The Lonely Traveler - The Closing Ceremony and the Solitude

I reached the town before noon, took a good long desanding shower and ran to the exquisite temples that close off by noon. By the end of it, I was convinced that our forefathers were gods of sandstone. The sculptures were so immaculate, minute and smooth, that the technological advances were no match to it. The Jaisalmer Fort and the Patwa Haweli were more examples of such exquisite work. The only glitch that remained was the glaringly poor maintenance of the Haweli in particular. You could do a rich hunt for rats, pigeons, bats and their droppings accompanied by foul smell in the Haweli that boasted of having one of the most exquisitely carved frontal façade. They say that the Archaeological Department has woken up. I am just keeping my fingers crossed…rather than doing something myself about it…

With this last piece of architecture, my sojourn had come to an end. The roots were calling and I decided to head back to Delhi via Jaipur. On my way back, I was evaluating the pros and cons of solitude and lone traveling. On the positive, you are a free bird. You go whatever places you want to, whichever means you want to and whenever you want to. You have time to write and listen to music of your own choice without much distractions. However, as wisely said by someone, ‘He travels fastest who travels alone…but he hasn’t anything to do when he gets there.’ Another point worth mention is the non-existence of the concept of lone traveling in the country. Right from the autorickshaw to the camel guide, everyone in the country was worried about my traveling alone. Immense pressure it was for me. Was I normal or had I just gone desperate. I took respite when I saw a few other homosapiens traveling alone, nationalities anyways had stopped making a lot of difference to me.

The Lonely Traveler - The Dunes

As the sun went for the usual dip below the horizon, I embarked on a longish walk, from one end of the dune to the other (about 4 kms). Dunes are like near-harmless seas. Water can drown you, sand won’t let you. The only danger it poses is that of getting disoriented. Looking at my own footsteps in the sand, I realized how I was never walking straight even if I wanted to and hence how easy it was to be lost once it was dark.

Walking alone, I soon got enthralled by the beauty of the brown ocean with seemingly stationery waves. The silence and the vast expanse of nothingness had an inexplicable charm of its own. At one moment, you would let out a gasp of delightful surprise, at another, you might just want to kneel down and close your eyes. Often you would also experience those sudden spurts of energy in which you would want to run over the convex side of the dune and slide down the concave side, knee deep in sand.

Having spent a few hours on the dunes, I finally decided to retrace my steps back to the camping place, which I readily got confused with. Liyaqat found me after an hour and took me back down the dunes with impressive ease. A dinner of quarter-an-inch rotis this time, alongwith curry, maggi and beer followed, as innumerable desert beetles worked tirelessly to collect camel droppings and roll them over to god knows where.

Post-dinner, Liyaqat continued his ‘joking-toking’ stories about his exploits with white females who had undertaken long desert safaris with him. Another interesting fact that came up was his reason for being single till date. It isn’t often that you hear of disadvantages of being a male, but here is one, in case you are born in one of the Muslim villages in Rajasthan, adjoining Pakistan. Unlike most of India, where males are gifted dowries for having married a girl, Liyaqat’s family would need to cough up atleast 100,000 Rs to the bride’s father. The lucky father of the daughter would gift away about half the amount back to the daughter as she leaves her father’s house while the rest of the money could stay with the father. Similar practices are known to exist in some societies of the North-Eastern states in India. In this case, Liyaqat admitted, the sex ratio was heavily biased towards males and it was too difficult to find a girl.

With these revelations, I slept under the beautiful crystal clear skies where, it seemed, that a hundred thousand new twinkling lamps were glowing full throttle to prevent me from sleeping in the open on the dunes. When the lamps failed to dent my sleep, the dust storm decided to take the lead. I was bathed in sheer sand by strong winds blowing from south, south-west. After an hour long struggle, I simply covered my face with a dirty piece of linen and shut myself off.

Next day morning was comforting as I came to know that even the seasoned camel man had troubles sleeping off. Finishing off the morning chores, drinking sanded tea and toast, we prepared the camels and headed back towards the road. 4 more hours of arse-wrecking camel ride and I was back on the road, in a 4-wheel drive, racing towards Jaisalmer.

The Lonely Traveler - Desert Safari

The Safari day began lazily. I woke up early but didn’t really feel like getting out of bed. This was my first sane sleep in the past 4 days. I finally brushed my teeth and headed for breakfast and tea. Quite expectedly, the imaginary English girls were not going for the Safari and I was the lone guy out there. I was prepared for it.

