Slouching Tiger, Pissed-Off Adam

After a brief one day stopover in Bundi, which was a nice break from the touristy places, we got a hired car to Sawai Madhopur, the village from which tiger safaris into Ranthambore National Park are launched. The safari here is up there with the Taj Mahal in terms of popularity with tourists. With no cheap backpacker accommodation to be found, we had to make do with a swish hotel, which, even though it was the cheapest listed, was still a step or two up from what we were used to (in price and quality). I even got to watch the Man United v West Ham game in our room.

There's a huge slump in tourism in India right now, which is mainly down to Westerners fearing to come here after the Mumbai attacks. In one way this isn't a good thing for us, as there's less fellow backpackers about to mingle and share stories/info with. In another way it's made things very convenient for us though, as we've never had to book ahead for accommodation, and we can dictate the price. Our luck in this way was no more so apparent than with the tiger safari itself. There are two modes of safari transport – canter, which is essentially an open top bus, and gypsy, a jeep. Gypsies are far more popular, because your chances of spotting a tiger are far greater in them. We were told that to get a spot in one you normally had to book about 26 weeks in advance. We bagged seats in one the day before our safari.

We set off for the park in our gypsy just before sunrise the next morning, along with our guide, driver, and two quiet Finns with oversized cameras. The cool pre-dawn breeze shook me out of slumber mode, and once we passed the park gates there was a genuine air of excitement. This grew as our guide heard the alarm call of some nearby antelopes, and then spotted fresh tiger tracks in the dirt road.



We followed the tracks for a couple of miles, all with cameras at the ready. But then the trail disappeared off the road and into long grass. With the gypsy's engine switched off, we scanned the long grass in silence with the utmost concentration, hoping to get our money's worth. But the tiger remained incognito.

Later, deeper into the park, the pattern repeated itself, again with no tiger sighting. The tiger hunts in the morning and the afternoon, and sleeps in the mid-day heat, an interval we were fast approaching. We had only booked a morning safari, so no tigers for us. Still, the hunt was half the fun.

Radio Silence

As is probably apparent from my photographs on picasa the blog is not a good indicator of where I am right now. In fact since my last published entry we've been to Bundi, went on a tiger safari in Ranthambore National Park, seen the Taj Mahal in Agra, been on a boat trip on the Ganges in Varanasi and left India for Nepal. Right now we're in Kathmandu.

It's been difficult finding time to write blog entries, but I am taking notes so that when I do write an entry I don't forget anything of note.

This will be the last time I'll be online for 14 days however, as tomorrow John, Gearóid, our guide, our sherpa porter and myself will be trekking up to Everest Base Camp. So see you in a couple of weeks (if I survive the altitude sickness that is), and cheers for reading up to now...

A Rolling Start

Having bought our bus ticket out of Udaipur earlier, we made our way to the travel company's office that night, as directed. Multiple buses drove past, none of which were ours, we were waiting for the agent to let us know.

After waiting around for 30 minutes or so, said agent abruptly told us to “follow him”, pointing at his friend.. So we did. We walked through roundabouts and across busy roads, with all our possessions on our backs. We walked expectantly past a couple of parked buses. From a bend in the road in front of us emerged yet another bus, moving at a fair old speed. “This yours”, said the stranger we were following like lost sheep. He waved frantically and the bus slowed down. It had just about stopped when we were hurried on to the bus. No time to put our rucksacks in the luggage compartment. Two more people got on behind us, one of whom had to run to keep pace with the door as the bus started to move and as we slowly made our way through the crowded bus stairwell.

This time I had a single sleeper capsule to myself, though the pleasure of having my own space was slightly ruined by the streaks of shit that ran down one side of the compartment.

We got there in the end. I didn't get much sleep though.

Losing my Naivety

Smaller than Jaipur, but bigger than Pushkar, Jodhpur is viewed simply as a stopping point on the way to other destinations by a lot of travellers. That may be true, but it's a nice city in it's own right, and our brief stay there was an enjoyable one. After all the relaxing we did in Pushkar, we needed a place to chill out, and Jodhpur met our needs.

Cleaner than other places we'd been to so far, Jodhpur also had an excellent and varied market five minutes from our hostel, selling everything from clothes washing brushes (I got one for two rupees) to saffron tea (which we all chipped in to buy a packet of). Saffron tea, and spices in general, are a Jodhpuri speciality. The saffron tea purchase came about after a spice smelling and tea tasting session in the market with a local seller, which was excellent. They have some great tea over here (nothing to beat Barry's though).



Mehrangarh Fort
“Great, another description of a bloody fort”. I can hear the moans already. Yes, it was another bloody fort, but this one was the best yet. The audio tour was excellent (with a route that was easy to follow), and the view from the battlements at the top was the first justification I had received of Jodhpur's nickname of “The Blue City”.



If I had written this blog entry a couple of days earlier, right now I'd regale you with a lovely story of a lovely old man who invited us into his home on the way down from the fort and chatted with us about his life and ours. I'd then tell you how he showed us his collection of money from around the world, and how he didn't have any euro in it, and of how John very kindly gave him five euro to complete his collection, and everyone was happy with the joy of it all. Except that the following week our hostel host in Agra pulled out his own collection of money, and he too didn't have any euro (or dollars). Feckers.

Bussing It Up

With Pushkar unreachable by train, another bus was our only way of moving on. This time we ended up on the cheap public bus with the locals. It also happened to be the school bus for every village for 90km. If you remember what happened in Delhi, you'll remember that our height and white skin gives us celebrity status when Indian children are involved. So there was a lot of long stares, and plenty of wary but friendly shouts of “hallo!” At one stage the bus was so packed there was people on the roof too! We could only make out their shadows, but they were definitely there. Another must-see off the list.

