Showing posts with label India-Rajasthan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India-Rajasthan. Show all posts

Friday 1 March 2019

Meeting the Locals: Gujarat Part 3

Gujarat: The What, Where, When and Who


India
Gujarat

This post covers day 3 of a 14-day journey around Gujarat, following our circuit of Rajasthan last year. Smaller than Rajasthan, Gujarat is about the size of the Island of Great Britain and has much the same population.

5,000 years ago, Gujarat was a centre of the Indus Valley civilization and subsequently played its part in most of the major north Indian empires. When Islamic invaders reached northern India in the 9th century Gujarat held out until 1300 when it became part of the Delhi Sultanate.

Despite the lines on the map, today we drove straight from Ahmedabad to the resort of Jambudi across the border in Rajasthan. Fortunately Vijay knew how to occupy the non-driving time

An independent Muslim sultan seized power in 1391and Gujarat maintained its independence until becoming part of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century and later the British Empire, though local rulers of a patchwork of Princely States retained considerable autonomy. At independence in 1947 Gujarat became part of the State of Bombay, becoming a state in its own right in 1960.

With a long coast line facing the Arabian sea, Gujaratis have been seafarers and international traders for millennia.

Gujarat is the home state of both Mahatma Gandhi and the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Visiting the People of Rural Gujarat (and a Corner of Rajasthan)

At Vijay’s suggestion we reversed our programme for the next two days. Instead of driving north to Jambudi via Modhera, Patan and Siddhpur we could visit these places tomorrow and today we would meet some locals.

To Idar and Beyond

We set off north towards Gandhinagar. 23Km north of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar is the new purpose-built state capital, but the by-pass meant we saw very little of the city before heading into the countryside beyond.

Passing a man driving cattle along the other side of the dual carriageway we were seriously impressed by the horns of some of his cows. His turban is worth a look, too.

Fine horns, fine turban, somewhere near Idar

A couple of hours from Ahmedabad we passed through the small town of Idar (pop 29,000). Idar, Vijay informed us was once a princely state and as an employee (when not being a guide) of the Maharajah of Bavnagar, he was well informed on Gujarati royalty. There were 584 (largely) self-governing Princely States in India in 1947, 40 of them in Gujarat. Some were large and important, others, like Idar, less so. Being Maharajah of Idar sounds a bit like being King of Congleton but that was not always the case.

The remarkable Lieutenant-General Sir Pratap Singh served as Maharajah of Idar from 1902-1911. He was the younger brother of the Maharajah of Jodhpur – a major Princely State - where we encountered him last year. He was Chief Minister of Jodhpur before becoming a professional soldier and fighting for the British Empire in the 2nd Afghan War, in China during the Boxer Rebellion and as a senior commander in France and Flanders in 1915/16 before being deployed to the Palestinian Mandate. In between he was regent in Jodhpur after the early death of his brother, and again after the death of his nephew. He earlier took his polo team to London for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and riding britches have been called ‘jodhpurs’ ever since.

Sir Pratap Singh, Maharajah of Idar
Early 20th century, paint on photograph (public domain)

Beyond Idar we passed a man driving buffalo, wisely facing the on-coming traffic. From this angle it looks like man and beasts proceeding along a rural road….

Driving buffalo along a country road, north of Idar

…though a wider angle suggests it was a little scarier than that.

Another view of the same scene, seconds later

The livestock theme continued with a large mixed flock of sheep and goats…

Sheep and goats,north of Idar

…and then, with no animals but still far away from the world of Maharajah’s, two women carrying straw.

Carrying straw, north of Idar

We had been going for a little over three hours when Vijay asked L, the driver, to stop. It looked as unremarkable as any other piece of road, but Vijay clearly had something in mind. ‘Do you want to visit some tribals?’ he asked. We did.

Meeting the Locals

We followed Vijay across the fields towards the nearest house. We had an uncomfortable encounter last year in Rohet on a hotel organised ‘village safari’. The Brahmin guide told us at great length how important and spiritual Brahmin’s were and how lucky we were to have a Brahmin guide, then showed off his Bishnoi neighbours as though they were zoo animals. We hoped (and expected) this would be different; Vijay’s quiet confidence promised a much better experience than the Brahmin’s smug self-importance.

Our car is parked by the road, and I am following Vijay (though from the front, apparently)

The first visit did not go particularly well. We were invited in and seated ourselves on charpoys, but everybody except the man of the house hid in the back room. The man himself was somewhat taciturn, so we soon thanked him and left.

