Post by Blank on Oct 23, 2010 6:07:20 GMT -5
Late tonight, Yasmin and I at arrived Delhi Intl airport. There were a lot of people coming in for the much talked about Commonwealth Games, but we’re not here for that; this is a 10 day trip into Rajastan we’re on, Yasmin is writing a piece about the trip, and doing some photos for Harpers Magazine, & I’m carrying the bags. It’s my first ever trip to India, and we are going to visit some splendidid places and stay in some very fancy hotels.
We’ve checked into the Leela Palace hotel near the airport, and after a slow, hot bath watching Anne Hathaway in a period drama on telly through the bathroom’s glass wall, it’s bed because tomorrow we’ve got an early flight to Jodhpur; that’s right, the place where the New Romantic trousers come from.
We were woken early and tired by the sound of Delhi’s rush hour getting into full swing. Breakfast in a bustle of business people and tourists, piped bhangra, omlette bar. This seems like a place where things happen.
Drive to the domestic terminal.
The way people drive here deserves a mention. Cars and trucks and vans and little three wheeler taxis called auto-rickshaws, decked out w/ chrome and badges; they are all racing each other on the town and country roads, and the motorways. Nobody wants to be overtaken or have to brake for a slower vehicle in his path. Consequently, everyone is weaving between lanes, straddling the broken white lines.
Arriving in Jodhpur.
As I step off the plane onto the metal steps it’s the first time the heat hits me; feels like a big heavy, slightly soggy mattress just got dropped on me. 40degrees C is one thing when you see it printed on a page of news sheet, quite another when it’s bearing down on the top of your head.
Late addition to the itinerary: The Maharajah of Jodhpur has heard that we are in town and has invited us to a cocktail party he is throwing for the British High Comission; Guests of honour – HRHs Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Earl of Wessex, i.e. Charles, Camilla and Edward. The party is to take place at Balsamand Lake Palace, one of many palaces in MoJ’s private collection I am informed.
The cocktail party.
At 5.30pm an Indian guy calls up in a bit of a flap.
“Please Mr Bon, party already started, Prince Charles there, can you go in 10 minutes please!”
“Impossible” I say, “we were told it was a six-thirty ride up the hill. We might be ready by six o’clock, but right now I’m butt nekk waiting for the shower.”
“Okay, six o’clock good sir”.
Going to meet royalty and we’re in a rush.
“Is that a general royal policy?” Y asks me, “You know to keep the commoners on their toes?”
The do was fine. Beautiful setting , on a terrace overlooking the lake, just as the sun fell away behind the hills. British commissioners in charcoal suits; Indian gentlemen in the afore-mentioned New Romantic trousers, i.e. Jodhpurs, some turbans, tropical jackets and one set of magnificent handlebar moustaches. Prince Charles very friendly and relaxed as he desribed Camilla on a jewelry binge frenzy in Delhi. Ah, how the other half live, I mused.
Then after fireworks, half of which detonated just under the surface of the lake; the other half most impressively just above, it was back to the day room; quick change; manic packing, followed by a manic two hour car journey on unlit pot-holed roads into the oncoming glare of big bus headlights on full beam. Well, she did promise me first class travel!
The drive from Balsamand Lake Palace out to Nagaur took two dusty, bumpy, headlight flashing, horn humping hours. But my goodness it was worth every minute of it to get here. This place is beautiful and I haven’t even seen it by daylight yet. I’m standing in a raised courtyard which is illuminated by the soft glow of what seems like a thousand little oil lamps set into a thousand little niches, row upon row of them in two of the walls which surround us. There is a North Indian eight piece musical combo getting down and dirty in the corner, and they haven’t even got into their full groove yet. We’re waiting for his highness, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, MoJ for short, to arrive and join us for dinner. We are his guests but he’s running late and we’ve been told to start eating coz the evening’s really getting on, so much that it feels as though it might start getting light soon. But I know that’s the jetlag talking.
Let the feast begin.
I will not need to eat anything for a week … Seriously!
Nagaur
Waking up late.
I guess the last days have finally caught up with me: The show in Paris; the midnight drive to Calais; swapping cars; the tunnel; the drive from Ashford back to home; the frantic pack; the dash to LHR T5; the flight to Delhi … etc. … all meant, it was quite pleasant to stay in this royal Indian suite and sleep, until the morning slid into the afternoon and I slid out of bed onto the sandstone floor.
