fair amount of time on the hotel roof, enjoying a beer and a sunset over the city (no more inspiring than over the dunes, unfortunately), and talking to some Britains we met, Nicole and Laurence, who were just on the beginning of their trek around the world. As relatively experienced world travellers, it was interesting to be able to share what little advice we could, especially as it came to the Rajasthan trip, which they were doing in the other direction.
One thing I do remember about Bikaner was a short trip I made with Bhandari to get some more cash from a machine. Usually banks post a guard outside their ATM to make sure that people don't crowd in and make people feel uneasy about typing in their private passwords and taking out wads of money, but for the one we went to (the only one working, out of four in the city) there was no guard. Consequently, people were budding into line, jamming themselves into the booth, all curious about how much money people were taking out of the machine. Having a problem at one of these machines doesn't seem to generate much sympathy, either: when we ran into Nicola and Laurence again, it was at this machine: they had travelled to the other three with no success, and were having a problem with this one, too. However we figured out that they were trying to withdraw too much cash at once (I prospect that most travellers probably consider, given the relative frustration in going to cash machines, paying international fees and so forth) and the solution was to just withdraw a lesser amount.
My own experience in the cash machine booth wasn't atypical from what I've just described: in the eight-by-eight foot booth, there were six of us crammed in with the door hanging open. When it was my turn at the machine (which involved some serious "wide elbows" and standing of ground), all eyes were fixated on my machine. That's security for you. Faced with the prospect of five strangers knowing my PIN, I pulled an old classic: I pretended to hear something, turned around, looked at the road running parallel to us and said "what the hell is that?" To their credit, not all of them turned around, but the ones directly behind me did, and in that spare two seconds I tapped in my numbers.
On our way back Bhandari asked me if there was anything we needed to do while we were out: I hadn't been planning it, but I mentioned that I was curious to know if there was a place we could look at local musical instruments. A couple of the performers at the Khuri guest house used instruments which I think are called taktal, which are little more than small pieces of wood (teak) about the size of a candy bar. You slap them together with one hand and have one in each hand. These guys were tapping them with incredible speed and rhythm, which immediately made me think that of course, anyone could do it.
When I asked Bhandari about these, he frowned, shook his head, and said that you probably couldn't get them here. Why didn't I look around in Jaisalmer? Because I didn't know I wanted them then, I conveyed. But he wasn't to be deterred, and thought that perhaps there was a store we could check. So we drove to the local handicrafts and textiles store, where two guys stood up from the newspapers they were reading to greet the car.
Even as local-handicraft-seller number one was warming up his tourist salesman routine, Bhandari was out of the car and walking over to him, telling him what we wanted. They had a conversation that lasted no more than six seconds in which the following information was conveyed: no, they didn't have any, and perhaps you should check over in Jaisalmer; we've just been in Jaisalmer and we're not headed back; why didn't you get them in Jaisalmer; he didn't tell me he wanted them. Then the guy tried to give up talking to Bhandari and do some work on me: would I like to come into the shop for some tea? But hanging around with Bhandari has made me a better buyer, even if a tourist buyer: especially as I already knew I wasn't going to buy anything else, and that he didn't have what I wanted. I held my ground and conveyed as much to him.
More people came over. There was more conversation in Hindi. Seven local businessmen, myself and Bhandari, stood on the stoop outside of the store. The same conversation was repeated a number of times: did they have the taktal? You can only get them in Jaisalmer, maybe in Delhi. We've just left Jaisalmer. Why didn't you get them in Jaisalmer? And the part, I'm sure Bhandari was delicate about: my tourist only decided he wanted them now that we've left Jaisalmer. My favourite part about it all was that no one really knew what the things were called, so when the time came to describe what was being sought, there was a small explanation-slash-demonstration complete with "tak-tak" sound effects. Eventually everyone was calling them tak-taks. Even I, when the salesman continued to get me to go into his shop, was reduced to saying, "Look man, if you don't have the tak-taks, I'm not going into your store."
