Rajasthan is a north western state in India. It is famous for its bright colors and great food. It's the largest state of India so it has a lot to offer from cities classified by color to sand dune deserts. Lavaniya, a girl in our hostel at the Daly College, rescued Lauren and I from Indore for the holidays and took us on a 10 day tour of her state. Lananiya's family has lots of history in this region as her grandparents were alive during partition and once ruled several villages as royals. Lauren and I were extremely lucky to get to travel with some of Rajasthan's finest!
Sawaimadhopur
Lauren, Lavaniya, and I were liberated from Daly College on the evening of the 22nd where we left to go spend the night at her Mamisas’ (aunts’) house before departing for Sawaimodhpur in the early morning. Waking up at 5:30 AM the next morning was no problem because we were finally getting out of Indore! All three of us and Lavaniya’s mom, who came in from Jaipur by train late the night before, piled in one of their old farm cars, a smaller and less bouncy version of a Ford Bronco, and took off. This road trip was probably one of my favorites out of all the hundreds of hours I’ve spent in Indian and American cars. We had a 10 hour journey in front of us but we weren’t stressed, we stopped at every fruit stand we came in contact with to eat their farm to table fruit (the vendors’ farms were right behind their fruit stands on the road), we ate lunch at a dhaba (roadside restaurant), and even made a quick break to take some photos in a sea of mustard flowers that turned the fields on either side of the road bright yellow. We eventually arrived at Sawaimodhopur our backs a little sore from all the bouncing around on the unpaved roads and a little cold from the change in the weather.
We arrived the 23rd evening and woke up the following morning at 5:30AM again, I know these people and their early mornings, for a safari! We were staying in a world heritage site hotel in one of the zones of Ranthumpor National Park. Our hotel used to be a palace/vacation home for one of the many kings of Rajasthan so it was very old but filled with lots of cool people. We met with Kailash Satyarthi, the man who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Malala Yuzafazi, and apparently a niece of JFK was staying in the room below us.
In the morning we all loaded up in our Gypsy cars, bundled up to fight the wind, and drove to one of the zones were a tiger had been spotted the day before. We were in one of the lucky safari cars because we saw two tigers! From what I hear this is pretty rare and it’s not uncommon for groups to spend hours roaming the park chasing tigers and still not spot one. Our first tiger was in thick grass taller than me and surrounded by at least 6 other safari tours who had beaten us to the scene. We saw the tiger’s stripes on its back before it disappeared into the tall grass. If I was a tiger and 200 people were doing a very bad job of whispering and trying to take a picture of me I would hide too. We drove around a little more for another 30 minutes spotting plenty of deer, annoying because if you see deer you know for sure a tiger isn’t around, until we were alerted again that a tiger was nearby. We drove up to a similar scene were several tours of people in trucks were ambling to see the tiger snoozing in the grass. We got a pretty good look at the guy since he was recovering from a food baby visible for miles, and the bloody carcass next to him was also a good indicator he had just helped himself to some deer breakfast. He wasn’t too lively so after 20 minutes of stalking a sleeping tiger we left and went to meet the tigers’ best friend, the trepei!
The trepei is give the nickname the tiger’s toothpick because when a tiger is finished eating it will allow this bird to pick the remaining food out of its teeth, a pretty solid symbiotic relationship if you ask me. We drove to a gargantuan baobab tree and after climbing around we fed the trepei out of our hands with the biscuits we brought along with us. Some of us did this more gracefully than others. Lauren, the animal and reptile extrodinare, fed the trepei as it sat on her hand. I did not handle my excitement as composed as Lauren did but I still fed the bird! I was not as smart at Lauren either because I intelligently left my gloves off so the trepei's spiky feet and pointy beak contributed to my major freak out.
That evening we celebrated Christmas eve, our multiple tiger spottings, and a birthday of one of our group members by having a bonfire on the roof of our hotel and, of course, dancing to some great Bollywood music. All in all it was a really fun Christmas eve!
