Thursday, 8 February 2018

Ranthambhore: Rajasthan Part 13

India

Rajasthan

This post covers days 15 and 16 of a 16-day journey around Rajasthan.

The size of Germany, Rajasthan is the largest of India’s 29 states. With the Thar Desert covering the north and west it is one of India’s less densely populated states, though with 200 people per km² (the same as Italy) it is hardly empty.

Ranthambhore, the last stop on the circuit

In the 11th and 12th centuries the rise of the Rajputs created some 20 or so petty kingdoms ruled by Maharajas - the ‘Rajput Princes’. These kingdoms, at first independent, later vassal states of the Mughal or British Empires survived until 1947, when the Maharajahs led their ‘Princely States’ into the new Union of India, creating Rajasthan (the ‘Land of Princes’). The rulers became constitutional monarchs until 1971 when the Indian government ended their official privileges and abolished their titles. ‘Maharaja’ is now a courtesy title, but most remain leading members of their communities and some are still immensely rich. Several, like their British counterparts, have supplemented their income by turning forts and palaces into tourist attractions and hotels.

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Hunting Big Cats in the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

07-Feb-2018

Bundi to Sawai Madhopur

The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve is a 3-hour drive from Bundi. It might have been a little quicker if Umed had believed the road signs rather than his sat nav, but a final circular tour of Bundi was enjoyable. Despite some narrow roads we reached Sawai Madhopur around midday and checked in to one of the half a dozen or more resort hotels lining the road to the nearby Tiger Sanctuary.

Narrow roads between Bundi and Ranthambhore

Being on full board we were soon making our way past the swimming pool to the huge dining area for the lunchtime buffet. It was not an experience we would care to repeat, though we were doomed to do exactly that in the evening. I will whine about it at greater length later.

Ranthambhore Tiger Hunt (1)

After lunch, we joined the scrum in the lobby as large groups, small groups, couples and individuals were assigned to buses and jeeps for tiger hunting. The proceedings appeared chaotic but despite the apparent disorder everybody was on a list somewhere. We were among the last to leave, which was frustrating but we appreciated the benefits of staggering arrivals at the reserve.

Passing a camel cart as we leave the hotel

We set off in a jeep with driver, guide and three other passengers, the five of us in two tiered seats so we all had a good view. Beyond the town we paused at one of the reserve entrances to be signed in. Each vehicle was allocated to one of the seven or eight sections of the reserve, thus spreading everybody out and avoiding the self-defeating anarchy we experienced at Yala in Sri Lanka. Whether any of the resident tigers are visiting your section is a matter of luck, we had failed (twice) at Nagarhole Park much further south, but Ranthambhore offers the best tiger spotting opportunity anywhere in India so we were cautiously optimistic.

Cautious optimism at the reserve entrance.

We set off and soon encountered an owl; not quite a tiger, but a good start.

An owl watches us enter the ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Ten minutes passed before we saw the first of many spotted deer.

Spotted deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

At one of the tiger’s favoured watering holes we sat and watched, but all we saw was two more spotted deer (not looking particularly nervous) and a great egret.

Tiger's watering hole with spotted deer and an egret, but no tigers, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We saw lots more spotted deer….

Spotted deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve
I have dozens of pictures of spotted deer, and will spare you any more

….and some larger sambar deer but no sign of a tiger.

Sambar deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We toured around, waiting and watching at likely spots. Occasionally we encountered other vehicles and the guides swapped information – mostly telling each other there were no tigers in our sector today. The countryside was beautiful….

Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

….and we encountered an impressive sambar stag…

Sambar stag, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

… and another sambar demonstrating that the best leaves are always just out of reach, but no tigers.

A sambar stag finds the best food is just out of reach, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After 90 fruitless minutes we took a break, driving into a clearing where several other jeeps had collected. The air was full of large, colourful birds, swooping over the cars and sometimes landing on them while their fellows sat bickering in the trees. The rufous treepie is one of the more brightly coloured and musical of the crow family with a three-part call consisting of a bark, a higher wheedling reply and occasional manic laughter. They are noisy but it is strangely un-birdlike and I was embarrassingly slow to connect the sounds and birds.