I did ask before taking the photo, but he still looks less than delighted

Walking another 100m across the fields to the next dwelling we met a very different welcome and were immediately ushered inside.

The house was a simple construction, the walls of mud and stone, and the roof – supported by roughly shaped branches of trees – was of thatch partially covered in aged, not quite haphazardly laid, pantiles. The floor was packed mud.

Round the back of the next house
There was no sign of electricity, but could that be a telephone line?

A pump stood in the yard but inside there was no running water and no electricity, light coming only through the open door and a hole in the roof – rain was months away.  Western prejudices might have suggested we expect otherwise, but our first impression was of orderliness and cleanliness. The mud floor was freshly swept, indeed groomed, the many shadowy corners that could have harboured dust and cobwebs had none and the family’s charpoys were neatly aligned, the bedding and spare clothing tidied away.

The kitchen occupying one end of the room was equally spotless. Gleaming cooking vessels sat on a stone surface, buckets perched on a plastic water barrel and a wall-rack held smaller cooking utensils and the family’s metal plates and cups. A row of tiny china tea-cups hung below the rack immediately below their saucers. The hearth and fire wood were in the alcove behind.

The matriarch had never met Vijay before, but talked and laughed with him as though he was her oldest friend and they had months of catching up to do. Vijay translated whenever he could, interrupting the torrent of words, and we were able to ask a few questions.

Times were not easy, she said, but her husband and oldest son were policemen so they had a reliable income. Fetching water was a chore as the ground water was salty and the pump gave water for washing (and possibly cooking) but not for drinking. She had rarely left the area, but was content with her life as she had all she needed around her. She had little curiosity about the outside world and asked us no questions (well, you might as well come from Mars, Vijay said).

Immensely proud of her family, she lined up her daughters, daughters-in-law and available grandchildren for a photo.

The whole family - the matrarch still laughing, still talking so slightly blurred

As we left one the daughters-in-law was fetching water and Lynne was soon pressed into service to do the pumping. After tasting the water I can vouch for its extreme saltiness.

Lynne pumps up the water

Back in the car I asked Vijay why he had referred to these people as ‘tribals’; were they, I wondered, a particular ethnic group? ‘No,’ he said (and these are not necessarily his exact words) ‘tribals was not accurate, they are the same as everybody else, they are people who have just been left behind.’

Left behind or not, I have rarely met such a cheerful and friendly group. Happiness and contentment do not, of course, come from possessions; far more important is the relationships you have with those around you. She also felt she had all she needed, which is easier to feel if you do not know what other people have. Some possessions would certainly enhance all their lives; if they had electricity, lights, a fridge and ceiling fan would do that. And a television would tell them about all the things others have and take for granted, and that might be the end of contentment. The women may live isolated lives, but with two policemen in the family the outside world cannot but seep in.

They can, and doubtless do, visit the nearby village, which is what we did next. It was market day and fans, fridges and TVs were there to be seen by everyone. They may be contented now, but I doubt the next generation will opt for a life of such simplicity.

The market at the nearby village

Wildwinds Resort, Jambudi

We reached our destination in time for a late lunch. The austere beauty of the rolling, arid hills was not enhanced by the Wildwinds Resort, indeed it is hard to imagine any landscape it would enhance.

The Widwinds Resort, Jambudi

The rooms, more accurately apartments, made up two sides of a square while reception, offices and the restaurant formed the other two. The exteriors might have been ugly, but the interior design was clean and modern if rather anonymous. With, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a sitting room and three televisions we had more than we needed.

So why has this ugly resort been plonked down among these hills, miles from anywhere? Simples! Gujarat has prohibition and Wildwinds is 200m across the state boundary in Rajasthan. We had the restaurant to ourselves for lunch; the paneer curry was acceptable but the beer was the best bottle of Kingfisher ever.

More Locals

After lunch we re-joined Vijay who suggested L drive us into the hills to meet more locals, an idea we would have welcomed even if there was something else to see round here.

Following the small road that had brought us to Wildwinds further north and a little deeper into Rajasthan, L parked at what Vijay deemed a likely spot and we followed a rough footpath up the hill.

We walked up the hillside from the road

The arid countryside did not look promising, but some fields were prepared for planting and the wandering livestock looked healthy. We reached a dwelling and a young woman came to the gate to talk to us. She was friendly, but on her own in the house and did not feel she could let us in, which was understandable.