In the morning we all loaded up in our Gypsy cars, bundled up to fight the wind, and drove to one of the zones were a tiger had been spotted the day before. We were in one of the lucky safari cars because we saw two tigers! From what I hear this is pretty rare and it’s not uncommon for groups to spend hours roaming the park chasing tigers and still not spot one. Our first tiger was in thick grass taller than me and surrounded by at least 6 other safari tours who had beaten us to the scene. We saw the tiger’s stripes on its back before it disappeared into the tall grass. If I was a tiger and 200 people were doing a very bad job of whispering and trying to take a picture of me I would hide too. We drove around a little more for another 30 minutes spotting plenty of deer, annoying because if you see deer you know for sure a tiger isn’t around, until we were alerted again that a tiger was nearby. We drove up to a similar scene were several tours of people in trucks were ambling to see the tiger snoozing in the grass. We got a pretty good look at the guy since he was recovering from a food baby visible for miles, and the bloody carcass next to him was also a good indicator he had just helped himself to some deer breakfast. He wasn’t too lively so after 20 minutes of stalking a sleeping tiger we left and went to meet the tigers’ best friend, the trepei!
The trepei is give the nickname the tiger’s toothpick because when a tiger is finished eating it will allow this bird to pick the remaining food out of its teeth, a pretty solid symbiotic relationship if you ask me. We drove to a gargantuan baobab tree and after climbing around we fed the trepei out of our hands with the biscuits we brought along with us. Some of us did this more gracefully than others. Lauren, the animal and reptile extrodinare, fed the trepei as it sat on her hand. I did not handle my excitement as composed as Lauren did but I still fed the bird! I was not as smart at Lauren either because I intelligently left my gloves off so the trepei's spiky feet and pointy beak contributed to my major freak out.
That evening we celebrated Christmas eve, our multiple tiger spottings, and a birthday of one of our group members by having a bonfire on the roof of our hotel and, of course, dancing to some great Bollywood music. All in all it was a really fun Christmas eve!
Jaipur
We spent the majority of Christmas in a car on our way to Jaipur. We split 15 people between one 5 seater car and one 7 seater car, not to mention all of our luggage we brought along with us as well. I was in the backseat of the kids’ car with 4 other people holding my newest best friend/cancerous cell, Amori, in my lap for the 6 hour drive. We ate some good dhaba food along the way so that helped make up for the tight seating accommodations. We arrived in Jaipur Christmas evening and spent the remaining hours of Christmas night in the India Officers’ Club, a hotel/cub exclusively for high ranking Indian officers, eating dinner and again dancing to more Bollywood. You can never escape Bollywood, I swear these songs will haunt me to my grave.
We spent one day in Jaipur and although I had fun it was kind of a bust. Vishvasheet Uncle, Lavaniya’s father, made a whole itinerary for us so that we may see the best sights in Jaipur in one day. Unfortunately, we did not know that morning the day would turn out to be record breaking in regards to tourist congestion and traffic jams. We spent an hour trying to reach our first destination, the Amir Fort, with our driver and personal body guard Subash Ji. I love Subash Ji so much so here’s a picture of him.
We spent one day in Jaipur and although I had fun it was kind of a bust. Vishvasheet Uncle, Lavaniya’s father, made a whole itinerary for us so that we may see the best sights in Jaipur in one day. Unfortunately, we did not know that morning the day would turn out to be record breaking in regards to tourist congestion and traffic jams. We spent an hour trying to reach our first destination, the Amir Fort, with our driver and personal body guard Subash Ji. I love Subash Ji so much so here’s a picture of him.
Even with Subash’s efforts to rid the streets of traffic jams and auto rickshaw walas in lala land with his menacing bamboo stick we still were stuck in standstill traffic for another two hours before we were informed the roads to get to the fort had been closed to cars and we decided to admit out defeat for that particular fort adventure, after all Rajasthan is full of palaces and forts so it wasn’t like we would never see another fort again. Here’s what we were able to see from our car.
