with apologies to Messrs Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington, and also to everyone who does not understand that reference, which will probably be the majority of people reading this.
- from one 'Palace' to another
- Galta and the 'Monkey Palace.'
a day of hustle and bustle commenced with a leisurely rise and breakfast and slow packing of our bags before we set off for yet another home. it was very pleasant to make the most of our last rent payment in the Diggi's gardens, still not yet tired of watching their busy natural inhabitants flitting about, with the peacocks playing the roles of nervous wrecks with aplomb. we had learned that they did not belong to the hotel but were just occasionally fed, their numbers indicating a healthy local population.
we took a rickshaw from one 'palace' to another, the Pearl Palace hotel, much closer to the railway station, banks, Thomas Cook and so on, but further from the walls of the old Pink City itself. down a small side street, it was very well attended and nicely appointed, with walls covered in murals, paintings, artworks and Rajasthani puppets.
we decided to plan for several days in advance as our next likely destination, Pushkar, was not on the railway or the routes we had envisaged to our subsequent planned locations, so would probably require us to come back to Jaipur before moving on.
a flurry of phone calls later and we had a bus to Pushkar arranged, as well as somewhere to stay in what is a very small place. Pushkar has an international reputation as a hippy hang out, so much so that its status as one of the key Hindu sites in India (dedicated to Lord Brahma) and its camel fair (held in March, the largest such fair in the world) were almost secondary. nevertheless, it did sound like a potentially rather magical place, even if the fact that our first choice, booked hotel did not have any AC rooms available (yes, we'd got all fancy and demanding after a few days with aircon).
we walked the short distance to the bus tour company to confirm our bookings and then on to the train station to get advance tickets for Bikaner further North, our heading after Pushkar, as well as a return first for one night to Jaipur. under the high sun and through the constant dust and traffic of Jaipur, the kilometre we walked in total felt more like an extended hike. the private bus tickets enable us to go straight to Pushkar without having to change and is even said to be AC, so we'll see how that pans out. having a ticket is a good start for your journeys in India, but we're always aware that pretty much anything can happen to your choice of vehicle, seat booking or preferred route.
getting the tickets for Bikaner in a week's time took almost an hour. they were as cheap as the bus tickets, yet for a far longer, 8 hour journey. the 'Express' train we were catching lacks any AC options, according to the station clerk, so it's yet another intriguing step into the unknown. we knew from our previous phone barrage that we should have an AC room waiting for us in Bikaner when we finally arrive (fingers crossed, of course, since no-one seems to take anything other than your name if and when you book ahead).
railway station ticket halls in India are an amalgamation of extreme bureaucracy, close proximity to others - and lots... and lots of waiting. to get a ticket, you must fill out the correct form with the correct train number and so on, but you usually have to queue to get the form and then again, separately, to get the ticket. as a result, queue jumping - and the ways in which people react to it or try to prevent it - is virtually a national sport, played to an Olympic level. it's also difficult not to get very close to everyone, which takes some getting used to in general and requires pretty much constant keeping an eye out where Philippa is concerned specifically, with many men here all too happy to take 'subtle' liberties, in our experience.
the railway station is, as ever, and just like outside most temples and hospitals, a good draw for the more destitute aspects of Indian society. they seem to be more forthright in Jaipur - one young girl holding a baby on the central reservation physically slapped both our arms to get our attention.
these several hours of planning and trudging had left us relatively assured about the next week and quite ready in mind if less in body to go out and about. a short distance from the walls of Jaipur, the temples at Galta - nicknamed the 'Monkey Palace' due to its resident colony of macaques - now seemed a good possibility again, not least as the afternoon was later and cooler then when we had last considered visiting, even though 'cooler' is only a relative term. we now know from TV and other sources that the last few days had hovered between 36C and 41C, so were pleased to be rickshawing our way through Jaipur with our latest driver friend, Yusef, in the late afternoon.
Yusef had made sure that he said 'Hi' to us when we arrived and is clearly one of the hotel's unauthorised rickshaws, keen to hang around for tourist rides. chatty and highly engaging, his weather-beaten face directly represents the full extent of whatever emotion he is feeling at the time, usually something happy. he drives with one hand on the horn and talks by turning his head and upper body right around to see the passengers, so that he is often not looking where he is going at all, which makes for a ride with few dull moments.
