Mandawa

Day 3 is the trip from New Delhi to Mandawa. It’s mainly a travel day with a few sightseeing stops, but travel days can be very interesting too when going to a new place.

I noticed a few more differences between Kochi and New Delhi as getting out of Delhi takes a while because it’s so big. New Delhi has special bus lanes which helps keep them out of main stream traffic this helps a lot. The New Delhi bus drivers don’t drive “road warrior” style attempting to leave their tread marks on unsuspecting passengers back sides like Kochi bus drivers.

The New Delhi buses private and government both have green and yellow lines painted all the way around the bus. The government bus has the green line on the top, and the private bus has the yellow line on the top. In Kochi the tan lined bus is the government bus and the other busses are private. The Rajasthan busses are white with a blue stripe. All of this may not sound very interesting given I’m never going to be taking a bus as it is hazardous to a foreigners sense of personal space, but it only shows how different states in India have their own personalities and way of doing things just like in the U.S.

In my last post, I mentioned how nice the driving was here in New Delhi, and Lal mentioned it still gets crazy during office commutes. While trying to get out of Delhi around 10:00 in the morning, we did hit a number of traffic congestion points where 8 lane highways were used like 10 lane highways as the 25 million people living in New Delhi tried to get to the office. There were points where new highways were in construction and we had to use older more narrow roads which means 8 lanes worth of traffic in 4 lanes where dirt shoulder areas were used by motorcycles.

Here is a pic of the new highway bridge under construction…I have not seen any highway system in India that compares to the U.S. multi bridge and clover systems you might see in L.A. for instance.

I passed a lot of business construction on the way out of Delhi. There was a large mall under contruction called Ambi mall which had 1 square kilometer of space on each floor, and there were at least 6 floors. I don’t know when it will be completed, but it looked about 30 percent done.

Other business parks had companies like Convergesys, DLF, Nestle, Alcatel, Eli Lilly, HCL, Rites, Delphi and much much more. I passed the Honda factory for cars, and then 10 kilometers down the road I passed the Honda factory for motorcycles.

Once I was out of Delhi and away from office commuters the highway went to a 4 lane with very light traffic, and generally everyone stayed in their lanes. My driver still could not help driving in the middle of the road at times to create a 6 lane highway…I guess old habits are hard to break.

Further down the road a Best Western Hotel popped up out of nowhere. I’m not sure why it was there.

A few kilometers away the hwy turned into a toll highway. For the next 200 kilometers we hit 3 of these toll booths and we paid around 50Rs for each (1 dollar). In Kochi, the toll roads are much cheaper, but they are still in bad shape. We were easily cruising at 90kmh on these roads which were straight. One reason for the nice roads is probably the climate difference. Kochi gets monsoon rains which can easily breakdown roads if they are not drained properly. But as we headed into Rajasthan, a desert type climate started to appear which allowed for much easier maintenance of roads. I was told that in July and August, the temperature could get to 40-50 degrees Celsius. On top of the uninhabitable heat, heavy rains would come turning the landscape into a giant sauna. The climate right now, January, is perfect during the day, and fairly cool at night.

Since it can get fairly hot here, and there are desert like conditions, I started seeing locals using camels everywhere instead of horses or mules. Since petrol price is 45Rs per liter, a camel is not a bad idea as it was built for living in the desert. I don’t know what a camel eats but there was a mainstay farming plant that seemed like 100’s of square kilometers.

Below is a pics of a yellow wild flower used to make cooking oil. There are Kansas like fields of this stuff which is watered to grow. If you look at the sides of the roads which are barren and desert, that is what the area would look like if it wasn’t watered to grow these yellow flowered plants. If you know the name of the plant, please add a comment on this. The Kochi difference is obvious. There are no coconut trees here. I did see a number of vendors selling roasted peanuts, but I don’t know what a peanut tree looks like. So, I can only guess they are grown locally.

Another staple business in the area are brick and tile plants. The brick backing stacks bellowing smoke from the top were scattered across 100’s of kilometers. Tile plants were located in the area of geological outcrops. I saw one foot by on foot tiles all cut and loaded on trucks for delivery as well has larger tiles. I also saw a few honey bee farms.

Based on the pics the area is generally flat with a few small mountainous out crops. The mountain range is called Aravily (not sure of spelling) and there is a giant monkey god statue if you keep a look out for it. If you don't see it, it will see you.

In one of the small towns we passed through, there were 2 guys and boy making peda which is a sweet that reminds me of raw cookie dough. Here are some pics of them making it – it was an interesting process which I watched for several minutes.

Toward the end of the day, we stopped by a local temple. Here are some pics of that. I asked if I could go inside, and they said it was not a problem. When I entered the inner courtyard, there were 4 other people sitting in a semi-circle facing toward an alter under one of the temple spires. I was asked to take off my shoes, and the younger priest took me to the small alter to show me figurines of 3 gods they are worshipping at the temple along with a few other side gods which are in the family tree somewhere. I said thank you for letting me into the temple and showing me around, and I proceeded to leave. Then the priest asked if I would like to sit and have tea with the other members. I was honored by the request, and accepted the invitation. I sat down on the ornate rug, and they asked me the standard question I always get from locals – where are you from, are you in India alone, where is your family, what do you do for a living, do you think Elvis is still alive, etc… Finally, after the 3^rd degree grilling, which I’m getting used too, I was served a spicy tea. I asked how old the temple was and the younger priest said it was 35 years old, and another older guy said it was 700 years old. Since the older person had spent many years praying to monkey and elephant gods with some odd family tree intermingling, I assumed the younger person’s logical and time perceptions were more intact. Thus, I assume the temple was built 35 years ago. Once I finished the tea, I said thank you, and they thanked me for stopping by, and the younger priest gave me his business card which was in Hindi with 2 mobile phone numbers. Here is a pic of the business card. If you are looking for a hip techno friendly priest, this is your guy.

It was now getting late, and I headed for the Hotel Mukandgarh Fort. When I arrived, we drove though some old fortress doors, and a drummer started playing. I got out of the car and walked up some steps toward reception. On my way, a girl put a dot on my forehead and a necklace of flowers were placed around my neck. It appears I had to convert to Hindu before I could stay in the hotel. I have to admit it is a novel way of getting more converts. At this point, I’m wondering if permanent red ink was used, or if I can wash the dot off my forehead, will they throw me out of the hotel.

Here are some pics of the room. It’s a nice place and very interesting. There is a curtain in front of the door to allow the doors to be open, but still have privacy during those very hot days. I will have pics of the place in the morning.

Link for more info: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukandgarh

My next stop tomorrow is Jaisalmer. It’s another travel day, but it appears travel days can be fairly interesting if you are willing to pay attention to meaningless factoids about your environment and convert your religion.