Braving the heat and dust of Rajastan in summer.
20th May 2006

Back in the saddle
Ayurvedia and mineral extraction
Learning Hindi and avoiding supposed Hindu holy men
Keeping up with the Patels

Destination Rajastan

So the bike was fixed. Pat had taken the opportunity to fit the new steering head bearings that we had been carrying for a few thousand miles, oil changes and all. So dear Berthette had had a complete overhaul.

It was time to head north again and wend our way over the next few week or so to Delhi, for the round of visa acquisitions. Temperatures in Baroda had been rising to 45 Centigrade. Although there was much that interested me in Gujarat, our timetable had been somewhat foreshortened by the gear box issues, and the heat was not conducive to a lot of sightseeing. Gujarat, will have to be added to the evergrowing list of places will must return to at some stage, like the South of India and Sri Lanka. (Bangladesh, The Philippines, Indonesia, the whole of Western Africa, Siberia............)

Vickram Singh had suggested a route to Udaipur that avoided the metropolitan blob of Ahmedabad on the map. It was reassuring that it was the route I had independantly chosen on the map. We left early in the morning, or night should I say. Leaving before dawn, I was more than an hour into the journey before I properly came to, good thing I am only a pillion. I just about managed to instruct Pat on the villages he should be aiming for.

Mid-morning we were entering Udiapur. We had been recommended a couple of hotels by Vickram and his wife. But we suspected that Vickram was not truly aware of the normal spending level. We had after all, treated ourselves to a stay at his palace as part of our anniversary celebrations, and upped our spending accordingly. So we headed instead for the old town.

On entering the old town we wondered if we had made a terrible mistake. The warren of streets bore little relationship to our map. The lanes wriggled in a network. No, network is the wrong word - that implies some rational to the roads and passageways, it was a confusing knot and seemed to get more twisted and random as you venture into the bolus. Added to this the fact that a number of the ‘roads’ on the map were infact a set of steps, navigation turned into something of asking of directions relay. Every 100m stopping again to try to communicate our destination and have someone wave vaguely in a direction. Needless to say when we eventually found the guest house we were aiming for, it was up a narrow twisty set of steps. The owner, confidently told us that there would be no problem getting the bike in. It was clear he had no conception that Berthette was not quite the same as your average Indian moped. Around the world people’s lack of experience of big bikes leads them to misjudge Berthettes manoeuvrability. We moved on. Eventually we found a place with roof top views over the river, and a large driveway for Berthette, the room was large and clean - perfect. There are some advantages to travel in the excessive heat, that when you arrive at your destination the hotels are half prices, cos no other silly bugger is visiting at that time of year. Azzad and his wife Farida were Muslims, and in hushed tones told us that if we wanted ‘cow’ for dinner, they had a source. The offer felt as clandestine as being offered a book on devil worship in the middle of a church service. It felt naughty, sacrilegious and illegal. I have been in India too long. I wondered if their ‘source’ enticed wandering holy cows into their yard, never to be seen again or bred their own. Did their Hindu neighbours know, what they were carrying into the house in plastic bags? Having seen many a cow scavenging in the litter and eating anything from plastic bags to newspaper, because the smell of the food they have been carrying erroneously implies they are edible, I wondered whether slaughtering them was not more humane than letting them die slowly from plastic poisoning.

While walking over to the tourist side of the river Patrick was attacked, not by a mugger or marauding armed terrorists, but by a rather tetchy donkey loaded with sand bags, who took objection to Pat being in it’s pathway and whacked him in the family jewels with one of its panniers. As usual, our every move was being monitored by every Indian within eye-shot and they laughed like drains to see Pat doubled over in pain. It’s dangerous this traveling thing!

We rather got shanghaied into eating at the hotel by the persuasive Farida and her diverse menu. We were intrigued by the offer of Pak Sook - a Korean Chicken dish where a whole chicken, rice and a load of garlic are slowly simmered. It was a refreshing change from the heavy Indian food we had been eating for months. It was made more pleasant by the company of Roman, a Frenchman, on a RTW air ticket. He had lived in the UK for 6 months as an exchange programme from his Paris University, to learn English. And where did they send him, Newcastle. Newcastle? Someone at his college had a cruel sense of humour, irony is alive and well in Paris. Sending a rather dainty, cultured, Parisian to Jordyland. I forget that not all our readers are Brits, so maybe I need to elaborate. Newcastle, is as rough and ready as it gets in Britain, the women reknowned for being brash, tough, temperature insensitive, the types that Boadicea would have enlisted to defeat the Romans, bare-handed. The humour is fast, arid, and hilarious if you can once master translation of Geordie-speak. Most Brits struggle to follow a Geordie in full flow, it is a unique dialect and accent. How anyone would think it was an appropriate place to learn standard English, is a mystery to me.