Galta lies just a few kilometres beyond Jaipur's Eastern Suraj Pol gate, a collection of temples clustered around a natural spring and wedged into a tight ravine.
naturally, this means a steep walk up and then another one down to see it, if you approach it from the side that we did. the winding path is at first full of cows and children demanding change, although it becomes clear that the monkeys live and play across the whole route. so, it appears, do several families seeking baksheesh, including one man with a performing live black cobra in a wicker basket that Edd almost stepped on.
we saw one Sadhu (holy man) at the base of the climb and clearly on another planet and were to encounter many at Galta. wearing a few robes or cloths usually in saffron or red, they could be seen grinning from shrine doorways, observed nodding sagely from simple lean-tos, or heard chanting from the surrounding hills, sometimes by loudspeaker. those we passed were universally calm, pleasant and wreathed in smiles, although this may at least be partly explained by the fact that Sadhus are the only people legally allowed to smoke marijuana in India, due to their devotion to the god Shiva, who allegedly discovered its narcotic properties. their obvious consumption is certainly in the quantities of the fervent devotee.
we stopped first at the Surya Mandir temple at the top of the climb before the ravine, a small shrine but with spectacular views of the pollution pall and sprawl of Jaipur, still almost white-out in the last hour of so of the sun.
Jaipur, from the Surya Mandir the East section of Jaipur is evidently of much poorer communities then those in its centre, typified by its unfinished and unsteady homes, lean tos and tents and now ubiquitous garbage strewn streets and open spaces. tired of the attention of two talkative young boys who had accompanied us all the way up, we doled out some low level, appropriate baksheesh so that we could explore Galta in a little more peace.
amid the shrines and Sadhus, the monkeys were seen around in large numbers, even though we had still to descend to the temples. before we had gone many yards, one of the larger ones quickly and ruthlessly snatched the tokenistic bag of nuts from Philippa's hand that we had bought from a local boy. monkeys of all ages played and fell about in the bushes, or sat reflecting to a backdrop of ruins, fading light and distant chanting. we were virtually alone.
a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
we eventually reached the temples, but were not to see them without a detour into a shrine to monkey god Hanuman, deflected in by a shrine-keeper keen to tell us that he only let couples in, of course, as it was a particularly auspicious place for such people. through sometimes comprehensible English, he told us some of the stories of Hanuman, before daubing our foreheads with a golden orange tikka, tying red and orange string to our wrists and requesting the obligatory 'donation' to the shrine.
yay, it's donation time!
the temples themselves, though fly-ridden, were certainly very atmospheric. from a few to many hundred years old, they focus on two large spring water pools in which the monkeys, and occasionally the devoted, bathe.
we saw one man saying prayers while ritually bathing. in the light of near dusk and with the monkeys appearing at every juncture and on every rooftop, the temples were a strange and evocative sight. shrine keepers would occasionally appear and far from subtly make insistent demands for donations. as sunset drew on, and mindful of the walk back, we retraced our steps past growing numbers of Sadhus and pilgrims heading down to the temples for the end of the day.
Yusef took us back to the hotel via the water palace built by Jai Singh as an extension of the complex at Amber, pre-Jaipur capital of the region and our destination for tomorrow. the fading sun had changed the colour of the water to an intense blue mirroring the sky, millpond-still around the small palace marooned in an artificial lake created by Jai Singh solely for that purpose.
we also briefly stopped off - at Yusef's suggestion, of course - at an elephant house, where painted pachyderms used for tourist rides at Amber were kept. the huge animals seemed relatively healthy and well looked after, but their chained feet provoked a different reaction, notwithstanding their location in the middle of a village of narrow streets, leaving us unsure as to the true nature of their conditions. it certainly wasn't what we had expected from the phrase 'elephant house,' but we hoped - perhaps naively - that our naturally requested donation would in some way be used for their benefit. up close and personal, the elephant's skin felt to the touch like tyres with hairs poking through.
finally home, we closed the book on a long day with dinner at the Pearl Palace; good, cheap food in a wonderfully atmospheric rooftop restaurant area surrounded by lights and, possibly for the first time, many fellow Brits. in the distance, fierce lights illuminated a sports field, while a traditional puppet show and music took place to one side of the dining area.
at the beginning of week three, it was only just dawning of some of us (namely Edd) that we were going to be here in India for a long time. with a week ahead planned and the famous Amber palace scheduled for tomorrow, our adventure had still only just begun.
take care
edd & philippa
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