From the Amir Fort we drove to the Old city of Jaipur, also called the Pink city, known for it’s salmon colored shops and Hawa Mahal - an elaborately carved wall for royal women to peer through while everyone shops. As I’m sure many people know, India is a place where bargaining is encouraged. I am a pro at this as I have mastered the ability to assume a passive attitude about everything even when I want that super cute scarf really, really badly. I don’t want to talk about everything I bought because it’s a little shameful but I will say Subash Ji made sure that, despite the infinite amount of crap I purchased, I didn’t break the bank. Spending a lot of money is kind of hard in general because everything is very cheap in comparison to American goods but still it’s nice to have an intimidating Indian police officer arguing with the dukandars (shopkeepers).
That evening we went to Chowki Dhani, a typical Rajasthani amusement park of sorts. They are famous for camel and elephant rides, Rajasthani food, music, and some of their carnival rides as well. While we were there I guess the elephants were on vacation so we mainly stuck to their Christopher Columbus swinging boat ride. India is just so amazing in that you can pay 20 rps (less than $1) and ride the Christopher Columbus that I’m pretty sure was so old it needed to be in a museum. The best part about this ride was that it operated on 70% man power! Yup, we started swinging because men were pushing and pulling the whole boat swing then as we built up speed one man would continuously crank a mysterious crank/stick shift back and forth and I’m very convinced that if he stopped cranking it we would have died. So Chowki Dhani, bust on elephant rides but a fun adventure in unregulated rollercoasters!
That evening we went to Chowki Dhani, a typical Rajasthani amusement park of sorts. They are famous for camel and elephant rides, Rajasthani food, music, and some of their carnival rides as well. While we were there I guess the elephants were on vacation so we mainly stuck to their Christopher Columbus swinging boat ride. India is just so amazing in that you can pay 20 rps (less than $1) and ride the Christopher Columbus that I’m pretty sure was so old it needed to be in a museum. The best part about this ride was that it operated on 70% man power! Yup, we started swinging because men were pushing and pulling the whole boat swing then as we built up speed one man would continuously crank a mysterious crank/stick shift back and forth and I’m very convinced that if he stopped cranking it we would have died. So Chowki Dhani, bust on elephant rides but a fun adventure in unregulated rollercoasters!
Bikaner
I liked to consider myself an animal person before my visit to Bikaner. I have two dogs, two cats, and 4 chickens and my family has had pet lizards, rats, and guinea pigs at home in the US but I guess all of those things weren’t enough to prepare me for this adventure.
One really cool aspect of Indian heritage sites is that there are so many you can turn a lot of them into 5 star hotels! In Bikaner we stayed in another palace owned by one of the Rajasthani royals. It was a beautiful palace, made out of sandstone and situated on the edge of a lake. This Mahal also housed many birds of multiple varieties. My bird watcher father would have been geeking out so hard he wouldn’t know which bird to pick to send to his best friend for their BOD (bird of the day). When there are that many birds above you flying around you start to get a little uneasy, worrying about your head being a landing ground for some bird poop. I, having seen multiple people been pooped on by the multitudes of pigeons that inhabit cities here, was overly cautious about the bird situation. Anyways, it was a beautiful hotel and even though I was wigging out about the birds they were nice to watch, especially the parrots!!
One really cool aspect of Indian heritage sites is that there are so many you can turn a lot of them into 5 star hotels! In Bikaner we stayed in another palace owned by one of the Rajasthani royals. It was a beautiful palace, made out of sandstone and situated on the edge of a lake. This Mahal also housed many birds of multiple varieties. My bird watcher father would have been geeking out so hard he wouldn’t know which bird to pick to send to his best friend for their BOD (bird of the day). When there are that many birds above you flying around you start to get a little uneasy, worrying about your head being a landing ground for some bird poop. I, having seen multiple people been pooped on by the multitudes of pigeons that inhabit cities here, was overly cautious about the bird situation. Anyways, it was a beautiful hotel and even though I was wigging out about the birds they were nice to watch, especially the parrots!!