Rufous treepie, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Legs duly stretched we resumed our hunt, but for the next hour and a half all we saw were more deer and a male nilgai, a large, rather ungainly, antelope also known as 'blue bull'. The males are recognisable by their small horns – distinctly different from deer’s antlers.

Male Nilgai, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Leopard

We returned to the entrance, hoping that tomorrow morning’s trip would be more productive. Several jeep-loads were being signed out and I do not know whether it was a driver, guide or tourist who first spotted what appeared, possibly, to be the head of a leopard sitting above us on a crag a hundred metres or more away.

Is that a rock or a leopard? Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After carefully peering I decided it was just an odd shaped rock, but changed my mind when the ‘rock’ sat up.

It looks more like a leopard, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Then it stood and loped easily to the top of the crag where it settled down to watch us. The view was distant, but it was undoubtedly a leopard, and it showed itself for several minutes. It went some way to make up for the rest of the afternoon’s disappointment.

Undoubtedly a leopard, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Returning to the hotel during rush hour, we found the local buses were packed.

Rush hour bus, Ranthambhore

Dining and other Disasters

Back at the hotel we compared notes with others, roughly half of those we talked to had seen a tiger – several had made multiple sightings. Today we had been among the unlucky ones, but maybe tigers prefer the cool of the early morning, there were grounds for optimism tomorrow.

Dinner was as dire as lunch. Poor food is usually the fault of the kitchen, but here much of the blame must be shouldered by the diners, 100% of them European and mostly our fellow countrymen and women. A few Indian choices lurked among the dishes of boiled cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes and stir-fried peppers and onions. We watched one large British tour party pass down the buffet without one person choosing a single Indian option. The member of staff walking purposefully round the room with a heaped plate of chapattis succeeded in giving away only two.

To be fair the staff were trying but were meeting resistance. We watched one girl of eleven or so being gently cajoled into trying something new, and she was almost there when a woman – granny we guessed – grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away saying ‘you don’t want any of that.’

But the Indian dishes, we discovered were no better. In the belief that Europeans do not like spicy food they had removed all the spices, not just chilli, but the non-hot spices as well, possibly even the salt and pepper, the result was so bland it was barely edible. As we left next morning, we met the manager who was touring round speaking to departing guests. I took this up with him and he agreed it was awful, but it was, he told us, the only way to persuade tourists to try it. They could, he added, have given us good Indian food if we had notified them in advance, but as we had no way of knowing what was coming….. I do not think he is blameless; some people will rise to a challenge and although British ‘Indian’ restaurants are of hugely variable quality, there are many that thrive on giving their customers a genuine taste of Indian flavours.

We did not have a restful night, a wedding party, off-site but well within earshot, kept up their chanting until 3am.

08-Feb-18

Ranthambhore Tiger Hunt (2)

Undeterred we were up early and back in the lobby for the apparent chaotic allocation of people to transport. Again, it all worked out and we were in the park looking for tigers just after sunrise.

Sunrise over Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

In a different, hillier section of the park on a bright, chilly morning there seemed every reason to be brimming with optimism.

A hiller section of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

But although our surroundings were beautiful, the animals did not come out to play.

Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

There were even fewer deer and antelopes than yesterday. Photographs of peacocks were all we added to yesterday’s list and although such ungainly creatures seem unlikely survivors in the wild, they are abundant everywhere.

Peacock, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We did see a tree that had been gnawed by a porcupine, but no sign of the gnawer.

Porcupine gnawings, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After a couple of hours fruitless searching we returned crest-fallen to the hotel for breakfast. This has been our fourth attempt to see tigers and fourth failure. Over breakfast we again found that many others had been more fortunate, so our repeated failures are either bad luck or a plot by the tigers. Are some humans in league with them passing on information about exactly where we are going? I think we should be told.

Back to Jaipur and then Home

We set off after a late breakfast. Delhi was seven or eight hours away, so we were making the shorter – though not short - drive to Jaipur and then flying Delhi. We had not known when we agreed this that while we were flying, Umed would be driving the same route below us. It made little sense, but we went ahead anyway.