The camels were supposed to meet us at Amar Sagar. I had quickly bought a desert safari dress with turban for 400 bucks and headed in the jeep towards Amar Sagar. A small teastall was the rendezvous point for the camels and the jeeps. The ration was loaded, Liyaqat Khan introduced and I happily bade goodbye to Little Johny as I finally embarked on the camel safari.

Liyaqat Khan, the camelman, was a tall, lean figure with a face that seemed to have wrinkled and hardened by the vagaries of life. He wore a long Pathan suit and spoke comfortable Hindi, fluent Marwari dialect and comprehensible English – quite a must for all camel safari guides. He belonged to a village that was about 3 kms from the first source of water – a source that was a man-made pond about 20 mts in length 10 mts in breadth and might be a meter or two deep. The amount of dark brown water in the pond depended solely on rainwater. The camels, humans and mules drank side by side – heights of equality, or was it just an irony.

First few hours of the ride took us through scrub and cacti vegetation and a few ponds, one of which was surrounded by a gypsy settlement. The Rajasthani Banjarins are considered to be adorned with the most colorful dresses and ornaments. You would inevitably find them wearing colorful printed red ghaagras and cholis with borlas. The bangles are generally huge and with different designs, so are the nosepieces and necklaces. They would invariably call every tourist on desert safari as a ‘gora’ or a ‘gori’ and would expect some tips from you.

Our first stop was for the sake of our camels. We stopped near a pond for filling the camel’s water sacs, while I was nursing my cramped hip joint. And this reminds me, I did not really find riding a camel to be an easy job. Although a folded cotton mattress is placed over the saddle, it doesn’t prevent the deep insides of my hind to get badly cramped up. Eventually, I imitated the camel man who was sitting with both legs on one side. Although scary and prone to falls, the posture, no doubt, is more comfortable.

An hour or two after the first stop, we decided to rest for lunch. Liyaqat unsaddled the camels and left them to feed on thorns. He meticulously laid down the mattress for me and set out to gather dry twigs and branches for the fire. We were about three hours from the dunes and I preferred escaping the hottest part of the day by laying down in the cool shade of the lone tree in the vast expanse of short cacti. I ate potatoes, lentils and half-an-inch thick chapattis (or probably tried to eat them). Another small nap and we started proceeding further west. After crossing a small hillock, we reached one small set of dunes which, to me, seemed exquisite. This might sound geekish and irritating, but the look of these dunes immediately reminded me of the default Microsoft Windows Desktop image of picture perfect sand dunes. Another hour on the camel and we were at our destination. I waited for the tea before heading out on the dunes for all the fun.

The Lonely Traveler - Jodhpur Shall Wait!

After a hot, humid, 3-litre sweat-day at Jodhpur, I decided to race to Jaisalmer. Jodhpur was, frankly, a letdown after the beautiful Udaipur and only a desert safari could make good for the losses. I took the 3 o clock bus to Jaisalmer from behind the Bombay Motors workshop and the Rs. 120 ticket was another accomplishment. I was beginning to believe that comfortable travel was getting cheaper in India but soon I saw tens of people sitting on the passage of the 2 x 1 sleeper and I knew that not much had changed.

Anyways, the journey started and I was sitting alongside 50 other villagers, with traditional, colorful ghagras or dhotis and giant moustaches with saffron turbans. Needless to say, I was not the most comfortable, with a tight black T-shirt that said, “Manhattan to Brooklyn” and black sunglasses. Meanwhile the winds were blowing full swing and I adjusted the window just enough to let fresh air come in and work on the free flow of sweat. How ironical it was, the winds that are created by of low pressure areas over the desert of Rajasthan, feed the whole country with rains but bring nothing for the desert itself. The barren waterless desert was, in other words, the lifeline for the whole subcontinent as far as water was concerned.

Three hours into the journey, we reached Pokharan, the place where all known and unknown nuclear tests in India are conducted. On a 4-wheel drive, the site is about 30-35 kms from the highway. The journey continued after a short stop as the high neems gave way to cacti and short stunted shrubs dotted the brown terrain. I reached Jaisalmer by 2030 hrs and the sun had already set.

The town is easily differentiated into two parts – Inside the fort and Outside the fort. The part of the town inside the fort is actually a village. The gullies are narrow even for a bike to pass and houses are closer to each other than you can imagine. The streets outside the fort are slightly better off in terms of width. I had not planned or made any hotel bookings and hence I fell prey to the first tour operator’s crony who found me in the bus itself. Lacking enough time and energy to look out for hotels myself, I gave in.

