We don't know where the latter come from, but in
India the symbols are assigned by an election commission so that the
illiterates can mark their ballots for their candidates based on the
symbols. Evelyn assumes that the symbols are assigned this way to avoid
having some party pick a really favorable--or deceptive--symbol.
We flagged down an auto-rickshaw and asked how much it was to the
railway station and then to the City Palace gate. He did not know English,
so took out Rs35 and showed us. Okay. The train we wanted was the Chetak
Express. One wonders if it had all its wheels (being named for a three-
legged horse). It was full (at least in first class). We had decided to
skip Ajmer and Pushkar because of Evelyn's ankle and go directly to Delhi,
neither passing go nor collecting 6,200 rupees. What if we left today? It
is full. Thursday? Full until the 31st. Second class we could get, but
everything we have heard says you do not want second class. We returned to
the City Palace gate and walked to our hotel. At the hotel Singh told us we
were wise not to go second class. We tried calling the airlines. After
three attempts (calling first the number in the Lonely Planet guide, then
the number in the phone book, and finally a third number they told us to
call), we got through, only to be told to come in and discuss plane
reservations. Then we called again and specifically asked if there was
space on the flight. No, no space. For some reason the elections have just
about all transport tied up. Singh was angry that the airlines made us call
them twice to find out they were useless to us. At this point we were
starting to get a bit frantic. We could do the trip in second class if we
had to, but it would be very uncomfortable (the berths are basically
wooden-slatted shelves). Mark suggested taking a bus. Our bus ride the day
before had made Evelyn a bit leery: they seemed like the thrill rides at
amusement parks, but without as many safety features. Singh also said it
would be crowded and uncomfortable, but it did seem our only alternative.
It would also be faster, leaving about the same time (6:30 PM), but arriving
in the morning instead of mid-afternoon. He said then he would organize the
reservations, and that if there was any problem his friends in the traffic
department would make sure the bus couldn't leave until we got tickets.
(Evelyn suspects he might not have been joking.)
So we headed off for the City Palace. It is about a two-minute walk,
or three with Evelyn's bad ankle. (Skipping the City Tour probably made
sense for this reason as well--we would have really slowed down a group.)
We broke journey at the end of the alley to get two Limcas. We watched the
fruit man selling some local fruit that looks like small cherries or
cranberries. They looked nice and shiny. While we sat there, he pulled out
a sinister amber vial, poured something in his hands, and then rubbed his
hands into the cherries as if he were rubbing Vitalis into your hair. The
cherries were even shinier. No, thanks.
You enter through the City Palace gate to a three-door gate. The
maharajas used this gate for weight control. On their birthdays they would
weigh out gold and silver equivalent to their weight and give it to the
poor. This is actually one of the nicest palaces we have seen, and the
largest in Rajasthan (it is really four palaces cojoined.). It took us
about three hours to go through, following a very well-marked route that
took us through hallways, up and down stairways, and through rooms so that
we see basically the whole palace without getting lost or back-tracking. We
didn't get the anecdotal stories the guide would have told, but on the whole
we managed without a guide with no problems. Having been through other
palaces helped--we could recognize the rooms and their functions from
previous knowledge. The palace also had a lot of miniatures, armaments,
etc., which were pretty much self-explanatory. And it had a breeze from
Lake Pichola and nice views of the lake.
The complex also houses a Government Museum as unintentionally humorous
as any we have seen. As with all the other Government Museums we've seen,
this has the usual display of incredibly bad 19th Century taxidermy. There
is a stuffed ostrich missing most of its feathers, with a gap between the
neck and the body. A stuffed alligator is missing feet, revealing hollow
legs. The museum's prize piece is a stuffed Siamese-twin deer. Evelyn
claims that all these served to prove that the 20th Century has brought, if
nothing else, giant strides in the taxidermist's art.
There are also some funhouse mirrors incongruously placed. There are
the inevitable carved ivory trains. The whole thing looks rather silly.
While the palace was crowded, the museum was empty. The wives' palace was
nearly empty, and it housed some art paintings and a collection of old
vehicles--coaches and cars. On the way out we each got what we thought
would be soda. Mark's Slice turned out to be just bottled mango juice.
Slice is supposedly made with real fruit juice in the United States. Here
it is *only* fruit juice.
After all that walking it was time for Evelyn to rest her ankle. (The
slower pace is not such a bad thing in general. Luckily we're at the stage
of our trip where we can slow down.) She lay with her ankle propped up and
read FREEDOM AT MIDNIGHT while enjoying the view out the window. Mark
napped and wrote in his log.
At 4:15 PM we headed out for Bansi Ghat, where we could take a boat
ride on the lake for sunset. We were following Mr. Singh's instructions on
how to get there which were mostly clear, but we were not sure. We got to a
point where we were not sure what the next step was, since it looked like
there was a fence across the path. A boy about eight or ten years old asked
where we were going, then said we had made a wrong turn. He started leading
us back in the direction from which we had come. He told us he was a
student here. His father drank and his mother earned Rs300 a month, which
is nothing. Mark guessed we were being had. The boy said something about
getting us a taxi and led us past where other people had pointed us in the
other direction. Mark was looking for someone else to ask directions of.