Udaipur has a big palace that exudes simple opulence and elegance. I fought my urge as I entered the main grounds of the palace to shout at a shirtless, obese American to - ‘Get dressed!’. It was not his obesity that was the issue; it was being so insensitve to his surroundings or so arragant that he thought it appropriate to enter this beautiful building bare chested in shortish shorts. Could he not see that everyone else was covered and dressed tidily and smart, in a way that the situation demanded. I was disgusted and angered by his attitude. If he was hot why had he not chosen to sit in the shade. The only possible kindly explanation is that the man was severely, mentally challenged, which would allow for his gross insensitively and lack of knowledge about basic physics.

We were greeted as we entered the main building by a guard sporting a rather splendid mostache, as we complimented his handsomeness and as we walked away I could see him subtly preening with pride. Unfortunately we were then met with a chorus of prospective guides chiming the same spiritual-emotional blackmail. They had all learned the same spiel, telling us that our heart and soul would be enrichment by their guidance through the palace. The theory was that we would not only carry in our hearts the memory of the beauty of the palace, but also the delight of the fascinating edification that they would provide for us. It was not the sort of marketing to target a pair of cynical atheists.

Built after the Islamic expansion over India, the main theme was creating a cool living environment in this desert heat. “What went wrong?” I wondered. 500 years ago people could built a house, that was livable in the hottest of temperaures without the need for AC or even a fan. The walls felt cool to the touch, yet in our hotel rooms the heat radiated from the concrete like an oven. All the tricks were utilised, ponds in courtyards, colonnades around the rooms, combine to cool the air before it enters the rooms. The walls are thick to insulate against the heat in summer and the colder temperatures in winter. Windows and shutters are stategically placed to create a natural breeze through the rooms. Stained glass used to shade the room naturally and then mirrors to brighten the room back up with little need for arificial lighting. I wonder sometimes whether improved technology has made us lazy and uncreative. Some of these rooms, although (to our taste) gaudy, were delightful; the coloured light brought the cool white mable floors and walls to life and the mirrored tiles sparkled romantically. It would make a colour psychologist drool with enthusiam. The modeled colonnades and planting gave a feeling of space and outdoorness with the rooms. I’m sorry, a couple of coloured light bulbs and some AC is just not the same. The same is becoming true of photography, with digital cameras people could become less creative and thoughtful in making that perfect shot. Let’s hope as energy resources dwindle we relearn the creativity we have lost over the centuries.

This palace still owned by the Maharaja that once owned the whole of Udaipur, and is converted the palace to palace.plc. Half the palace is now an exclusive hotel, part is a fee-paying school for the privileged and the tourists pay to nosey at the rest of it. He still owns the lake, but apparently not the fish in it (not sure how that works). A second palace on an island in lake, is also converted into a flash hotel and on lease to the TATA company (Tata is the one the 2 Indian vehicle manufactureres and about 80% of the cars and trucks sport their logo). He may have lost funds from the privvy purse, but I think he’s doing OK.

North of Udiapur are a couple of points of interest, a big fort complex, Kumbalgarh, and a huge Jain temple. Although both are doable in theory in a day trip, in the current temperatures it seemed prudent to be selective. We plumped in the end for the fort, can’t really remember why. I think we were templed out a bit.

On the map there was a wee road that went directly to the fort, but we missed the turning of course and went the long way round. The fortress has an imposing 36km wall, with bulbous turrets along it’s length. The carpark was blissfully empty bar one minibus. At least we would be in for a peaceful time. Err no.........The occupants were the Loud family. They shouted with a force that seemed to imply that if their decibel level below the level to reverberate around the whole fort, they would cease to exist. In the main palace there was no where to escape from their arrogant vanity in the sound of their own voices. They were examples of the wealthy nouveau riche of India.