Our (late) arrival in Jodhpur was as chaotic as the bus journey. The bus stopped on a big bridge. A lot of shouting in Hindi ensued. Random people stormed on to the bus, shouting at us (in English) directly. They were saying get off, the driver's helper said stay on. One of these randomers showed a card for our hostel (we had arranged hostel pick-up from the bus station – we didn't think it'd be at a bloody flyover). Follow him then.

A Functioning Anarchy

I've had a couple of requests, and I'm sure some of you are curious, as to the state of the roads and the standard of driving in India. So many words come to mind, but a quote from former US ambassador to India Bertrand Russell describing the country is foremost: “a functioning anarchy”.


One of the better roads

The roads themselves range from the sublime to the ridiculous, with the latter being very much in the majority. We've gotten buses almost everywhere so far, and we've hired a couple of cars too (our first train journey will be two hours from when I'm writing this), so I've seen a fair bit of asphalt and dirt. Potholes aplenty mean drastic avoidance manoeuvres, and in parts the roads are more like an off-road trail than a route between destinations. But the state of the roads is a minor story compared to the chaos that occurs on them.

Here's a brief synopsis of how it works: cows have right of way, ahead of everything else. Then it works by size. A truck has right of way over a car, and so on, all the way down to the stray dogs and pigs that wonder about. Indicating is rarely done, in cities not at all. Mirrors are usually folded in, to allow vehicles to squeeze through tighter gaps. You know if a vehicle is behind you if you hear their horn. Likewise, if you're approaching a vehicle from behind, or near a vehicle in general, beep your horn. In cities, this averages a horn use about once every 1.5 seconds.

It is recommended that you drive on the left, but if this doesn't suit the other side of the road is fine.

As for pedestrians, walk slowly, don't run or change direction quickly, and you'll be fine. The traffic will avoid you. Somehow.

Experiencing this in full motion for the first time was an exhilarating experience (it's in my Hynes genes). In Delhi and Jaipur especially, it's complete chaos. Approaching roundabouts I had a big smile on my face, that's where the most fun is had. No one stops at roundabouts, it's in perpetual motion, with no defined lanes to speak of. Road lanes are marked on the big roads but not used in the slightest. Overtaking is done in whichever manner and side is quickest. Quick reaction speeds and good spatial awareness is what keeps it all ticking over.

It's not just the way of driving over here, it's what's on the roads too that makes it so entertaining. Cows, camels, cars, trucks, buses, tractors, motor bikes, bicycles, auto-rickshaws, manual rickshaws, horses, pedestrians, people with carts, dogs, pigs, chickens – all finding the most direct route to their destination at the same time.

Incredibly, bafflingly, it all works. The only collisions we were involved in were due to the aging senses of Nana, our Japurian rickshaw driver, but they were minor, because there's so much traffic on the roads that no-one can go that fast. Amazingly, with all the traffic, there's never any gridlock. The traffic is always moving. No space is wasted. Traffic lights do exist, and they are obeyed at major junctions, but only when to ignore them would mean two flows of traffic bringing each other to a halt. No road rage either (no point). I love it all. Every rickshaw journey is pure entertainment.

On our bus journey to Pushkar, the Indian attitude to the rules of the road (yes they do actually exist) was summed up perfectly. It was the halfway stage of a long trip, and the bus driver wanted to pull over for an intermediate stop. Knowing the (fairly remote) terrain well, he knew there was food available up ahead in a little place on the opposite side of the (3-lane) motorway, with a central barrier (blocking our access to the rest stop). So at a right-turn junction well ahead of the stop, he crossed the gap in the barrier, and proceeded to drive up the wrong side of the 3-lane motorway for half a mile, evading oncoming buses and trucks along the way. None of the Indians on the bus batted an eyelid. This was the fastest way to the rest stop, so what was the problem?

(I think John has a video or photo of this, I'll put it up here if he has)

One Hump or Two?

Over beers the night before (where all good ideas come from – including this whole trip), we arranged to go camel trekking on our second day in Pushkar. The plan was thus: hop on a camel, ride it three hours into the desert, and eat and drink around a campfire for the night, camel-riding back the next morning. Worse ideas have been thought up.

Omi, our hostel host, even tagged along himself, along with our camel guides/cooks/company for the night. Camels are surprisingly easy to mount, conveniently crouching down for you to hop on board. They're not as uncomfortable to ride as I expected, having been forewarned to expect sore legs. An hour in, and I decided I really liked this mode of transport. They're fast buggers too, I never knew a camel could gallop, especially Lashkmi, who wanted to show that he was faster than all the others, with me desperately trying to drink a bottle of Kingfisher on top.

Kingfisher is the popular beer around these parts incidentally – a cold beer on a camel in the sun being my favourite moment of this trip so far.



We found our spot in the desert and a few mats were laid out and a few more beers were had and a fire was lit. Not by us though, by our Indian guides, who refused to let us do any of the work (we asked a few times – honest). They cooked the food right in front of our beer-swilling faces, proper Rajasthani fare, different to the more general Indian food we'd had up to now, and just as delicious.

Once the food disappeared and the drink really started to flow (whiskey and rum were involved too) the songs started to come out. Each of our guides sang a traditional Rajasthani song in turn, until the baton passed to us. We were reluctant at first, but eventually found our steam. Rattlin' Bog in particular went down a storm (kudos to Gearóid for knowing all the verses). The efforts from the Aussie/Kiwi combo who tagged along proved less successful but all the funnier for it.


The gang

A mix-up in the blanket distribution meant I was bloody freezing after the last embers had cooled, but I was allowed to “drive” the camel all the way back to Pushkar the next morning, which more than made up for it. Oh, and in reference to the title, all camels in India have one hump, the dual-humped variety appear in Africa only.