We headed back to the hotel. To make the evening even more surreal, there was a television in our room, which we decided to watch, and saw a Hollywood movie. The imposition of western culture into our dusty, broken-down Indian town felt decidedly bizarre. I'm not sure if I've made much comment on the state of most cities and towns in India, but while I'm thinking of it, I should mention that they are definitely eyebrow-raising in contrast to almost any city in Europe or Canada. To begin with, trash is everywhere: there's simply no dedicated place to drop it, so it ends up in great piles at the side of the road. Next add a smattering of cow manure, dropped from the wandering, free-spirit cows that are illegal to kill (and bad luck to herd out of town). Finally, visualize that things don't seem to get repaired much, so you have broken sidewalks, broken roads, broken buildings, broken everything. So much emphasis is placed on living in the present, mostly because there's no public money for investing in the future.
The next morning we headed off in the direction of Delhi, deciding to stop in Mandawa, a sort of halfway town that's a little more than a blip on the tourist circuit owing to its high number of historic havellis (merchant mansions). Unfortunately the town has fallen on hard times, as really what happens is the tourists march in, they are deposited in a hotel, they tour the havellis with a guide, and they return to the hotel to eat and depart the next day. The same was true of us, but we decided we really weren't interested in seeing the havellis, but rather, wanted to get a sense of the town itself. So we just walked in no particular direction, until we were very much off the map, onto unpaved dirt roads with streams of people's waste water running down the middle. The standard of living may have been meagre, but there were still smiles, still laughter, and people still seemed to get by with a semblance of order.
As we started getting more and more looks of amazement from people that usually don't see tourists outside of the havellis, we decided to make our way back. Following the compass and some landmarks (note: for any trip of significant duration, bring a compass; they are really, really useful) we were on the way when we passed by a group of kids flying a kite. When they saw us they went slightly mad, tearing over to us to get a good look and practice their English. Seeing my camera they realized it was an opportunity to make some money. I bargained the lead kid down to five rupees (from twenty) and took a picture of them all; but kids being kids, they wouldn't stop mooning and posing until I'd taken at least a dozen. We then tried to leave them and go on our way, but they decided we were more interesting than a kite. We got several offers for guides - so much so that I considered paying one of them to just walk beside us and look guide-like, while staying quiet. They were more than a bit annoying as they did things like throwing rocks at the smaller kids (and encouraging us to do so as well).
Back in the city, I decided to try another tactic to retrieve some personal space: I sat down beside three old guys sitting on a stoop outside a tailor's shop. There was very little conversation other than broken Hindi (mine), but they were very generous with their time, offering me a drink and a smoke (of what, I'm not sure), both of which I refused. But their presence seemed to keep the kids at bay, which was exactly what I was after. When we picked back up to return to the hotel, their number had dwindled.
When we returned to the hotel, we settled in for a good dinner, chatting most of the night with some Dutch guys, Alain and Sander, about India and Rishikesh; Sander had just been, and offered us a bunch of great information, as it was where we were intending on going next. Our conversation was only marred by the entertainment, which shuffled in in the form of a five-member family: Dad on the stringed instrument, Son on the drum, Mom (with baby) singing and little Daughter doing a dance. It was authentic; it was heartfelt; it was amateur. But after having seen the city, we had to tip them for their performance.
We headed back to Delhi the next day, taking no more than four hours to get to the city limits and two more in traffic. Much of the traffic was caused by the construction of the Delhi Metro, which will link the outlying areas of the city with light rail that will soar ten metres above street level. Bhandari commented that he didn't think the metro would substantially alleviate Delhi's traffic problems, but it would probably get better once the construction was over. When we finally did get to our area of the city, we parked so awkwardly that we had a few scant seconds to make our goodbyes. It felt so odd, after having spent twelve days with Mr. Bhandari, that he was just suddenly gone: I don't think I even have a proper photograph of him.
To end on a moralistic note, I guess the message is, don't put off today what might not be possible tomorrow.
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