100m further on we reached another house where we were invited in for a brief tour, though our host declined to be photographed. The concrete floor, ceiling fan and corrugated iron roof suggested they were better off than our friends of the morning, or at least more acquainted with modern times.

A concrete floor, ceiling fans and a corrugated iron roof.

Leaving the house, we passed a strange looking tree. It was the third or fourth we had seen and my initial thought was that the trees had a parasite, but that was way off. The tree is stuffed with hay, it was a way of storing animal fodder without the need for an expensive barn.

Animal fodder stored in a tree

I had thought we would find few dwellings in these arid hills but India is densely populated (a 50% higher density than the UK) and looking across to the opposite hillside we could see it thickly dotted with houses and shacks.

Dwellings dotted about the opposite hillside.

Across the road we were invited into another house. Our smiling host was surrounded by her grandchildren and said she wanted nothing else in life but this. She threw five of them onto a charpoy for a photograph. They were lively happy children, but when she ran through their ages, each one was a year, or even two, older than they looked.

Five grandchildren on a charpoy

She had seven pre-school grandchildren, so I had to a photograph the other two - and their grandmother and the mother of the youngest.

Youngest grandchildren, smiling Granny and the mother of the youngest

We met several other families who for various reasons could not invite us in, but nobody appeared hostile or suspicious, indeed everybody greeted us with smiles. This tells us much about the locals but some of the credit must also go to Vijay; he treated all with openness and respect and we were treated the same way in return.

All the people we met spoke Gujarati. From the late 1950s onwards, Indian states have been restructured along linguistic line, Gujarat being formed in 1960 by separating the Gujarati speaking north of the former Bombay State from the Marathi speaking south. The process is still ongoing, but this corner of Hindi speaking Rajasthan clearly speaks Gujarati.

Children were returning from school as we left, bowling hoops down the road as they went.

Bowling hoops in the road

Dinner and Breakfast at Wildwinds

Back at the resort we found the lure of legal alcohol was limited. It was Friday night and apart from a young Indian couple we were the only people there. We dined, as we lunched, alone but with a beer.

02-Mar-2019

Breakfast was chaotic. At first there were no staff, then a man turned up and produced tea and fruit. Later bread and butter arrived and, in the fullness of time, an omelette.

Scary Incident with a Suitcase

Before going to breakfast the combination lock on one of our suitcases made a strange crunch when Lynne closed it. Returning to our room we found it would not open. Like all such cases there is a keyhole intended to allow access by customs authorities. The collected wisdom of the internet says it is easy to pick, but having lived sheltered lives we doubted we had the necessary skill, and indeed we didn’t.

The lock has three tumblers so, given time it should be possible to try every combination, starting at 000 and finding the answer before 999. Unfortunately, we did not have time. 200m from the hotel we had to re-enter dry Gujarat, and there was a barrier and two men with official armbands lounging in the shade waiting to leap out and check the rare cars that came down that road. In our hold-all we had a bottle of Old Monk rum and one of Maqintosh’s (sic) whisky, but the liquor permit allowing me, as a foreigner to possess these forbidden delights was firmly locked in an un-openable suitcase.

L, out driver, was at reception waiting to drive us across the border to the small town of Ambaji and pick up Vijay from his lodging. I explained the problem as we checked out, and we soon found the hotel staff were keener to help pick our lock than they had been to serve breakfast. It was, I suppose, encouraging, if unhelpful, to find their lock-picking skills were as underdeveloped as ours.

There was nothing for it, we would have to talk or bribe our way into Gujarat – or have the next ten days' nightcaps confiscated.

Lock picking. The Hotel staff show plenty of enthusiasm but no expertise

We drove to the border. L slowed down, one of men with armbands rose from his chair and walked towards us. I looked him in the eye and smiled and he waved us through.



Thursday 8 February 2018

Ranthambhore: Rajasthan Part 13

India
Rajasthan
This post covers days 15 and 16 of a 16-day journey around Rajasthan.

The size of Germany, Rajasthan is the largest of India’s 29 states. With the Thar Desert covering the north and west it is one of India’s less densely populated states, though with 200 people per km² (the same as Italy) it is hardly empty.