Little Johny took me through the serpentile trails inside the fort into the smallest guest house that was ever built or modified. Actually, every second house was equally small and had been converted into a guest house. In one such house, I found a room for myself, a room that was definitely worth 200 INR.

The room had a big window and was done in traditional flavor. The sills had old broken pottery kept on them while the ceiling had colorful rustic decoration on it. Very clearly, Jaisalmer had understood tricks to catch the aorta of the foreign tourists. They knew the importance of tourism for their survival in that, otherwise, barren village. They knew their strengths and they played to them. And this reminds me of the language too. The guide could speak English, so could the cook. Quite irritatingly, both had put up an accent as well. Even the small gypsy girl, 40 kms into the desert, away from Jaisalmer, could speak a bit of English. Clearly, tourism was the most important part of their life.

The Lonely Traveler - Udaipur

And I finally overcame the inertia and embarked upon the most unplanned trip ever. Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur form an inverted triangle with Udaipur being the inverted tip. Jaisalmer is skewed. I tossed a coin at 7 in the evening and decided in favour of Udaipur over Jodhpur for the first day.

The late decision found me one last seat in the night sleeper from Jaipur to Udaipur. The bumpy ride began Ajmer onwards as the road became narrower – I felt that my back would give in again, thankfully it didn’t. Meanwhile, I sipped hot tea at every stop to fight the chill of the strong air conditioner in the bus. Honestly, I am not used to working air conditioners in buses, an unregulated, full-blown one is far-fetched.

Reaching Udaipur at 8 in the morning, I rushed to the public conveniences, eased myself, short and long, and then started evaluating my options. “Travel Cheap” was the mantra. 250 bucks and the autorickshaw was ready to take me around the city to all good spots. Considering the fact that I had received a quote for 21,000 Rs for the three cities (include Jaisalmer), I was more than just happy.

The day started with a visit to the Verma Gardens that have been neatly carved on a hill overlooking Lake Pichola. Not expecting a hiking experience of any degree during this trip, I found the walk to the top of the hill quite a pleasant surprise. The views of the Pichola, Lake Palace, City Palace, Sajjangarh Fort and the town itself were breathtaking. Having spent about an hour at the top amidst nice cool breeze, I decided to head back and make a move to the City Palace, prime attraction of Udaipur.

City Palace, Udaipur, is considered to be one of the largest palaces in the world, second only to the one at Mysore. It took about 400 years for 8 generations of rulers of Mewar to bring about what it is today. A guide worth 100 bucks was instrumental in letting me know the nitty-gritties of the palace, the ones that I readily forgot. However, by the end of the tour, I had been face to face with Maharana Pratap’s armoury and weapons, exquisite frescos, flawless carvings and minute colored mirror-work. It all took me about 8 kms on foot inside the palace (atleast the guide chose to believe so).

By now, the heat had taken a heavy toll on me and I wanted to avoid further walks. A few more touristic points like the Maharana Pratap’s Memorial, the Zoological Park, Saheliyon Ki Baari and I was more than exhausted. I ate my lunch at a small stall at the Memorial (greasily and spicily cooked Bhaturas with Cholaas) at around 1400 hrs and started wondering as to what to do next.I had a ticket to the next town (Jodhpur) at 2000 hrs and I had way too much time to kill. That’s when a bit of solitude did set in and I started weighing my options to keep the monster away. I decided on the Sajjangarh Fort till late noon, Island gardens in the evening and then catch the bus to Jodhpur at 2000 hrs. An extra 100 bucks and we decided to drag the auto up the steep incline towards the Sajjangarh fort. It was a small monsoon getaway for the monarchy, offering imposing views of the city, the greenery around and strong cool breeze. The place rests in complete solitude and it seemed to be the perfect locale to pen down the account for the day. I sat in the front verandah and wrote all this in a diary as occasional tourists passed by, giving queer looks. After a heavy brownie at the renovated café, I headed back down towards the town. After having gone to all the famous places in the town, I adjudged the Verma Gardens to be the best place to spend the evening. I headed towards the hilltop again for a sunset view before heading for the boatride in the lake. I reached the top while the sun was still 30 degrees above the horizon and I was almost sure that the mist would ruin the sunset. Still I chose to wait!