Rajasthan - escape to the country

Left Utter Pradesh behind and now we are in Rajasthan – the “must see” state in India. Nice air conditioned bus journey from Agra to Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan. So far it has been fun just arriving in a place and not really having much of a plan as to where to stay or what to do. Not so in Jaipur! Had the most annoying rickshaw driver who very much had his own agenda about which hotel we would like to stay in, i.e. the one he gets commission from. Five hotels later, we eventually found one suitable, although at this point, feeling like death warmed up, I would have been happy to stay anywhere.

Jaipur, it has to be said, was a bit of a write off for me. Still suffering from my cold, I really just needed a day in bed. The plan to quickly sort out onward travel and find a pharmacy just didn’t happen. Jaipur is a huge sprawling chaotic city, hardly anyone seemed to speak English, and the rickshaw drivers can’t read maps and don’t know where anything is. Eventually, gave up and resorted to an afternoon relaxing, sleeping, reading and doing laundry.

Both keen to escape Jaipur (apparently, it has lots of amazing historic sites, such as the City Palace and Amber Fort – we skipped them all!), we headed to the train station the following morning hoping we could wing it and buy a ticket for that day to get to Ranthambhore National Park. Thus followed what I believe the guide book describes as the “quintessential train experience”, travelling in cattle class with the locals. It was actually really fun and I’m glad we did it, although had the journey been more than two hours then the fun factor might have worn off rapidly. Like the novices that we are, when the train arrived on the platform, we wasted valuable time looking for the ladies only carriage (Indian trains are huge and finding the carriage you want is a challenge). It appeared there wasn’t one on this particular train so we just got on where we could. Whilst there are some bench seats in second class, by this time it was standing room only, even the luggage racks were being used as seats. We got a lot of strange looks and stares when we got on as we were the only foreigners and female. Very few Indian women seem to travel. Eventually someone took pity on us and insisted on making room for us to sit. Six to a seat that was clearly only ever made for three or four at most can best be described as cosy! However, once underway, with the wind blowing through the carriages (there are no windows or doors), watching the countryside whip by, women working in the fields wearing brightly coloured saris, it was actually quite fun.

Arriving in Ranthambhore was literally a breath of fresh air - green fields, less noise, less pollution. After over a week in Indian cities, it is great to be out in the country. Ranthambhore National Park is the most famous park in Rajasthan and supposedly the best place to see tigers in the wild. Having arrived a little late to make the afternoon safari, we went by jeep to Ranthambhore Fort – a 10^th century fort with temples and mosques in the middle of the park. After climbing the 120 steps to the top, you get fantastic views over the entire area which is made up of lots of jungle, rocky ridges and lakes. We also got to see quite a bit of wildlife on the drive to the fort – antelope, monkeys, peacocks, wild boar and Sambhar deer (nowhere else in Asia can you see this particular type of deer during the day time).

Tomorrow, we go tiger hunting! To be honest, I am not really expecting to see a tiger as they are rare, a lot of the park is dense jungle, and October isn’t the best month as the grass is very long. However, there are most definitely tigers out there as a ranger on walking patrol was attacked by one this morning. It would be incredible to see one in the wild – watch this space…