This place is amazing; Ranvas Hotel; a renovated section of the 17th Century palace inside the walls of Nagaur Fort or Achatragurh. This area, called the Havelas, is where the the queens used to reside in their self contained apartments, eight of them surrounding a large stone quadrangle and garden. It’s all owned by the MoJ (another in his private collection of palaces). This is a very fine place to stay indeed.
Achatragurh (roughly translates as: fort on the hill where the elephant accidentally trod on a chicken which squawked as the sun rose in serenity …)
Making our way through a maze of rooms stairways and passages, trying to remember the way we came last night to dinner. Through a dark room where a pair of palanquins stand in attendance for a princess who’ll never come, then through another doorway and out into the light…Into a great lime floored square, three acres of formal stone garden, with dry fountain pools and pavillions. Great kites climbing the thermal off this hot flatness, and pigeons calling from broken stone lattice windows stories above.
You get the feeling that you’re standing in the resonating echo of some spectacular happening, like the leftover empty space two hundred years after the mother of all parties. Actually, I think this is the place where Elizabeth Hurley got married to Arun Nayar.
I guess you’ll have to see some pics to really get it.
Nagaur
I am standing in the middle of a dusty, bustling town square by a motely collection of auto-rickshaws, three wheeler scooters, with a roof and generally a lot of faux- chrome adornment, which serve as low cost taxis all over this big country. The sound of diesel, petrol and two stroke engines along with all their accompanying horns and klaxons, which are in necessarily constant use, is almost deafening. It is very noisy and I have to shout just to hear myself think. Y is the focus of attention as she poses with the ease and poise of the professional model that she is, while Luiz Radao crouching oblivious to anything that’s not in the viewfinder, takes the photos on a large format camera. And all this is going on in the midst of a ring of grinning, clucking, fascinated onlookers. The crowd which now numbers thirty is growing by the second.
Hey! Anyone wanna be in the movies?
The Red Fort
It’s big, it’s red, it’s got cannons on the ramparts, it’s known as the Big Red Fort. And now you know that – you don’t need to go!
If that was true it would actually be the perfect travel blog, but it’s not! …True, I mean.
I’ve done an awful lot of fort already on this trip it seems. This one took my breath away. It’s scale is incredible, it is so high up, with galleries overlooking the vertiginous red cliff drop -”Don’t call me highness, coz it’s a long way down.” As well as it being jammed with amazing views, exquisite palace suites and a hell of a lot of people wandering around wearing headphones (audio guides mostly), there is, if you looked carefully, in an alcove off a courtyard, shaded from the bright desert sun, a gentleman hirsute wth prodigious handlebar facial … which, if Dan Brown was writing this, he would probably refer to as “forestry”. Anyway, he sits in his alcove fondling a hookah (no pun intended) and quietly describing the positive qualities of opiates to sceptical visitors who last heard the old lie about opium being “really good strong medicine” outside the gates or behind the bike sheds when they were at secondary school.
Don’t get me wrong, that bit was just plain funny, and bizarrely enough, typical of a lot of things in India where you’ll find quite a lot of randomness. The Mehrangarh Fort is, for many reasons, an amazing place to visit.
Have a look at some pictures.
A lot of hotel
In Jodhpur we stay at the Raas Hotel. Right in the middle of the town. Built entirely in the same red sandstone which gives the hotel’s backdrop, i.e Mehrangarh Fort it’s nickname. This is a modern boutique hotel based on the modern european model with some very Indian twists e.g. amazing unselfconsious service, with a smile that’s ever so slightly (at first, before you get used to it) disconcerting. It is a gesture, which is so typically Indian, where the head is simultaneously nodded and shaken – it means “Yes.” I find myself not wanting to leave this place; a feeling, I fear, I will be experiencing more in this wonderful country. Here’s one of the reasons why: In the fading light after sundown at the bar which is on the roof of the restaurant; sitting in a warm dry breeze with a cold beer. The night comes on with the unique smell of cooking spices on wood fires. Where in our great western cities we would be listening to the sounds of police sirens, fire trucks braying and car horns impatient in the traffic jams… What to my ears seems like the sounds of complaint. Here it’s drums and people singing in the distance; a weave of sound system overlaid on sound system; then fireworks popping, far and near, all over the city. It’s a joyful sound, like the mother of all dusk parties, and it’s every night.