As the only foreigners in the place, we were the only possible target for their attention when they became tired of shouting at each other. A small posse of lads sidled over to me bearing their camera before them. It was obviously going to be one of those “Can we take a picture with you” moments. But no. They had in fact erroneously identified me as a peripatetic camera technician and expected me to be able to repair their 35mm instamatic. It was thrust into my unwilling hands with the information that the light was not coming on. As I turned it over to see what the battery situation was, one of them helpfully opened the back for me to show me the previously exposed and now over-exposed film. I gently closed the film door and handed it back to them with the suggestion that maybe they should try replacing the AA cells. Just an idea. They were wildly enthusiastic about my encyclopaedic knowledge of all things photographic which was not entirely a good thing as they were now doubly difficult to shake off.

There are apparently around 360 temples within the walls of Kumbalgarh along with numerous palaces, wells and other interesting bits of stonework. We managed to visit about a dozen but were hugley dissapointed that all but two had their gates firmly locked against the prying eyes of interested visitors. The downside of low season visiting is that there is a not unrealistic principle that it is not really worth fully manning the ruins and opening everything up for the benefit of so few people.

We found the short cut on the way back to Udaipur and were overjoyed to discover that the road was freshly paved. Although this has obviously been upgraded for the benefit of day-tripping tourists from Udaipur, it was equally clear that no-one ever stops at the villages on the way except in the immediate vicinity of the fort. We pulled up to take pictures of a groom on a horse. This is an interesting semantic point. We refer to the male party to a marriage as being the groom and in hindu (and other religions, by the way) weddings, the male participant arrives on horseback. The man who tends a horse is, of course, known as a groom. Is this all coincidence? Any way, we didn’t manage to get a picture of the groom in all his finery as he promptly turned away and rode off. However, a small cluster gathered around us and seemed fascinated by us. A couple of ladies gently, inquisitively pinched at Helen’s lips and seemed convinced that she was wearing lipstick. We’ve not really noticed before but the majority of Indian folk have uniformly brown lips and so the natural rosiness of our labia is considered quite fascinating. Hips had to scratch at her lips with her fingernail to demonstrate the lack of lippy. I had thought, to start with, that they were giving the commonplace thing of hand to mouth in a feeding guesture - the universal begging mime, until I realised it was not their lips they were interested in, but mine. One of the ladies in question had the most amazing gold hand jewelry, filigree rings on each finger, with a gold lace chain connnecting them to a bracelet. Sounds a bit like glittery bondage probably, but it was entirely beautiful against her dark skin. I regret totally not capturing the moment on digital. The innocence of this little interaction with locals was quite delightful. Oh, please, tourists don’t stop here and keep a little of the wonderful cultural difference between us!

Rajastan is justifiably famous for the bright clothing of its people. Given the uniform monochrome of the dry, dusty semi-desert environment, the gaily clad folk stand out incongruously. It is a beautiful thing to see a field of full of women in their finery going about their normal tasks. Maybe it is not as impractical as it seems. Rather than spoiling their wonderful garb in the dust of the fields, owing to the dryness, the dirt can just be shaken out. Certainly the Sudanese ladies shared similar colour taste in very similar circumstances. Even the men sport bright colours but mostly only in the turban department. Turban may be the wrong term for these bright lengths of cloth wrapped around the head but they give the same kind of look. We passed by a perfect photo opportunity; man with bright pink turban smoking a chillum under a shady tree, with a rathe handsme greying mostache. Rightly or wrongly we thought that asking to take a picture of some old dude getting stoned was not the most sensible course of action. On reflection, he probably wouldn’t have noticed, or alternatively been made up that he was having his phot taken. We really are a bit over polite on the subject of photo taking. We never refuse the annoyingly regular requests by Indians to take our picture so why shouldn’t we assume that we can ask anyone.

Back in the company of Azzad, we learned some rather disquieting things about saddhus. Whether the stories had been enhanced by his obvious lack of approbation for the Hindu faith or had been reported tabloid fashion it was hard to say but there were certainly some odd things going on in the saddhu department. Apparently one sect in Varanasi had eaten the unburnt portions of one of their colleagues that were left after a cremation. Personally, I think it may be some very dodgy photo journalism, where a bit of clever superimposing and use of pig carcasses. Elsewhere groups of saddhus have been accused of hauling children off the street to bugger them down dark alleys. Certainly there is great cynicism about the holiness of these wandering weirdos. Some are reported to be on the run from the law, others from wives wanting support. I really quite like the concept of wandering holy men living off alms and devoting their efforts to praying for mankind - certainly mankind needs all the help it can get, but there are so many frauds around who demand money aggressively that I end up not feeling like giving money or food to any of them. The same goes for the unfortunates who have no choice but to resort to begging all over the world. How do you spot the truly deserving ones? Anyway, the latest story re. saddhus is that one is getting married (not considered right and proper for holy men of their ilk) to a German lady who had a vision that she should marry the first person she met on leaving her hotel. It turns out that this guy is already wed and as he courted publicity and got his face emblazoned in the papers, his wife spotted him. Doh!