Someone did come along and Mark asked. They pointed us back in the first
direction and our little hustler started to say his was a shortcut, then
quickly disappeared when it was clear he was misdirecting us. We think we
have been told more lies here in three weeks than in a year back home. Just
about everybody thinks it is open season on tourists. We discovered we had
been about sixty feet (twenty meters) or so from Bansi Ghat when our hustler
decided to try and make us pay him for the last sixty feet. What had looked
like a solid fence actually had a gap in it for people to pass through. (We
did tip the person who took us back the right way.)
At the ghat, it was Rs30 for a boat cruise and Rs90 for a boat ride
which included Jag Mandir. Feeling extravagant, we went for the more
expensive. (We found it confusing that the short one is called a cruise
and the long one a ride. It turns out that the only difference between
the two is that for the ride you are dropped off at Jag Mandir by one boat
and then picked up by the next one.) Maharaja Singh built Jag Mandir, an
island palace, for Prince Khurram, who was later Emperor Shah Jahan. The
palace was named for Sagat Singh, son of the Maharaja. The palace is now
deserted, but you can go through it and take some nice pictures until you
realize that the last boat has left and you and five Italian tourists have
to be taken back to the dock in a small motor launch. We know first-hand
you can do this.
The view on the lake is magnificent, particularly at sunset. The sun
had been behind some clouds when we started out, but luckily for us emerged
in time to provide a gorgeous sunset. They say Udaipur is the Venice of
South Central Rajasthan, just like Amsterdam, Leningrad (St. Petersburg),
and Stockholm are each the Venice of the North. The world seems to have as
many Venices as it has cans of tuna fish. But it was nice to climb around
the deserted Jag Mandir. Some British used it as a refuge during the 1957
Sepoy rebellion and Udaipur is still a nice refuge for the foreigner.
Earlier in the day we'd talked to some Brits who'd been in the country three
days. We hate to disillusion you, we said, but this is about as good as
India gets.
On the way back to the hotel, we were again followed by kids wanting
gifts. Mark has started to answer the question, Wottis your nam? with I
am called Dr. No--no pen, no rupee, no chocolate. This seems to disperse
the questioners fairly quickly.
Here they also all want to show you their art school. There is one
famous art school here, but the rest are like the marble factories or
carpet museums--shops.
Back at the hotel, Mr. Singh told us he had some bad news about the bus
tickets, but it was only that he couldn't get us very good seats.
Apparently the upcoming elections have caused an upswing in travel and even
these seats were hard to get and he had to pull a few strings. (Evelyn
writes, This reminds me of the idea in the New Testament that everyone had
to go to their own city to be taxed. By the way, there is absolutely no
record that the Romans or anyone else in Judea ever tried to implement such
a silly idea. We now return you to your regularly scheduled trip log.)
The tickets cost about a quarter of what the train tickets would have cost
(Rs140 each for the bus) and there was not even a service fee charged by the
hotel for getting them, except for the Rs15 for someone to take a rickshaw
to the bus station! Afterwards Evelyn realized that we hadn't asked about
the other train to Delhi, but it left at 5:30 AM and arrived about 11 PM
(theoretically), so it wasn't a really good option in any case.
For dinner, Mark had curried vegetables very spicy and they were.
Evelyn had dal chana lauki, and we both had bhatia, a layered bread.
After dinner, Mr. Singh brought out a book called WONDERFUL INDIA. He
also brought a more modern book for Evelyn (about the maharajas of Udaipur),
but she soon joined me in looking at WONDERFUL INDIA. It is a big book with
travel pictures of India. We played detective and guessed it dated from
about 1939. Singh first thought it was from much later, but then decided
that there would be references to World War II and independence if it were
as late as he thought. It was fascinating to see what the places we have
been to had looked like then--what had changed and what had remained the
same. Mr. Singh was able to look at the pictures of Udaipur and tell us
which trees were still around and which weren't! We talked with him quite a
bit about Udaipur, about India, about what we liked and what we didn't.
Singh is what people claimed Moona was in Agra, the good devoted hotel
keeper. He is also very honest and devoted to making his hotel the best it
can be for his guests. He was able to get a good piece of property for his
hotel. It looks over some poor housing, but it has a beautiful view of the
lake and if you pay a little extra you can get a room with a balcony that
looks onto the water. His prices for the food he serves are a little up
from what they could be (Rs14.5 + 10% for a Pepsi), but the food is good.
Either we didn't have the rules right or the room is not made up daily. But
Singh got us a bus ticket and charged us the cost of the ticket plus the
cost of the conveyance for his son to get it, but no service charge. The
room, the ticket, two breakfasts, one dinner, and some local calls came to
Rs1900 for two nights (about 58 hours). That is US$61.29, about mid-range
for India. We have never plugged a hotel in our logs before but ...:
Wing Commander S. K. |