A whole lotta drivin’ goin’ on.
(and a temple in the middle)
I’ve been in this car now for the past three hours. Much as it was a pain to drag my bones out from under the shadow of the Red Fort, it feels good to be on the road again. Last night we spent at the Taj Palace hotel; also in Jodhpur. It’s the art deco palace built by the MoJ’s father, the previous MoJ that would be. It’s an entirely new experience, “a whole different ballgown” you might say – I know Yassy would. It’s very regal, not surprising as the MoJ maintains his main home in a wing, separated of course from the rest of the hotel. I mean, even if I wanted to bang on his French windows shouting “eh Babji, fancy a martini in the bar?” I couldn’t.
There is a museum attached. It seems to be primarily a place to hang pics and photos of moustachioed gentlemen (many on the portly side) who sport turbans, sashes and swords – very dashing!
Well, we got out if there, I can tell you. And now we’re on our way to see the Jain Temple at Ranakpur, which was franky quite beautiful. (Note: the internet being the interactive medium that it is, I would like you to go online and google-up yerself some images of said temple). Or, put another way, I carelessly left my camera on the car.
(from the internet)
Now we’re on a proper motorway driving down towards Udaipur. Now I did say “proper motorway” and it is, except for the fact that there’s cows lying down in in the middle of it every now and then – we just had to negotiate our way through a proper herd of them -and what’s even more disconcerting is the not infrequent passage of various motor vehicles, noteably great big diesel trucks full of rubble trailing clouds of dust which come speeding at you head on, your side of the median, the wrong way up the dual carriageway!
Well, they promised excitement.
Shopping frenzy!
Yasmin got:
7x hand woven raw pashmina shawls, called ring scarves coz it’s so fine, you can pull it through a wedding ring; 1x marble painted Ganesha (don’t ask!); 10x leather bound notenooks/diarys of varying size and colour; 2x black marble candle come incence holders; assorted coffee table books mostly about Rajasthan; 2kgs of spices – all kinds; jewellry, oh dear! An awful lot of jewellry.
And me, what did I get? I’ll tell you, I got a bag of tea.
Nobody said life was fair.
We have our own pool; see the picture. But it does worry me slightly. We are staying at the Oberoi Udaivilas, Udaipur. And I have to say that something I’ve come to recognise at the Oberoi chain is that they encourage the guests to keep to themselves with things like: private pools; private dining areas inside your villa walls; the bar just doesn’t make you want to hang out there, let alone talk to any strangers, i.e. fellow guests. No, I think it’s a hotel chain designed with couples in mind which, I suppose is fine if you’re honeymooning. Don’t get me wrong now, this is a fine, very well appointed hotel with a very friendly staff and great service. Still, after an al fresco dining experience entertained by “local cultural performing artistes”, I’m sitting here on a 2nd Empire style chair in a sumptuous chequered marble room, and I’m pining for something a little more dusty and crumbling, something a little more Indian.
An hour into the drive out to Devi Garh we stop in a dusty car park. Our driver, Mr. Bihari, points us up a dusty track; “not yet” I tell him ” I need to… you know… my tummy!” He calls something in Hindi and a small boned barefoot lady in red and green traditional Indian apparel appears on the hillside and makes her way over to a shed set above the car park. I spend way too long in there. So when I come back out into the sunlight after an extended period of ablution, I give her not one but two slightly soggy 10 rupee notes – no hand towel had to dry on the back of my trousers.
I feel that this will not be my only visit to small dark rooms today.
A deserted Hindu temple in a green field under trees. How beautiful it is. A far cry from yesterday’s visit to Mewar Fort in Udaipur which was just crawling with sightseers; local guides whipping their groups through there. No, it’s quiet here; you can hear the birds.
Anyway here are some pictures to look at:
Later we arrived at Devi Gar. Which is a… you guessed it… it’s a fort! It is a fort which someone has taken the trouble to turn into the most amazing hotel. Really wonderful design, keeping the original floor plans, which mean that nearly every room is different. I really enjoyed wandering around this place. Later we were treated to a fine meal. They’d asked us what we wanted to eat and all I could say was “whatever it is make it light”. And they did absolutely do just that. I’m not much cop at food writing so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Sorry no food pics either, but here’s some of Devi Gar itself.