Hindu nuptials are coordinated by the pandit. He has a look at their astrological charts and calculates the most auspicious moment for the commencement of their union. This calculation is so precise that it is not enough to simply opt for a spring wedding but the actual hour of a particular day is specified. Quirklily this means that weddings may start at 3 o’ clock in the morning. I’m sure there are some pandits who are consulted more regularly, or asking higher donations, than others on account of their unerring ability to generate sensible times and dates. Cynic, moi? But of course you already know that.

Massage and marble

When we’d arrived in Udaipur, a gent had accosted us with offers of ayurvedic massage for a small consideration. Every time we walked over to the centre of town we had to pass his establishment and we were bombarded with fresh solicitations. My birthday presents had consisted of a pair of socks that I already owned (granted they were freshly darned) and a day in a hot workshop in Baroda and so I decided that I would give this chap a go to see what a mystic masseur could do for my sporadically nagging back. The small consideration turned out to be 25 times the daily minimum wage for a one hour session but I was undeterred; he had reams of testimonials from satisfied tourists, some of whom claimed to be masseurs themselves.

I suppose I was expecting a bit much but I didn’t really walk out feeling 10 years younger - although on reflection I was pretty knackered 10 years ago so maybe I did. He found a couple of slightly misaligned vertebrae between my shoulderbaldes and judging by the clicking and crunching managed to get them somewhere back to where they were meant to be. With regards to the lumbar area he said “Oh, this is an old problem” and moved right along. Big help that was, then. He checked the allignment of my back by measuring from navel to nipple on each side with a piece of string and then from navel to the tip of each big toe. Given the damage I have sustained to ankles over the years and my drooping left shoulder because of my disjointed collar bone, this was clearly mystic mumbo jumbo. I think he could guess that I was less than impressed and I was not invited to add my testimonial to the others in the book. Odd that. It was not a bad workout, though.

Again I neglected capture any of this for prosperity, despite being armed with a camera and my being there for observation with the agreement of Raju, the masseur, somehow snapping photos seemed to feel inappropriate. But I was fascinated. Watching him applying pressure with is thumbs I have never seen someone with fingers that were so double jointed, it all looked decidedly unnatural. I truth, I was a little miffed that Pat was so unimpressed, I had wanted his birthday treat to be something he enjoyed. Hey, it was memorable and maybe you can’t have everything. As usual, Hippy is apologising to me for my not being overly excited about my present which was actually my choice. She was exactly the same with JP’s birthday when we bought tickets for the one day international in Goa. England lost and Hippy was mortified that we’d got him such a poor present, asif we could have somehow changed the outcome by being more generous. Strange old bird.

Something of an impasse occurred when Raju got to my neck. I’d explained that I suffer from a nagging pain in the neck after riding for a few hours. When asked how this manifested itself, I described how when I turned my neck to see what was behind me a dull general pain set in. He was puzzled as to why I was turning my neck to look behind - surely I had mirrors. It was absurd. Was he really suggesting that motorcyclists in India use their mirrors for looking backwards. Mostly mirrors are adjusted so that the rider can preen on the move, otherwise they are turned totally backwards so that the bike can fit through narrower gaps. I decided that a conversation based on the principle of blind spots would fall on stoney ground and kept schtum.

Other than the palace, huge fort and a strange massage; what did Udaipur ever do for us? Well there’s the charming, detailed murals on people’s homes and the wonderful chat with some Hindu silver knife makers, who rather amusingly, copied Islamic script onto the sheaths without knowing what they were writing, their knives being very popular with moslem shoppers. Strange old world.

On to Pushkar by way of what must be the marble corridor. For mile after mile, the side of the highway was fringed with yards full of cut and un-cut marble. Trucks plied the route with hugely oversized loads, slowing to pathetic speeds on the uphills and overtaking erratically on the down. There really is only one type of truck in India, the omnipresent Tata. Judging by the examples plying the roads of India, they were all made on exactly the same chassis and between 1970 and 1975. It matters not that they have to carry large bulky loads or hugely heavy small objects, it can be fitted around or into the bed of a Tata. Marble has just the right density that when a Tata is filled to capacity it will break a stub axle or suspension mount within a very few miles. At regular intervals down the road trucks were jacked up, still containing their rocky cargo, awaiting repair. I’m convinced that once repaired they resume duty and collapse again within a week. They just aren’t up to the job but either no-one cares or there is some obstruction to the creation or importation of a more suitable vehicle.