After our failed tourist day in Jaipur our trend of closed roads followed us to Bikaner. The fort we were trying to see was inaccessible by the bus we were traveling in so we ended up driving around for a couple of hours. A new destination was eventually decided by the adults but I, just being along for the ride, was clueless about what was about to happen when our bus stopped and we unloaded. Lavaniya told me that we were going to “some temple”. I was totally neutral about visiting a temple, I mean all of my trips with my host family surrounded visiting temples. I was expecting to go in get my tikka (red dot on my forehead), take prashad, and maybe even a red thread around my wrist. I was way off. I had never been to or even heard of a temple like this.
We had arrived at the Ma Karni temple also known as the rat temple. Ma Karni is a goddess worshipped by those of a specific Hindu caste. As the story goes as the people who worshipped and served Ma Karni grew older they begged Ma Karni to keep them alive so that they may continue to serve her. Ma Karni told her devoted servants that they would be reincarnated as rats and they would continue to serve her that way. This temple, swarming with rats, is regarded as a place to honor ancestors and worship Karni Mata.
Thankfully Hinduism isn’t an exclusive religion and they are also very forgiving if you don’t have your whole heart in their customs. I think this openness and acceptance to foreigners comes from the diversity among castes and regions in how they practice Hinduism. Lavaniya’s family and the two other families we were traveling with were not from the caste that worships these rats so they were just as freaked out with the whole situation as I was. They didn’t want the rats to touch them they didn’t personally worship the rats they just respected that one caste’s belief the same way I respect all Hindus’ beliefs.
If I had to estimate I would say that there were over 2,000 rats living in the temple complex. The people running the temple appeared to be very comfortable with letting the rats touch them even climb over their feet and legs. I was not as graceful as others often screaming in terror anytime a rat ran remotely close to me begging someone to hold me. As with any Hindu tradition/story there was an auspicious meaning. If you happened upon the white rat you were lucky! I wasn’t lucky but a few other people in our family caravan saw it’s butt!
We had arrived at the Ma Karni temple also known as the rat temple. Ma Karni is a goddess worshipped by those of a specific Hindu caste. As the story goes as the people who worshipped and served Ma Karni grew older they begged Ma Karni to keep them alive so that they may continue to serve her. Ma Karni told her devoted servants that they would be reincarnated as rats and they would continue to serve her that way. This temple, swarming with rats, is regarded as a place to honor ancestors and worship Karni Mata.
Thankfully Hinduism isn’t an exclusive religion and they are also very forgiving if you don’t have your whole heart in their customs. I think this openness and acceptance to foreigners comes from the diversity among castes and regions in how they practice Hinduism. Lavaniya’s family and the two other families we were traveling with were not from the caste that worships these rats so they were just as freaked out with the whole situation as I was. They didn’t want the rats to touch them they didn’t personally worship the rats they just respected that one caste’s belief the same way I respect all Hindus’ beliefs.
If I had to estimate I would say that there were over 2,000 rats living in the temple complex. The people running the temple appeared to be very comfortable with letting the rats touch them even climb over their feet and legs. I was not as graceful as others often screaming in terror anytime a rat ran remotely close to me begging someone to hold me. As with any Hindu tradition/story there was an auspicious meaning. If you happened upon the white rat you were lucky! I wasn’t lucky but a few other people in our family caravan saw it’s butt!
After the tiring experience of coping with rats running wild we recuperated at a dhaba then went on to see the Junagarh Fort. This fort was glowing red and was enormous. And I guess because I was down on luck from not seeing the white rat and hating on birds earlier at our hotel karma lashed down on me with some pretty nasty bird shit. It was quite funny for everyone involved, my little kid shadows, Lavaniya, Lauren, and the amused fort security guard who was getting a kick out of the white girl flipping out about her hair. Besides being pooped on the fort was really cool! It was kind of similar to visiting the Alamo, just bigger in size. You go, you see some old stuff, you think, wow this stuff if all real and really old, then you leave.
Jaisalmer
Jaisalmer was probably my favorite city stop in our tour of Rajasthan. We “camped” in the desert, rode camels, and celebrated New Years!