The end.
We’ve checked into the Leela Palace hotel near the airport, and after a slow, hot bath watching Anne Hathaway in a period drama on telly through the bathroom’s glass wall, it’s bed because tomorrow we’ve got an early flight to Jodhpur; that’s right, the place where the New Romantic trousers come from.
We were woken early and tired by the sound of Delhi’s rush hour getting into full swing. Breakfast in a bustle of business people and tourists, piped bhangra, omlette bar. This seems like a place where things happen.
Drive to the domestic terminal.
The way people drive here deserves a mention. Cars and trucks and vans and little three wheeler taxis called auto-rickshaws, decked out w/ chrome and badges; they are all racing each other on the town and country roads, and the motorways. Nobody wants to be overtaken or have to brake for a slower vehicle in his path. Consequently, everyone is weaving between lanes, straddling the broken white lines.
Arriving in Jodhpur.
As I step off the plane onto the metal steps it’s the first time the heat hits me; feels like a big heavy, slightly soggy mattress just got dropped on me. 40degrees C is one thing when you see it printed on a page of news sheet, quite another when it’s bearing down on the top of your head.
Late addition to the itinerary: The Maharajah of Jodhpur has heard that we are in town and has invited us to a cocktail party he is throwing for the British High Comission; Guests of honour – HRHs Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Earl of Wessex, i.e. Charles, Camilla and Edward. The party is to take place at Balsamand Lake Palace, one of many palaces in MoJ’s private collection I am informed.
The cocktail party.
At 5.30pm an Indian guy calls up in a bit of a flap.
“Please Mr Bon, party already started, Prince Charles there, can you go in 10 minutes please!”
“Impossible” I say, “we were told it was a six-thirty ride up the hill. We might be ready by six o’clock, but right now I’m butt nekk waiting for the shower.”
“Okay, six o’clock good sir”.
Going to meet royalty and we’re in a rush.
“Is that a general royal policy?” Y asks me, “You know to keep the commoners on their toes?”
The do was fine. Beautiful setting , on a terrace overlooking the lake, just as the sun fell away behind the hills. British commissioners in charcoal suits; Indian gentlemen in the afore-mentioned New Romantic trousers, i.e. Jodhpurs, some turbans, tropical jackets and one set of magnificent handlebar moustaches. Prince Charles very friendly and relaxed as he desribed Camilla on a jewelry binge frenzy in Delhi. Ah, how the other half live, I mused.
Then after fireworks, half of which detonated just under the surface of the lake; the other half most impressively just above, it was back to the day room; quick change; manic packing, followed by a manic two hour car journey on unlit pot-holed roads into the oncoming glare of big bus headlights on full beam. Well, she did promise me first class travel!
The drive from Balsamand Lake Palace out to Nagaur took two dusty, bumpy, headlight flashing, horn humping hours. But my goodness it was worth every minute of it to get here. This place is beautiful and I haven’t even seen it by daylight yet. I’m standing in a raised courtyard which is illuminated by the soft glow of what seems like a thousand little oil lamps set into a thousand little niches, row upon row of them in two of the walls which surround us. There is a North Indian eight piece musical combo getting down and dirty in the corner, and they haven’t even got into their full groove yet. We’re waiting for his highness, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, MoJ for short, to arrive and join us for dinner. We are his guests but he’s running late and we’ve been told to start eating coz the evening’s really getting on, so much that it feels as though it might start getting light soon. But I know that’s the jetlag talking.
Let the feast begin.
I will not need to eat anything for a week … Seriously!
Nagaur
Waking up late.
I guess the last days have finally caught up with me: The show in Paris; the midnight drive to Calais; swapping cars; the tunnel; the drive from Ashford back to home; the frantic pack; the dash to LHR T5; the flight to Delhi … etc. … all meant, it was quite pleasant to stay in this royal Indian suite and sleep, until the morning slid into the afternoon and I slid out of bed onto the sandstone floor.