En route we saw more of the waddling straw-carriers that had been a feature of the early days of this trip.

Straw carrier waddling along somewhere in the road to Jaipur

Lunch was at a bright modern transport café way out in the middle of nowhere. No ‘tourist food’ here and Lynne’s vegetable pakoras and my paneer pasanda while not being Rajasthan’s finest food went a long way to erasing the sad memories of the last hotel’s fare. We did not know it at the time, but it would be the last proper Indian meal of this trip.

We passed through the wonderfully named town of Tonk and enjoyed several detours trying to find passable roads.

This probably isn't Tonk, but it is somewhere on the road

We reached Jaipur with ample time to check-in for our 19.15 flight and say goodbye to Umed who had been utterly reliable throughout and a fine travelling companion.

The flight was delayed and by the time we reached our airport hotel in Delhi it was 11pm and the restaurant had closed. Next morning who should turn up for our airport transfer than Umed himself making the irritating little flight even more pointless.

And that was it for this trip. The Great Tiger Conspiracy had made the last couple of days an anti-climax, but overall it had been a wonderful and memorable experience.

Finally, thanks to Pioneer Personalized Holidays in Kochi and particularly to Dheeraj whose organisation of the whole trip had been faultless. Thanks also to Adrian who phoned us from Kochi every couple of days to check we were still thriving, and most of all to Umed who did all the hard work at the sharp end.

Rajasthan, Land of Princes

Part 1: Jaipur and Amber (or Amer)
Part 2: Mandawa, Town of Havelis
Part 3: Bikaner, Sweets and Palaces
Part 4: Across the Thar Desert from Bikaner to Jaisalmer
Part 5: Jaisalmer in the Heart of the Thar Desert
Part 6: Jodhpur, Not Just a Pair of Trousers
Part 7: Rohet and the Bishnoi People
Part 8: Narlai, Small Town, Large Rock
Part 9: Ranakpur Jain Temple and on to Udaipur
Part 10: Udaipur (1), Royal City
Part 11: Udaipur (2) Bagore Ki Haveli and Dal Baati Churma
Interlude: Breakfast Thoughts in Udaipur
Part 12: Chittorgarh and on to Bundi
Part 13: Tiger Hunting in Ranthambhore

THE END

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

Chittorgarh and Bundi: Rajasthan Part 12

India

Rajasthan

This post covers day 14 of a 16-day journey around Rajasthan.

This penultimate post takes us across southern Rajasthan from Udaipur to Bundi

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An Old Stronghold and a City by a Lake

After a breakfast interesting enough to deserve its own brief post, we checked out and met Umed in the lobby. He confessed to having a minor coming together with a motorcycle after he left us on Saturday and had chosen not to brave the narrow lanes again. After tuk-tuking out to where he had left the car we looked sympathetically at the minor scratches.

Tuk-tuking out of the narrow maze of streets around Lake Pichola, Udaipur

Udaipur to Chittorgarh

We set off for Bundi, 250km and a five-hour drive from Udaipur with an intended long stop at Chittorgarh (spelt Chittaugarh on the map above) around the half way mark.

On a cloudy and cool morning Umed drove us out of Udaipur rounding the Chetak circle on the way. Chetak is the name traditionally given to the horse ridden by Maharana Pratap at the Battle of Haldighati in 1576, though without any historical evidence. The legend of the horse bravely carrying the Maharana to safety before dying of his wounds dates from a couple of centuries after the battle.

Chetak Circle, Udaipur

We also saw a toddler standing in the well of a motor scooter, a sight we have seen so often in South Asia we sometimes forget to find it alarming.

Girl on a motor scooter

An hour or so later we passed a wedding party…

Wedding party near Chittorgarh

…and around midday reached Chittorgarh.

