Itinerary: Delhi – Mandawa – Bikaner – Jaisalmer – Jodhpur – Udaipur – Jaipur – Agra – Delhi
Our trip certainly wouldn't have been the same without the kind cooperation of Karni, who put us in the hands of our valiant driver, Mohan.
Although we had decided to rely on Karni only for transport by car, we noticed right from the start that to get around India it's essential, as a basic rule, to rely on a good means of transport – all the more so in June, perhaps the hottest and most sultry period of all. Unfortunately it was the only time we had available for such a long holiday, so we armed ourselves with suitable clothes and Zen-like calm and set off on our adventure.
Jet Airways flight Milan–Delhi (about 500 euros each), first night in Delhi, meeting with Mohan the following morning. From the very start the impact with India was very violent; although we had set off psychologically prepared, nothing can train you for the tropical sultriness, the chaos and the smog of Indian streets, and the enormous number of people who greet you the moment you step out of the airport! A little terrified and, after a while, exhausted by the constant haggling with the drivers of India's most common means of transport, the rickshaws (otherwise known as tuk-tuks), when on the morning of 8 June Mohan appears before us with his wonderful brand-new car, we relax for a moment and get ready for the 6-hour-plus journeys that from then on we would face almost every morning to move across Rajasthan. To our great joy we often manage to sleep for part of the journey, because Mohan's driving is impeccable – I would call it Indo-European: calm and steady as it is, it manages to get through the mess of Indian traffic extremely well, in town, on the motorway or on tarmac roads. We would later discover that the only city that gives him cold sweats in this respect is Agra… and rightly so!
First stop: Mandawa. It's a small town, and we gather that it isn't really touristy. We spend the afternoon looking at the wonderful (and sadly semi-abandoned) havelis it is full of. Curiously, the hotel we had chosen from the guidebook is itself a haveli, so we get a little taste of what life inside one would be like.
Second stop: Bikaner. In fact, the most characteristic place Mohan takes us to is between Mandawa and Bikaner, in the town of Deshnok: the Karni Mata Temple. It's a holy place teeming with thousands of little rats which, according to religious belief, are the reincarnations of people, and so they are looked after and fed by the faithful. We liked the experience a lot, but be careful if you're squeamish about these small and much-maligned rodents!
Now it's Jaisalmer's turn. The car journey to get there is really very long, and Mohan does almost all of it in one go, apart from a couple of essential stops. Since we can finally stop for a couple of days, we take the visit very much at a relaxed pace; on the afternoon of the first day we go to the cenotaphs of Bada Bagh and to the Jain temple of Amar Sagar. The next day we visit the fort in the morning, while in the afternoon Mohan takes us to Khuri for a camel-back excursion into the desert from late afternoon to sunset. An unforgettable experience.
The fourth stop is Jodhpur, known as 'the blue city', because, especially from above, most of the houses you can see are blue. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand the pale colours keep insects away and, as a result, diseases. On the other, blue marks out the houses of the Brahmins. The heat is oppressive and we almost struggle to move; luckily Mohan drives us to the places we're interested in, namely the fort (Mehrangarh) and the Jaswant Thada.
Udaipur is the second city where we stay for a full two days. It's tiny, but our hotel has a spectacular view over the lake, and the fact that it's small tempts us into shopping. On the first day Mohan takes us to see the wonderful puppet museum and the village of Shilpgram (which we don't recommend). On the second day we wander around the city on our own, ending up in the immense City Palace.
Here we are at last in Mohan's home area, and you can see he's happy! Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan, but for some reason we find it a bit more liveable than Delhi. Mohan ferries us around everywhere during the two days we're there: City Palace and astronomical observatory, Amber Fort, gardens, Palace of the Winds, Sun Temple (which we renamed the 'monkey temple', because it's full of them!)… you can't say we didn't visit everything there was to visit! Then comes an unexpected change of plan: in Agra, our next stop, we were supposed to take a train to Varanasi but, unfortunately, there are no seats available! Mohan will prove essential when it comes to booking train tickets too because, although station staff know English, it's we tourists who don't really understand the rules of the Indian railways. In the end we sadly settle for extending our stay in Agra and Delhi, skipping Varanasi altogether. Next time it's decided: better to ask Karni himself to take care of the train ticket!
Leaving Jaipur, it's Agra's turn. Mohan makes an intermediate stop, taking us to Fatehpur Sikri and warning us that we're in for quite something. And it's true: if in India's tourist spots you are, as a rule, assailed by people of various kinds (pushy vendors, people begging, curious locals), Fatehpur Sikri is the height of it. The place is beautiful but, especially near the mosque, the atmosphere is unbearable and at times we're forced to run to escape the rather too tiresome attentions of the locals. We THOUGHT Fatehpur Sikri was the worst, but that's because we hadn't yet arrived in Agra! I'll sum it up for you like this: Agra is a city built on the Taj Mahal and the Fort. Everything else is noisy, confused, dirty and uncivil (by the Indian average). Tourists are literally besieged. In fact I strongly recommend a day trip rather than a two-day stay, as we were forced to do. We even swapped our ticket for one on a train leaving at six in the morning to escape the nightmare of this city more quickly! (our trip with Mohan actually ended in Agra, much to our regret! But we wanted to try the thrill of the train! And we were right to – it's a singular experience, to say the least!)
After that, the return to Delhi seemed idyllic. The air even seemed clean, fresh and welcoming! Or perhaps it was just that we had got used to quite different situations! We stay in Delhi for 3 days, visiting part of what we hadn't been able to enjoy on the first day when we arrived, both because of tiredness and because of how unfamiliar we were with the Indian environment (in hindsight we were quite right to take a bit of time to acclimatise).
What has India left us with? Was it as we expected? Better? Worse? Personally I have been travelling for many years now, and the answer I'll give you holds for any part of the world you visit: set off with some information and opinions in your pocket, but never with idealised preconceptions (good or bad). With its smells, its confusion, its curious mixture of beauty and poverty, its perpetually spicy food, its oceanic crowds of people, whether friendly or annoying, India is in reality neither the worst nor the best country you will visit in the world. It's simply India! Enjoy it to the full and store up every memory, because you won't know when you'll be back, and there is only one India. Itinerary:
Meeting point – 8 June 2011 at 08:00 pick-up from hotel Hotel New King; the address is General Market, 15/16 Ramdwara Road, Main Bazar Pahar, new Delhi
08 June [Wednesday] – Pick-up from Delhi / Mandawa
09 June [Thursday] – Fatehpur / Deshnoke / Bikaner
10 June [Friday] – Ramdeora / Jaisalmer
11 June [Saturday] – Khuri / Jaisalmer
12 June [Sunday] – Osian / Jodhpur
13 June [Monday] – Ranakpur / Udaipur
14 June [Tuesday] – Udaipur
15 June [Wednesday] – Jaipur
16 June [Thursday] – Amber / Jaipur
17 June [Friday] – Fatehpur Sikri / Agra (drop)
Written by the traveller and first published in Italian on our former Italian website. Translated from Italian.