Ranthambhore, the last stop on the circuit

In the 11th and 12th centuries the rise of the Rajputs created some 20 or so petty kingdoms ruled by Maharajas - the ‘Rajput Princes’. These kingdoms, at first independent, later vassal states of the Mughal or British Empires survived until 1947, when the Maharajahs led their ‘Princely States’ into the new Union of India, creating Rajasthan (the ‘Land of Princes’). The rulers became constitutional monarchs until 1971 when the Indian government ended their official privileges and abolished their titles. ‘Maharaja’ is now a courtesy title, but most remain leading members of their communities and some are still immensely rich. Several, like their British counterparts, have supplemented their income by turning forts and palaces into tourist attractions and hotels.

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Hunting Big Cats in the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

07-Feb-2018

Bundi to Sawai Madhopur

The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve is a 3-hour drive from Bundi. It might have been a little quicker if Umed had believed the road signs rather than his sat nav, but a final circular tour of Bundi was enjoyable. Despite some narrow roads we reached Sawai Madhopur around midday and checked in to one of the half a dozen or more resort hotels lining the road to the nearby Tiger Sanctuary.

Narrow roads between Bundi and Ranthambhore

Being on full board we were soon making our way past the swimming pool to the huge dining area for the lunchtime buffet. It was not an experience we would care to repeat, though we were doomed to do exactly that in the evening. I will whine about it at greater length later.

Ranthambhore Tiger Hunt (1)

After lunch, we joined the scrum in the lobby as large groups, small groups, couples and individuals were assigned to buses and jeeps for tiger hunting. The proceedings appeared chaotic but despite the apparent disorder everybody was on a list somewhere. We were among the last to leave, which was frustrating but we appreciated the benefits of staggering arrivals at the reserve.

Passing a camel cart as we leave the hotel

We set off in a jeep with driver, guide and three other passengers, the five of us in two tiered seats so we all had a good view. Beyond the town we paused at one of the reserve entrances to be signed in. Each vehicle was allocated to one of the seven or eight sections of the reserve, thus spreading everybody out and avoiding the self-defeating anarchy we experienced at Yala in Sri Lanka. Whether any of the resident tigers are visiting your section is a matter of luck, we had failed (twice) at Nagarhole Park much further south, but Ranthambhore offers the best tiger spotting opportunity anywhere in India so we were cautiously optimistic.

Cautious optimism at the reserve entrance.

We set off and soon encountered an owl; not quite a tiger, but a good start.

An owl watches us enter the ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Ten minutes passed before we saw the first of many spotted deer.

Spotted deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

At one of the tiger’s favoured watering holes we sat and watched, but all we saw was two more spotted deer (not looking particularly nervous) and a great egret.

Tiger's watering hole with spotted deer and an egret, but no tigers, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We saw lots more spotted deer….

Spotted deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve
I have dozens of pictures of spotted deer, and will spare you any more

….and some larger sambar deer but no sign of a tiger.

Sambar deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We toured around, waiting and watching at likely spots. Occasionally we encountered other vehicles and the guides swapped information – mostly telling each other there were no tigers in our sector today. The countryside was beautiful….

Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

….and we encountered an impressive sambar stag…

Sambar stag, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

… and another sambar demonstrating that the best leaves are always just out of reach, but no tigers.

A sambar stag finds the best food is just out of reach, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After 90 fruitless minutes we took a break, driving into a clearing where several other jeeps had collected. The air was full of large, colourful birds, swooping over the cars and sometimes landing on them while their fellows sat bickering in the trees. The rufous treepie is one of the more brightly coloured and musical of the crow family with a three-part call consisting of a bark, a higher wheedling reply and occasional manic laughter. They are noisy but it is strangely un-birdlike and I was embarrassingly slow to connect the sounds and birds.

Rufous treepie, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Legs duly stretched we resumed our hunt, but for the next hour and a half all we saw were more deer and a male nilgai, a large, rather ungainly, antelope also known as 'blue bull'. The males are recognisable by their small horns – distinctly different from deer’s antlers.

Male Nilgai, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Leopard

We returned to the entrance, hoping that tomorrow morning’s trip would be more productive. Several jeep-loads were being signed out and I do not know whether it was a driver, guide or tourist who first spotted what appeared, possibly, to be the head of a leopard sitting above us on a crag a hundred metres or more away.

Is that a rock or a leopard? Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After carefully peering I decided it was just an odd shaped rock, but changed my mind when the ‘rock’ sat up.

It looks more like a leopard, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Then it stood and loped easily to the top of the crag where it settled down to watch us. The view was distant, but it was undoubtedly a leopard, and it showed itself for several minutes. It went some way to make up for the rest of the afternoon’s disappointment.

Undoubtedly a leopard, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Returning to the hotel during rush hour, we found the local buses were packed.