Chittorgarh

The modern city of Chittorgarh – sometimes just ‘Chittor’ – has 120,000 inhabitants and makes its living from concrete, marble and lead-zinc smelting. Itself of little touristic interest it sits at the foot of an 180m high hill with an extensive flattish top. The earliest inhabitants quickly grasped the hill’s defensive possibilities and the first fort (garh) was built by Chitrangada Mori – sources agree on this but no-one says who he was and when he lived so perhaps he was legendary. The fort grew into the biggest in India, or possibly Asia, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The hill is steep, the ascent involving several hairpins. At the top, inside two or three layers of outer walls, we met our local guide, a thin wiry man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Chittogarh and a compulsion to share it, all of it if possible.

Muiltiple lines of defence on Chittogarh Hill

After looking down on the city below….

Chittor City from Chittorgarh

Kirti Stambh

…. we drove across the fort to Kirti Stambh. Just because we are in a fort, not everything has to be military. The 22m Kirti Stambh was built by a Jain merchant in the late 12th or early 13th century (though the top pavilion was added a century or two later). Jains are opposed to all violence and tower is dedicated to Lord Adinath, the first Jain Thirthankar.

Kirti Stambh, Chittorgarh

Next-door is a Jain temple….

Jain Temple beside Kirti Stambh, Chittorgarh

…. And both are adorned with sumptuous carvings, which would sparkle in the sunshine – if there was any.

Carvings on the Jain temple by Kirti Stambh, Chittorgarh

Suraj Pol, Chittorgarh

A couple of hundred metres along the curtain wall is the Suraj Pol, the ‘front gate’ of the fort (we entered through the back door overlooking the city).

Suraj Pol, Chittorgarh

The Suraj Pol is undergoing restoration. It is not unusual to see women manual labourers in India, nor is it unusual to see such flimsy footwear – or even bare feet – so near to a mattock. India’s record on industrial accidents is not impressive.

Restoration works, Suraj Pol, Chirrorgarh

Outside, the hill is steep but there is a graded path for horses and elephant, with the usual right-angle bends to stop a war elephant charging the door.

Outside the Suraj pole on an overcast and misty day, Chittorgarh

The view down to the plain, a long way below, shows the fort’s strength, but it also its weakness. The fort had ample water, the rocky soil retains it well and it is claimed they had enough for a garrison of 50,000 for four years, but all the food must come from the flat fertile land below.

Looking down from Chittorgarh to the plain below

The Story of Padmini

The fort was allegedly taken by Bappa Rawal, founder of the Kingdom of Mewar (later based in Udaipur) in the 8th century but that may be a story to account for the Mewar Dynasty (the Sisodias) holding the fort in the first place. They were to lose it (and regain it) three times in the next 800 years, each time with appalling consequences.

The Sisodias first lost Chittorgarh in 1303 to Alauddin Khalji, the Sultan of Delhi. Rawal Ratan Singh put up a stout defence and, allegedly, Alauddin Khalji offered to withdraw if he was allowed a single glimpse of Padmini, the Rawal’s queen and a woman of legendary beauty.

Padmini's Palace with its island annexe, Chittorgarh

Ratan Singh had made a long and dangerous journey to her home in Sri Lanka to win her hand after hearing of her beauty from a talking parrot, so the request required much thought. Eventually he allowed the Sultan to enter Padmini’s palace alone, climb the mirror tower and see not her, but her reflection in the surface of the lake.

This probably is not the mirror tower but the next one along. It is, though, a prettier tower and a better picture.
And as it never really happened the designation of one tower as the 'mirror tower' for the benefit of tourists seems pointless

Maybe the Sultan was satisfied by this, maybe not or perhaps it had all been a subterfuge because as he left his entourage grabbed Ratan Singh and hustled him away. The Palace now has a beautifully kept rose garden, perhaps this was where the kidnapping took place.

The rose garden by Padmini's palace, Chittorgarh

Padmini dressed the palace guard as women and sent them in curtained palanquins as a gift to the Sultan. Beware of Greeks and Sisodias bearing gifts as the saying almost goes. Bursting from the palanquins, the soldiers rescued Ratan Singh but lost 7,000 of their own men (surely a 'magic' number and certainly far more than could be transported in all the palanquins in Rajasthan) in the process.

