First of all I should say Good Morning, as I’m writing this at quarter to eight on Sunday morning! It’s the 29 November and we’re currently camped on large piece of scrubland, which also encompasses a football pitch. It’s a pretty amazing setting, as we’re on the top of a mountain plateau in the middle of Chittorgarh fort. Our skyline is a range of temples and palaces dating from the 6th to the 15th Century.
We bought an outdoor gas burner in Tehran, so Mark is currently outside boiling the kettle and making the coffee. When we went to bed last night we joked that there would be Sunday morning football and we’d wake up in the middle of the match! Well, it’s not quite a match but Sunday morning football practice. As I’m typing in here, Mark is chatting with about 5 10-year old budding Indian Beckhams! They’re all in their kit and very excited about playing! He’s promised that he’ll watch them play when his coffee is made. They were satisfied with this and ran off to meet their coach.
It may seem rather early for a Sunday morning, but here it’s the best time of day as it gets too hot later on. We seem to wake around this time every day. Bedtime is anything from 7-9! Can you believe it? I’ve never been to bed that early in my life as I always feel like I’m missing out on something, but during the travels that’s the way things have developed.
The last blog entry was when we had arrived in Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We found a restaurant/bar with an amazing view of the Taj and spent the last few hours of daylight sipping tea, then eating and drinking a beer. We arrived on a Sunday so it was pretty busy. We could see the throngs of people even from half a kilometer away. Our intention was to see the Taj at sunrise, so the next morning we got up at 5, had coffee and then made our way up there in the dark. We had parked in the car park near the site, but motorized vehicles are not allowed within 1 km of the building as it was becoming too dirty from pollution.
We queued to get our tickets and then queued to get in. They open the doors at sunrise, which was at 6.40am that day. In the queue we got chatting to a guy named Shaun who had been in India for a few months and was on his way to Dehli. We ended up going round the Taj with him. When we went in, there must have been around fifty-sixty people who’d made it for sunrise, and we were the tenth or so people in. We got our picture in front of the beautiful pond leading up to the Taj and walked towards the back of the Taj where it drops down to the Yajuma river. The lovely thing about sunrise is that the mist rises off the river and shrouds the base of the Taj making it seem almost mystical.
It is made of white marble and has precious and semi-precious stones inlaid with the most beautiful detail. It was built as a monument to Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of a maharaja in the 1600s. She died whilst giving birth to their fourteenth son and he was left devastated. It is a huge mausoleum and is simple inside, but the way it is elevated so it has its own skyline, the symmetry of the design, the materials used to build it and the magnitude of it make it so pleasing to the eye, that you just want to sit and look at it. It is a magnificent building.
Empty stomachs pulled us away and we walked through Agra, which itself is pretty filthy, in search of breakfast. The food here is so tasty and our favourite places to eat are the roadside stalls. Dhabas or cafes are all over and offer the best value for money. Breakfast is usually parantha – potato-stuffed bread with daal or spicy omlette, samosas, chickpeas, potato curry and chai. The chai is made with milk, which is boiled with black tea, ginger and sugar. It is yummy. The origins are from water shortages so milk was used instead and you have to boil it because sometimes the milk is fresh and not pasteurised.
Update on the football. It is now a match and there are around thirty-six people playing ranging from 10 to 55. Mark’s estimation of the talent is that there are a few players who know what they’re doing! He also kicked the ball and it nearly broke his foot, it’s so heavy!!
After breakfast we made tracks for Jaipur in Rajasthan. Rajasthan is the place to come in India if you have short time and want maximum historical input. It is on the North-West of India and borders Pakistan. It is a dry state, encompassing a large desert and has rugged hills and more forts than you can shake a stick at. Almost every hilltop has fort from the Rajput and Muhgal eras, spanning at least the last 600-700 years of Indian royal history.
Our journey to Jaipur should have been straightforward but we got lost and ended up stopping on our first night in a village only 90km from Agra! We pulled in to what looked like common ground. We learnt later that it belonged to a village up the road and was their cricket ground. The crowd of people who came to see us included many young men who were all on the local cricket team. Cricket is so popular here. There is not one day goes by when we do not see at least one cricket game being played somewhere. Even in the Himalya, they play on the terraced farmland!
The village was called Punchhari. One of the young men who introduced himself was called Lokendra and was in the Indian Navy. The next morning he took us up into the village and to his fathers’ house. We were given hot milk and snacks and then taken round to meet people. One woman was cooking her chapatis for the day over a really basic wooden and clay oven. People here are so skilled in how they use their resources. We are always amazed at what they make do with.
We head off for Jaipur and decided to stick to the main roads this time instead of the back roads! The roads are a real mix of good and bad, but the use of the roads is incredible. It is a real reflection of the influence that agriculture has on everyday life. Driving down a duel carriageway it is perfectly normal to come across camels in the fast lane, (we drive on the left here – same as at home) cows asleep in the middle of the road or just wandering down the road, tractors going the wrong way up the hard- shoulder, and our worst yet a JCB being driven the wrong way up the fast lane!
People and animals co-exist here in ways that we have never experienced. In any built-up area you can guarantee to see cows, pigs and horses and half of the time, monkeys. Some of the cows don’t seem to belong to anyone; they just wander around. In Jaipur we saw a huge cow just walking down a shopping arcade!
I digress; we made it to Jaipur that day but headed for Amber Fort, which is 11km north of Jaipur. We parked up in the coach car-park, which was empty by 4pm and sat with our gin and tonics watching the sun set on this glorious fort. We went to the light and sound show that evening, where we learnt about the history of Amber and Rajasthan with a show that used the fort and palaces as a backdrop.
The next day we walked around the fort and the day after made our way into Jaipur for a touch more sight-seeing and a bit of shopping. Jaipur is also known as the Pink city. The old city is all painted in the same colour, we thought it more terracotta than pink, and is a great place to visit.
From Jaipur we headed south towards Udaipur. Chittorgarh is on the way and around 100km short of Udaipur. The town itself is not worth seeing, but the fort is the largest in Rajasthan and includes around 130 temples and around 4000 people who live in the old town and around the fort.
The Lonely Planet describes it as walking into a History Channel film set. They’re not wrong. The towers, temples and palaces are amazing. The road that runs round the fort is 13km long, so we got the bikes out and cycled round from building to building. The carvings on some of the temples were so intricate and ornate. Many of the temples you would associate more with SE Asia. On the way round as we stopped to look at a huge pool we went past a nursery and were invited in by Ajay. He showed us around and made us Chai. Mark and he had some really interesting discussions about the direction of Indian agriculture, British agriculture and farming and the encroaching GM and hybrid crops. We left with another email address – god knows how we will ever keep in touch with the people we meet! Most likely we won’t, but when you meet kind and hospitable people you leave hoping you will.
Anyhow, we’ll spend another day here as it is so peaceful and without the hustle and bustle that comes from having such densely populated towns and cities. Mark had a metal box made for the underside of the van in Jaipur and wants to fix it to the van today. I’ll do some cooking and cleaning. Isn’t this just like a Sunday at home?!
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