We drove straight from Bikaner to our camping ground in the desert of Jaisalmer a couple kilometers away from the India/Pakistan border. We arrived right at sunset, perfect timing I know. We played in the sand for a while which brought back fond memories of my high school sophomore trip to the White Sands in New Mexico. That evening we enjoyed some more traditional Rajasthani music and dancing, by this point I was going a little crazy from the music. We saw them setting up the stage with a low mic for tublas and harmoniums and speakers and we all knew that could only mean one thing, late night Rajasthani music. Luckily I survived the music long enough to be able to enjoy the stars. This may sound lame but I haven’t seen a night sky with stars in it since I left home 5 months ago. Indore is a crazy metropolis and most Indian cities have too much pollution to see 100 yards in front of you at all times so it was nice to actually something my American family and I have fond memories surrounding.
We drove straight from Bikaner to our camping ground in the desert of Jaisalmer a couple kilometers away from the India/Pakistan border. We arrived right at sunset, perfect timing I know. We played in the sand for a while which brought back fond memories of my high school sophomore trip to the White Sands in New Mexico. That evening we enjoyed some more traditional Rajasthani music and dancing, by this point I was going a little crazy from the music. We saw them setting up the stage with a low mic for tublas and harmoniums and speakers and we all knew that could only mean one thing, late night Rajasthani music. Luckily I survived the music long enough to be able to enjoy the stars. This may sound lame but I haven’t seen a night sky with stars in it since I left home 5 months ago. Indore is a crazy metropolis and most Indian cities have too much pollution to see 100 yards in front of you at all times so it was nice to actually something my American family and I have fond memories surrounding.
The next morning we departed for camel rides! I rode Desert Boy with my permanent sidekick, Amori. Of course we picked the camel with the pink saddle because we only ride in style. Getting on the camel is no problem. When you mount your camel it is laying down so you just swing one leg over it’s back. The fun part comes when the camel stands up. It’s back legs extend first causing you to lurch forwards and feel like your going to be bucked off the front. Then the front legs follow and you’re raised up pretty high feeling like you’re going to be bucked off backwards. The good news is once you’re up you’re up! It’s kind of a bumpy endeavor so in order to make sure you don’t bounce your way into the sand below it helps to use your legs to grab onto the camel. This works well but be prepared your legs and back will be sore the following day causing you to feel like a grandma. We probably tramped around the dunes for 30-45 minutes before everyone got too hot and retired to the bus for shade.
After riding around the desert and seeing many of the tourist activities the Jaisalmer desert offers we made our way to Kuldhara. Kuldhara is the ruins of a village that housed 800+ people over 500 years ago. The story behind the village was that the tax collectors in the area were unjust and cruel and overnight the whole village marched away in the night leaving everything they had. All 800+ people were never found and no one knows where they went.
Our last day in Jaisalmer was New Years Eve! We started off by touring the Jaisalmer palace which is now a museum. We saw the affects of the silk road and who royals lived 200 years ago. We went shopping again because you can never have enough stuff from Rajasthan. That evening our hotel, another heritage site and old palace, hosted a party were really awful Bollywood remixes were played. Eh it was NYE so we didn’t care too much and dancing in Indian fashion until midnight then proceeded to eat all the leftover desserts from the buffet. I’ll admit it wasn’t a bad night and I really did have fun partying with a group of kids who held an average age of 13. The only odd part of my evening was at midnight. Obviously different cultures have different customs but it was still weird when the clock struck 12:00 and no one kissed. I easily could have predicted that no one would publicly kiss at midnight because Indian culture is extremely conservative when it comes to that area. Regardless it’s alway surprising when something so basic to your culture you don’t even consider it a part of your culture, you think it’s universal, is missing.
New years day was spent in a 6 hour bus ride to Jodhpur. Everyone was pretty tired from the night before so When we stopped to see a fort in between cities no one was particularly interested in anything besides food and napping in the grass.
We arrived in Jodhpur that evening and Lauren and I departed the next morning at 5:30AM for our 17 hour train ride back to Indore.
New years day was spent in a 6 hour bus ride to Jodhpur. Everyone was pretty tired from the night before so When we stopped to see a fort in between cities no one was particularly interested in anything besides food and napping in the grass.
We arrived in Jodhpur that evening and Lauren and I departed the next morning at 5:30AM for our 17 hour train ride back to Indore.