Ratan Singh was free, but at such a cost he knew his cause was lost, Padmini led 13,000 women in committing johar, throwing themselves on to a huge funeral pyre, while their menfolk rode out to certain death at the hand of the Sultan’s soldiers.

Not a happy tale, and not the first mass suicide of this trip (see Jaisalmer). Strong historical evidence exists for Sultan Alauddin Khalji taking Chittorgarh in 1303, and for a mass suicide. The rest is fable; poets, story-tellers and Bollywood producers have embellished the story at their whim, but however the yarn is spun the objectification of women remains uncomfortably at its heart.

Vijay Stambh and the Johar Place, Chittorgarh

Despite the death and destruction, the Delhi Sultans were not that interested in Chittorgarh and 20 years later it was back in Sisodia hands. Two centuries of stability and prosperity followed, though not without continued military activity. We drove north to the Vijay Stambh, erected 1458-68 by Rana Kumbha to commemorate his victory over the Sultan of Malwa. It looks very like the Kirti Stambh, though it is 250 years younger and 15m taller. This is a typical Jain tower but built by a Hindu – pacifist Jains would never commemorate a military victory.

Vijay Stambh, Chittorgarh

Stability came to a jolting end in 1535 when the Sultan of Gujarat besieged Chittorgarh. Again, the result was johar, the women and children leaping onto a funeral pyre while their men rode out to die in battle. The Johar Place stands directly in front of the Vijay Stambh. Now a patch of green surrounded by ruins, some say the spirits of the dead still inhabit this terrible place (though I remain a sceptic on such issues).

The Johar Place, Chittorgarh.
Two 16th century johars took place here but Padmini's was at the Ratan Singh Palace further north

The Sisodias regained the fort, but Rawal Udai Singh was aware of its vulnerability and sought out a new capital, founding Udaipur in 1559. He was therefore not present in 1567 when the Mughal Emperor Akhbar embarked on Chittorgarh’s longest and bloodiest siege which ended in yet another act of johar. The Mughals handed Chittorgarh back in 1616 on condition it would not be refortified, but by then the era of castles was over.

Samadhisvar Temple and Gaumukh Reservoir, Chittorgarh

Several ruined buildings and a couple of temples surround Johar Place. Finest is the 11th century Samadhisvar Temple. It resembles a Jain Temple but….

Samadhisvar Temple, Chittorgarh

…Nandi at the entrance proves it to be a Shiva temple.

Nandi at the entrance to the Samadhisvar Temple, Chittorgarh

Inside Shiva is shown in the Tripurti form which holds that Brahma and Vishnu are forms of Shiva and not different deities.

Shiva in the Tripurti form, Samadhisvar Temple, Chittorgarh

Behind the temple is the Gaumukh (lit: Cowmouth) Reservoir. Perched on the edge of the hill, it is fed by a spring, the outfall in the cliff carved as a cow's mouth. It was an important source of water during numerous sieges.

Gaumukh Reservoir, Chittorgarh

Chittorgarh has more to see, but it was time to move on. We said goodbye to our guide, left the fort and stopped at a restaurant half way down for a paneer curry and a bottle of Kingfisher.

On to Bundi

Another three hours driving took us to Bundi. On the way we passed overcrowded buses…

Overcrowded bus between Chittorgarh and Bundi

…and overloaded lorries. Marble being a local industry, we passed many lorries carrying unrestrained stone slabs. They are stable under normal conditions, but in an accident the lorry could tip over or come to a dramatic stop launching several tonnes of masonry at passers-by, or the driver himself.

Transporting marble, seen between Chittorgarh and Bundi

We reached Bundi just after five. It looked a nice little town built round a lake with a palace climbing the hillside opposite.

Bundi Palace across the lake.
This photo and the one below were taken the following morning when the weather and light were better.

We checked into a charming old Haveli down a narrow lane and met our new local guide.

Bundi Haveli

Bundi

Our itinerary said we should see the palace, but it was already closing for the evening. Our guide apologised, as though he was personally responsible for dusk, but we have seen many palaces recently and Bundi was never the grandest of Rajasthan’s many princely states. He offered to show is a stepwell and conduct a walking tour instead if we had the energy. It was our only chance to see Bundi, so we found the energy.