Rush hour bus, Ranthambhore

Dining and other Disasters

Back at the hotel we compared notes with others, roughly half of those we talked to had seen a tiger – several had made multiple sightings. Today we had been among the unlucky ones, but maybe tigers prefer the cool of the early morning, there were grounds for optimism tomorrow.

Dinner was as dire as lunch. Poor food is usually the fault of the kitchen, but here much of the blame must be shouldered by the diners, 100% of them European and mostly our fellow countrymen and women. A few Indian choices lurked among the dishes of boiled cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes and stir-fried peppers and onions. We watched one large British tour party pass down the buffet without one person choosing a single Indian option. The member of staff walking purposefully round the room with a heaped plate of chapattis succeeded in giving away only two.

To be fair the staff were trying but were meeting resistance. We watched one girl of eleven or so being gently cajoled into trying something new, and she was almost there when a woman – granny we guessed – grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away saying ‘you don’t want any of that.’

But the Indian dishes, we discovered were no better. In the belief that Europeans do not like spicy food they had removed all the spices, not just chilli, but the non-hot spices as well, possibly even the salt and pepper, the result was so bland it was barely edible. As we left next morning, we met the manager who was touring round speaking to departing guests. I took this up with him and he agreed it was awful, but it was, he told us, the only way to persuade tourists to try it. They could, he added, have given us good Indian food if we had notified them in advance, but as we had no way of knowing what was coming….. I do not think he is blameless; some people will rise to a challenge and although British ‘Indian’ restaurants are of hugely variable quality, there are many that thrive on giving their customers a genuine taste of Indian flavours.

We did not have a restful night, a wedding party, off-site but well within earshot, kept up their chanting until 3am.

08-Feb-18

Ranthambhore Tiger Hunt (2)

Undeterred we were up early and back in the lobby for the apparent chaotic allocation of people to transport. Again, it all worked out and we were in the park looking for tigers just after sunrise.

Sunrise over Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

In a different, hillier section of the park on a bright, chilly morning there seemed every reason to be brimming with optimism.

A hiller section of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

But although our surroundings were beautiful, the animals did not come out to play.

Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

There were even fewer deer and antelopes than yesterday. Photographs of peacocks were all we added to yesterday’s list and although such ungainly creatures seem unlikely survivors in the wild, they are abundant everywhere.

Peacock, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We did see a tree that had been gnawed by a porcupine, but no sign of the gnawer.

Porcupine gnawings, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After a couple of hours fruitless searching we returned crest-fallen to the hotel for breakfast. This has been our fourth attempt to see tigers and fourth failure. Over breakfast we again found that many others had been more fortunate, so our repeated failures are either bad luck or a plot by the tigers. Are some humans in league with them passing on information about exactly where we are going? I think we should be told.

Back to Jaipur and then Home

We set off after a late breakfast. Delhi was seven or eight hours away, so we were making the shorter – though not short - drive to Jaipur and then flying Delhi. We had not known when we agreed this that while we were flying, Umed would be driving the same route below us. It made little sense, but we went ahead anyway.

En route we saw more of the waddling straw-carriers that had been a feature of the early days of this trip.

Straw carrier waddling along somewhere in the road to Jaipur

Lunch was at a bright modern transport café way out in the middle of nowhere. No ‘tourist food’ here and Lynne’s vegetable pakoras and my paneer pasanda while not being Rajasthan’s finest food went a long way to erasing the sad memories of the last hotel’s fare. We did not know it at the time, but it would be the last proper Indian meal of this trip.

We passed through the wonderfully named town of Tonk and enjoyed several detours trying to find passable roads.

This probably isn't Tonk, but it is somewhere on the road

We reached Jaipur with ample time to check-in for our 19.15 flight and say goodbye to Umed who had been utterly reliable throughout and a fine travelling companion.

The flight was delayed and by the time we reached our airport hotel in Delhi it was 11pm and the restaurant had closed. Next morning who should turn up for our airport transfer than Umed himself making the irritating little flight even more pointless.

And that was it for this trip. The Great Tiger Conspiracy had made the last couple of days an anti-climax, but overall it had been a wonderful and memorable experience.

Finally, thanks to Pioneer Personalized Holidays in Kochi and particularly to Dheeraj whose organisation of the whole trip had been faultless. Thanks also to Adrian who phoned us from Kochi every couple of days to check we were still thriving, and most of all to Umed who did all the hard work at the sharp end.