Beyond the Alps, Chocolate, and Holy Cows!: Rajasthan

Traveling through India is the most surreal experience you can imagine. It is often filled with chaos and frustration, but also wonder and appreciation. I finally experienced the latter. We have just returned from an amazing trip traveling more than 600 miles through Rajasthan. The drive was as much an experience as the cities we visited. Rajasthan is an absolute must see if you are planning a trip to India!
Our first stop was Jaipur, where we were greeted by our driver Sultan. We got to know him quite well as we spent a lot of time in the car. We're practically the same age (actually he's a year younger than us) comes from the same caste as Sudhir, but that's where our similarities end.
I have to thank my lucky stars for how fortunate we really are.
Sultan grew up in a village. His parents both died when he was a child so he was put to work at an early age and consequently had no formal education. He was looked after by an uncle until he was married at twenty. He had an arranged marriage to a girl from another village who was 14 years old. They had one child right away and then another a couple years later. His own daughter is now the age his wife was when she got married, but Sultan wants his daughter to continue her studies. Sultan learned English just by talking and driving foreigners around. He works for a travel company and has been driving for them for 5 years. His salary is 5000 rupees a month (100 USD). He has driven people who have come from all over the world to see the sights of India, but he himself has yet to visit many of those sights.

Armed with two cameras, we took over 900 photos. So here's the highlights.
Hawa Mahal (Wind Palace) built in 1799. A very elaborate facade for ladies to see the action on the street without being seen.

Amber Fort, which is actually a palace. Construction began in 1592 and was modified with each successor. The palace is made of marble and sandstone.

We took an elephant ride up to the top which was included in our package, but against Sudhir's wishes. There are now laws to better protect the elephants, but they definitely live a miserable life. The law now states that each elephant can only make a maximum of 5 trips up to the fort (20 min ride one way), but they are also heavily used during wedding season. Each morning the elephants rise around 4 am and make their way to the fort. They spend the day carrying tourists up to the fort and then are used at night for wedding ceremonies. Then they are walked back to the city where they sleep for a few hours before starting again. Throughout our ride the elephant kept snotting on us with his trunk. Poor thing was thirsty. That will be our last elephant ride.

There is a massive wall surrounding the palace/old city that is more than 6 miles in circumference. The height of the wall is around 11 feet and the two stations at the top are checkpoints, which are positioned at every half mile marker. If danger was spotted the guard would beat a drum to alert the neighboring guards/checkpoints and then he would follow suit if danger persisted.

Inside the palace...

Jantar Mantar, an observatory built in in 1728. This is the world's largest sundial. Here's one side...

And the other...

Dinner at a restaurant called Indiana. Turns out the owner went to Purdue!

After spending 3 nights in Jaipur, we drove 275 miles to Manvar, which was in the desert in the middle of nowhere.

Here's the tent we stayed in for the night. This is my idea of camping. Each tent had 2 single beds, flush toilet, shower, and the icing on the cake...hot water!

Here's the inside

Sunrise in the desert

Here's the camp

Isn't he cute?

He's not bad either!

Jeep safari

On our jeep safari we visited a local village, saw a couple of camels, several deer, peacocks, and a fox.

The following pictures demonstrate the uniqueness of driving in India. We were constantly coming to a grinding halt or weaving through the maddness as flocks of goat/sheep and herds of cows/buffalo crossed the road.

Here's two buffalos acutally fighting on the road!

Camel traffic

Monkey traffic

Just as we slowed to take a picture, one jumped onto the car!

Driving through the country was a very interesting part of our trip. We saw so much agriculture. Here I am helping out the locals with their water supply. It's basically a wheel and axle and these oxen are moving the wheel.

This well water is collected and channeled to irrigate the crops.

Growing sugar cane

While driving through Rajasthan we spotted several animals/birds. We saw elephants, horses, cows, camels, dogs, buffalo, sheep, goat, donkeys, monkeys, ox, peacocks, chickens, roosters, bats, 1 kingfisher bird, pigeons, and parrots.

Tree of bats

While driving we also passed several quarries. Rajasthan has huge deposits of marble, sandstone, and granite. According to our driver, the lowest grade of marble goes for about 35 rupees per square foot, which is 75 cents. The top of the line marble goes for 1000 rupees, which is 20 USD. Granite goes for 300-400 rupees, about 6-8 USD.

Next stop was a Jain temple, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Jainism is among the smallest of the major world religions, but has been around since the 6th century B.C. Jains basically believe there is no superior ruler, but that all living entities have a soul and are potentially divine. Therefore, they have high regard for all living things and follow the mantra of Live and Let Live. Very observant Jains do not pluck fruits or vegetables from trees or bushes, because they, too, are considered living entities. Some extreme Jains can be seen using a small brush or broom to sweep the ground before them as they walk, so as not to inadvertently tread on any living creature, no matter how small. Others Jain followers can be seen wearing a cloth or mask over their mouth. This prevents any bugs from accidently entering their mouth.

This temple was built in the 15th century. The inside is exquisite and unfortunatley these pictures just don't do it justice. But there are 1444 hand carved marble columns inside and no two columns are alike.

Next stop Jodhpur, known as the blue city. Traditionally, blue signified the home of a Brahmin (a Hindu priest). Apparently, the colour mitxture was found to repel mosquitoes. Now everybody's a Brahmin!

View of the palace in Jodhpur

The handprints of one of the king's wives. Notice how small their prints are, most likely to have been in their teenage years. This particular king went off to fight and didn't come back, so all 31 of his wives sacrificed themselves by jumping into a raging fire.

Last stop was Udaipur, Rajasthan's most romantic city. Here's we stayed (just behind Sudhir), it's actually a palace. The current king of Udaipur also resides here, but we didn't see him.