This place is amazing; Ranvas Hotel; a renovated section of the 17th Century palace inside the walls of Nagaur Fort or Achatragurh. This area, called the Havelas, is where the the queens used to reside in their self contained apartments, eight of them surrounding a large stone quadrangle and garden. It’s all owned by the MoJ (another in his private collection of palaces). This is a very fine place to stay indeed.
Achatragurh (roughly translates as: fort on the hill where the elephant accidentally trod on a chicken which squawked as the sun rose in serenity …)
Making our way through a maze of rooms stairways and passages, trying to remember the way we came last night to dinner. Through a dark room where a pair of palanquins stand in attendance for a princess who’ll never come, then through another doorway and out into the light…Into a great lime floored square, three acres of formal stone garden, with dry fountain pools and pavillions. Great kites climbing the thermal off this hot flatness, and pigeons calling from broken stone lattice windows stories above.
You get the feeling that you’re standing in the resonating echo of some spectacular happening, like the leftover empty space two hundred years after the mother of all parties. Actually, I think this is the place where Elizabeth Hurley got married to Arun Nayar.
I guess you’ll have to see some pics to really get it.
Nagaur
I am standing in the middle of a dusty, bustling town square by a motely collection of auto-rickshaws, three wheeler scooters, with a roof and generally a lot of faux- chrome adornment, which serve as low cost taxis all over this big country. The sound of diesel, petrol and two stroke engines along with all their accompanying horns and klaxons, which are in necessarily constant use, is almost deafening. It is very noisy and I have to shout just to hear myself think. Y is the focus of attention as she poses with the ease and poise of the professional model that she is, while Luiz Radao crouching oblivious to anything that’s not in the viewfinder, takes the photos on a large format camera. And all this is going on in the midst of a ring of grinning, clucking, fascinated onlookers. The crowd which now numbers thirty is growing by the second.
Hey! Anyone wanna be in the movies?
The Red Fort
It’s big, it’s red, it’s got cannons on the ramparts, it’s known as the Big Red Fort. And now you know that – you don’t need to go!
If that was true it would actually be the perfect travel blog, but it’s not! …True, I mean.
I’ve done an awful lot of fort already on this trip it seems. This one took my breath away. It’s scale is incredible, it is so high up, with galleries overlooking the vertiginous red cliff drop -”Don’t call me highness, coz it’s a long way down.” As well as it being jammed with amazing views, exquisite palace suites and a hell of a lot of people wandering around wearing headphones (audio guides mostly), there is, if you looked carefully, in an alcove off a courtyard, shaded from the bright desert sun, a gentleman hirsute wth prodigious handlebar facial … which, if Dan Brown was writing this, he would probably refer to as “forestry”. Anyway, he sits in his alcove fondling a hookah (no pun intended) and quietly describing the positive qualities of opiates to sceptical visitors who last heard the old lie about opium being “really good strong medicine” outside the gates or behind the bike sheds when they were at secondary school.
Don’t get me wrong, that bit was just plain funny, and bizarrely enough, typical of a lot of things in India where you’ll find quite a lot of randomness. The Mehrangarh Fort is, for many reasons, an amazing place to visit.
Have a look at some pictures.
A lot of hotel
In Jodhpur we stay at the Raas Hotel. Right in the middle of the town. Built entirely in the same red sandstone which gives the hotel’s backdrop, i.e Mehrangarh Fort it’s nickname. This is a modern boutique hotel based on the modern european model with some very Indian twists e.g. amazing unselfconsious service, with a smile that’s ever so slightly (at first, before you get used to it) disconcerting. It is a gesture, which is so typically Indian, where the head is simultaneously nodded and shaken – it means “Yes.” I find myself not wanting to leave this place; a feeling, I fear, I will be experiencing more in this wonderful country. Here’s one of the reasons why: In the fading light after sundown at the bar which is on the roof of the restaurant; sitting in a warm dry breeze with a cold beer. The night comes on with the unique smell of cooking spices on wood fires. Where in our great western cities we would be listening to the sounds of police sirens, fire trucks braying and car horns impatient in the traffic jams… What to my ears seems like the sounds of complaint. Here it’s drums and people singing in the distance; a weave of sound system overlaid on sound system; then fireworks popping, far and near, all over the city. It’s a joyful sound, like the mother of all dusk parties, and it’s every night.