Script and uncrupulous brahmins

We stopped for a bite and for once found a menu written in both English and Hindi. So what? We haven’t been able to find any way of learning Hindi script and so decipher road signs. Here we had the Rosetta Stone. Hippy went into some king of sudoku frenzy and managed by looking at the script associated with gobi aloo and mutter aloo the letters corresponding to the a,l and oo sounds. From this humble start, she continued to crack the Hindi code. Glowing with pride, she created the word Pushkar and presented it to the waiter for verification. He looked somewhat puzzled, the kind of look you would get if you presented a piece of paper with ‘penis’ or somesuch written on it to a waiter. He corrected the spelling and gave us a menu as a souvenir for our trouble. Another day, another strange event.

Pushkar shimmers with heat haze at this time of year, but we found our little piece of heaven; without a doubt the best value and possibly simply the nicest hotel we’ve stayed in anywhere in the world. The place is a restored and converted haveli which is a traditional house built around a courtyard. Our belief in the ability of byegone folk being able to build houses that stay naturally cool were borne out by this wonderful place. The furnishings and decor are simple and elegant, the staff friendly and helpful, the views from the rooftop restaurant as good as anywhere in Puskar, the sheets fitted the comfortable double bed (certainly a rarity in India) and all this cost us 3 pounds a night. So there you have it. If you want a wonderful time in dusty Rajastan book into Seventh Heaven. Do it now.

Its a good thing the that hotel was nice as Puskar pretty much sucks. Apparently a majorly spiritual site (aren’t the majority of Indian settlements?) where a lake formed where Brahma dropped a lotus flower, the place is now heaving with pseudo-brahmins who offer to say prayers for your blessing for a consideration. The consideration is not small and if you simply don’t want to have the blessings they just won’t get off your case. I’m afraid that being offered blessings with menaces is not really spiritual enough to float my boat. These brahmins are supposed to be representatives of the highest caste and guardians of the faith for the lower born of India. I’m afraid that their shenanigans placed them squarely on the level of the beggars from the lowest tier, perhaps lower given that their superior situation merits far better behaviour, and further lowered our opinion of the Hindu faith. I think what annoyed me the most was that these charlatans, kept aggressively telling us to ‘Show respect’. We were walking the ghats bare-footed despite the litter and pigeon shit, and refrained from photo taking even though there seemed to nothing more religious than washing clothes and kids splashing each other, showing our respect for their religion. I was rather annoyed and offended, that they didn’t acknowledge our aknowledgement of their customs, and wished us to be hypocrites and pay for his dead flower bud. By the time the tenth guy came up ordering us to show respect, I was about to yell at him ‘How about showing us atheists some respect and stop bullying us with your religion and emotional blackmail’ It was not the fact that they were plying their trade, it was up to them how they earn their living it was this attitude that there was no need to respect us. It was all in such sharp contrast to the lovely reception we had had from the religious people of Nasik. Maybe years ago Puskar was just as friendly a place, but now toursim and the affiliated touts, have made the place somewhat unpleasant.

The faded glory of the buildings and the wonderful sanctuary of our little haveli made us feel that we could have easily spend a week just chilling in the hotel. But by the end of the week we may have entiring lost all our patience with the Sadhus and Bramins and got jailed for charlatan abuse. Apart from that we really needed to wend our way closer to the blob of Delhi, and face the admin of visa acquistion.

Home decor in extremis

The obvious route we be to go to the famous Jaipur, but we figured if we got stuck in Delhi sorting out visa, we could do a loop by public transport to the Indian highlights of Jaipur and Agra (Pat is worried about any extra mileage now that we can’t get more tyres till Turkey). So instead we headed for the wee village of Nawalgarh, mainly because it would be harder to access by public transport.

The short cut recommended by the receptionist in Pushkar was, put simply, not. And then there was Kuchaman; a warren of narrow streets, busy with a myriad of vehicles and reckless pedestrians. When we asked directions people answered ‘Just go straight’ I have been conditioned to also visably cringe, when people say this. Come on Hippy, we must have ranted over the ‘just go straight’ contributions from would-be guides a billion times. At least on this occasion, ‘just going straight’ took us into a part of town that was quite charming but obviously infrequently visited, an impressive gatehouse standing below the escarpment that plays host to Kuchaman fort. A minor consolation when you’re baking hot and gagging to get to your destination.