Bundi had seemed small as we arrived, but the old centre clusters below the royal palace on the hillside and the city has grown away from the hill rather than round it as we first thought. Bundi has a population of 100,000 and has or had 50 stepwells. All are abandoned, most have fallen into disrepair and many are used as rubbish dumps.

Dabhai Kund, Bundi

Dabhai Kund, one of the largest, was a ten-minute drive away. Built in 1658 it has undergone some restoration, though more is needed. I do not expect the authorities to replace the water, but they could remove the rubbish.

Dabhai Kund stepwell, Bundi

Step wells are major excavations. It is a moot point whether the ability of everybody to fetch water at once rather than queue for a bucket on a rope is worth the digging, but they are remarkable structures. Close up, the repeated lines of steps have a pleasing Escher-like effect.

Dabhai Kund stepwell, Bundi

Next to the well is the royal cremation site.

Royal cremation site, Bundi

And why, you wonder are there two domes, each above its own memorial? One is for the ruler, the other for his wife, because once her husband dies the best thing a woman can do is to set herself on fire. The voluntary (?) burning of women has occupied too much of this post. Under pressure from Hindu reformers and Christian missionaries, sati was banned state by state from 1829. There seems to have been little resistance to this particular colonial interference in local customs – perhaps they had all had enough.

Royal cremation site, Bundi

Fine Samosas, Bundi

Nearby we passed a stall selling ‘the best samosas in the world’ or so our guide said. They make 5,000 a day, he told us and for a few rupees we had one each (as did the guide and Umed) to put his statement to the test. We have eaten many samosas, perhaps not enough to judge the world’s best, but these were outstanding. They were fresh, with fine pastry and the subtlest spicing of the vegetable filling.

The best samosas in the world, Bundi

Sukh Mahal, Bundi

Our walking tour continued by car (!) to the Jait Sagar Tank, an artificial lake on the edge of town. The Sukh Mahal was built beside the lake around 1800 as a pleasure palace/hunting lodge for the Maharao of Bundi. Rudyard Kipling stayed here at some time in the 1880s and either wrote Kim here or was inspired to write it here, depending on source. As Kipling left India in 1889 and Kim was published in 1901 this may be fanciful. It is open to the public, but not at this time of day.

The Sukh Mahal, Bundi

Bundi Market

Back in the town we let Umed go and continued on foot.

Back to Bundi market

We walked through the flower market….

Flower market, Bundi

...and the vegetable market where some stalls were well stocked…

Larger stalls, Bundi Market

….while and others sold whatever meagre produce the stallholders could get or grow.

Small vegetable stall, Bundi market

We stopped to taste some carrot-based sweets.

Sweet stall, Bundi

Beyond the gate into the old city...

Through the gate, Bundi

…were more stalls, clothes shops, weavers, welders and knife sharpeners. In small offices and banks high enough off the ground to avoid the monsoon floods, clients sat on soft floor coverings and leant against pillows while business was conducted on desks only inches high.

Business, Bundi-style

Krishna Tea Stall, Bundi

Our guide suggested a stop at Krishna's tea stall.

Mr Krishna boils up his tea, Bundi

This place is something of an institution and we clambered up to the only two seats while Mr Krishna crushed the spices for our masala tea with a stone and set about boiling up the sweet milky tea.

His tea, peppery with a hint of cardamom, was quite exceptional and if ‘the best tea shop in the world’ is as extravagant and unprovable a claim as the best samosa, the combination of quality and ambience was truly memorable. His vast visitors’ book has comments from customers from across the globe, and we added our two-pennyworth.

Mr Krishna, Bundi

While drinking our tea we were entertained by a passing wedding party.

Wedding party, Bundi

We may have missed the palace, but the evening had been far better than yet another palace visit. Back at the hotel we dined on vegetable biryani and lamb mughli.

07/02/18

Bundi Morning Photographs

The morning weather was much brighter, and before leaving we had a short stroll to see what we could see. Our sightings included a small hairy piglet…