A whole lotta drivin’ goin’ on.
(and a temple in the middle)
I’ve been in this car now for the past three hours. Much as it was a pain to drag my bones out from under the shadow of the Red Fort, it feels good to be on the road again. Last night we spent at the Taj Palace hotel; also in Jodhpur. It’s the art deco palace built by the MoJ’s father, the previous MoJ that would be. It’s an entirely new experience, “a whole different ballgown” you might say – I know Yassy would. It’s very regal, not surprising as the MoJ maintains his main home in a wing, separated of course from the rest of the hotel. I mean, even if I wanted to bang on his French windows shouting “eh Babji, fancy a martini in the bar?” I couldn’t.
There is a museum attached. It seems to be primarily a place to hang pics and photos of moustachioed gentlemen (many on the portly side) who sport turbans, sashes and swords – very dashing!
Well, we got out if there, I can tell you. And now we’re on our way to see the Jain Temple at Ranakpur, which was franky quite beautiful. (Note: the internet being the interactive medium that it is, I would like you to go online and google-up yerself some images of said temple). Or, put another way, I carelessly left my camera on the car.
(from the internet)
Now we’re on a proper motorway driving down towards Udaipur. Now I did say “proper motorway” and it is, except for the fact that there’s cows lying down in in the middle of it every now and then – we just had to negotiate our way through a proper herd of them -and what’s even more disconcerting is the not infrequent passage of various motor vehicles, noteably great big diesel trucks full of rubble trailing clouds of dust which come speeding at you head on, your side of the median, the wrong way up the dual carriageway!
Well, they promised excitement.
Shopping frenzy!
Yasmin got:
7x hand woven raw pashmina shawls, called ring scarves coz it’s so fine, you can pull it through a wedding ring; 1x marble painted Ganesha (don’t ask!); 10x leather bound notenooks/diarys of varying size and colour; 2x black marble candle come incence holders; assorted coffee table books mostly about Rajasthan; 2kgs of spices – all kinds; jewellry, oh dear! An awful lot of jewellry.
And me, what did I get? I’ll tell you, I got a bag of tea.
Nobody said life was fair.
We have our own pool; see the picture. But it does worry me slightly. We are staying at the Oberoi Udaivilas, Udaipur. And I have to say that something I’ve come to recognise at the Oberoi chain is that they encourage the guests to keep to themselves with things like: private pools; private dining areas inside your villa walls; the bar just doesn’t make you want to hang out there, let alone talk to any strangers, i.e. fellow guests. No, I think it’s a hotel chain designed with couples in mind which, I suppose is fine if you’re honeymooning. Don’t get me wrong now, this is a fine, very well appointed hotel with a very friendly staff and great service. Still, after an al fresco dining experience entertained by “local cultural performing artistes”, I’m sitting here on a 2nd Empire style chair in a sumptuous chequered marble room, and I’m pining for something a little more dusty and crumbling, something a little more Indian.
An hour into the drive out to Devi Garh we stop in a dusty car park. Our driver, Mr. Bihari, points us up a dusty track; “not yet” I tell him ” I need to… you know… my tummy!” He calls something in Hindi and a small boned barefoot lady in red and green traditional Indian apparel appears on the hillside and makes her way over to a shed set above the car park. I spend way too long in there. So when I come back out into the sunlight after an extended period of ablution, I give her not one but two slightly soggy 10 rupee notes – no hand towel had to dry on the back of my trousers.
I feel that this will not be my only visit to small dark rooms today.
A deserted Hindu temple in a green field under trees. How beautiful it is. A far cry from yesterday’s visit to Mewar Fort in Udaipur which was just crawling with sightseers; local guides whipping their groups through there. No, it’s quiet here; you can hear the birds.
Anyway here are some pictures to look at:
Later we arrived at Devi Gar. Which is a… you guessed it… it’s a fort! It is a fort which someone has taken the trouble to turn into the most amazing hotel. Really wonderful design, keeping the original floor plans, which mean that nearly every room is different. I really enjoyed wandering around this place. Later we were treated to a fine meal. They’d asked us what we wanted to eat and all I could say was “whatever it is make it light”. And they did absolutely do just that. I’m not much cop at food writing so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Sorry no food pics either, but here’s some of Devi Gar itself.
The end.