Why Navalgarh? (as usual, spelling is a bit arbitrary) Close to the edge of the deserty bit of Rajastan is an area, Shekhawati, which is famous for the trading prowess of its denizens. They were enticed away from the area by the Brits to work in coastal regions and became hugely successful, spreading their trading influence far and wide. Not forgetting their roots, they spent large chunks of their wonga building showy havelis for the family they left behind. A tradition grew up of filling the walls with frescoes on traditional, religious and mythological themes along with informative panels depicting the ‘latest things’ in Europe. As a result, you may have a wall of Hindu gods standing under a 30 carriage railway train. Cars and trains certainly seemed to have been the most popular icons but there are plenty of bicycles and a few sewing machines dotted about, too.

We spent our resting hours in a rather warm room in the only cheap hotel in town. Run by Rajesh, it was not really such a bad place but just not set up for the summer months. Where other hotels have given discounts with it being off season, he had no need to as he knew he was already the cheapest place in town. I know it is the free market and all that but it stinks when you have to stay somewhere really quite uncomfortable and pay more than usual for the privilege. Our host was most efficient in his guidance around the town, producing a map that was not just annoyingly schematic but to scale and accurate - pretty much a first. Part of the heat problem was the lack of electricity, Rajesh was very defensive and quite adamant that they did not have power cuts in Nawalgarh. He pointed out, though that there was no electricity every day between 6 and 10. Glass half full.

There are over 300 havelis in Nawalgarh, most of which are utilised as homes or shops, some converted into schools and the odd museum. But still many more lay locked and empty. It was sad and delightful wandering about this little town. The residents are clearly unaware of the treasure in their midst. In every direction there were painted havelis, each with it’s own personality. The murals showed everything that was of interest to their owners, from sex to singer sewing machines, from Hindu legends to the latest in steam fire engines, dignitries playing ludo to the latest in 1920’s fashion, people bathing in caste iron tubs and people smoking chillums (marajana pipes). Why so sad then, because most of the murals were damaged and thought so worthless that they had been desecrated by spray painted graffiti and defaced with shop signs. For most, road works and damp had conspired to destroy the lower 2m. Seeing inside a couple of them, the paintings continue in the interior, they are a wonderful insight into the lives, interests and wants of their owners. One we visited had been restored by it’s owner, Mr Podar, who run half the building as a school and the other half as a museum. His family have owned the building from time of its creation. He now has his fingers in a number of multinational pies and has enough money to return the old building to it’s former glory. It was fantastical place, floor to ceiling artistry, intricate detail, the more you looked the more you saw. So much detail that from afar the minutiae was lost and the forms took on a different form, as you focused in, the painting drawn you into their world.

What must the streets have been like when these havelis were in their prime? Every building covered in a kaleidoscope of colour. I am sure there was a lot of ‘keeping up Jones’s in the new mural department’ with neighbours vying to include the latest inventions and fashions.

With so many unkempt and derelict buildings, I had the urge to buy one (about a quarter of a million quid to buy and restore). Still owned by the rich and important in India, but the jet-set are not, on the whole, keen on living in the sticks in a rundown town. So these fantastical buildings, are left to decay. Most of these properties are huge with multiple courtyards and cover big land spaces. So the places are out of reach in terms of price for average middle class Indians and then it would cost the same again to renovated them. So they sit and rot. This is only one of many villages in the area with such delapidated treasures. A couple have been bought by heritage trusts, and some of the tycoons that own them are beginning to see their worth, let’s hope the rest are saved before they fall down.

Hippy got a bit vexed about the bill when it came time to leave. We’d been offered various things and failed to ask, “How much is it?” every time. There had been breakfast, for instance, when we’d asked for stuffed parathas - they being on the menu and all. These could not be provided and so we were offered freshly baked home-made bread instead. Sounded good but turned out a bit dense and most importantly twice as expensive as our choice of parathas. We were offered unsolicited things to sample that eventually appeared on the bill. It really wasn’t that much but it all adds up. Having to ask the price of each and every thing is absolutely essential but incredibly annoying.

Rajesh prepared some directions for us to take the easiest route to Delhi. Although it all sounded a bit ‘just go straight’, he’d shown his spatial awareness with the map of Nawalgarh so we were bound to have a straightford trip and we were assured that Delhi roads are all sign-posted. Tippity top.