Rajasthan - Beyond the golden triangle

According to the travel and travel agents' websites the basic 'golden triangle' tour in India is Delhi, Agra/ Fatehpur Sikri, Jaipur, Delhi.  There are of course add ons galore, from Ranthambore National Park and the chance of a tiger sighting to Jodhpur, where the remarkable Mehrangarh fort crowns the heights above the old city;Udaipur for its lakes and palaces; Pushkar for the camel festival and any number of smaller towns and rural villages for a taste of particular festivals and lives other to our own. There is much much more to see in Rajasthan than is offered by the most obvious tours and aficionados of course travel to nooks and crannies of a state that is quite simply a treasure trove of history, heritage, sights and sounds.

The otherness of other places and other lives has changed dramatically with globalisation as our extraordinary communication networks bring us all closer together.  We have a wider view of the world without even going to see it and globalised markets have given most of us potential access to similar commodities, the young especially with their uniform tee shirts and jeans from Reykjavik to Beijing, their availability to any group governed by their cost not their absence. We are all evolving, progressing or just being pushed forward by the crowd, our starting points different; our desired destinations apparently all too similar as we rush, blinkered, towards our goals, never looking back at the things we are losing in our hurry.We leave huge gaps, allow our heritage to disappear or be spoilt, purposefully destroyed in some cases by political or religious imperative, sometimes just by fashion. Our education systems all over the world increasingly look forward, shedding and ignoring the lessons of the past, failing to provide the understanding we need to maintain and preserve as well as build successfully on historical foundations and move on in informed and better directions.

 Not everything either can or should be kept. In the Shekhawati area of  Rajasthan, where I have been travelling, there were once hundreds, thousands of ornately designed and painted havelis, the joint family homes of the wealthy merchants of the small desert Marwari community whose family names, Birla, Bajaj, Poddar, Mittal and Ruia for a start, are now synonymous with Indian business and entrepreneurship. Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is a rare example who has rejected the strict Marwari non-drinking, vegetarian tradition, if not the ability to turn straw to gold. The Marwaris spread across India to Calcutta, Bombay, other great Indian cities and then abroad, their village or small town homes left often to minor family members and caretakers who finally claimed ownership by customary rights. Havelis, particularly in major towns and cities like Jaipur have often been well maintained and preserved, nowadays many are exquisite hotels or guest houses.  Others have suffered abandonment and encroachment, particularly in smaller, less visited towns and villages and the ragged niched walls in demolition sites show where the loss is permanent as the hideous new 'havelis' of recent enrichment spring up in older footprints.

                                  

There are settlements of tribal people and migrant workers living under plastic sheeting outside those decorated towns and villages, serving to remind the visitor that there has always to be a balance between preserving people and things. But there needs as a rule to be rules that are not made to be broken but to save the best of history and heritage, wherever in the world it still exists, and an education that encourages understanding of the value of that history. Determined iconoclasm is one thing that liberal society usually agrees to regard with horror, casual neglect and ensuing destruction happens without us noticing.  Travel to a hitherto unknown destination often gives us a distressing view of degradation and decay but, while we can report what we see and hope for change, we should be careful not to pass judgement too loudly on others' failings. We don't always do too well ourselves as I reminded myself most days when looking at crumbling haveli walls, ruined paintings and, most of all, oceans of plastic rubbish, chewed over by cows and goats who used most successfully to digest paper and other more natural packagings.

 Jan, then James Morris, the greatest of travel writers, wrote about a camel spotted in Oman seen happily drinking sump oil by a well but I'm not sure even camels' digestions can cope successfully with plastic. The extraordinary cow hospital outside Nagaur is filled with recovering amputees, halt and lame victims of traffic and agricultural accidents but it is hard not to wonder how many cattle might not also need treatment for excessive plastic ingestion. Brahmin bulls putting their heads through the village bakery door may these days find their daily bread wrapped in a pink plastic bag.

 As good friends in Delhi pointed out, Shekhawati is very much not off the beaten track but it does feel less travelled than that famous golden triangle.  Catching the overnight train to Bikaner from Sarai Rohilla, an old and not well known Delhi station, added a extra sense of slightly uncomfortable adventure to a very ordinary journey.  Approaching midnight it was deserted by Indian railway standards, certainly of porters, and my prayers for my train to arrive at the platform on my side of the high bridge across the tracks were not answered.  The question of which bag to leave where while carrying the other up and down stairs was answered by a friendly fellow traveller who saved me again on arrival in Bikaner when, once more, I was on the wrong side of the tracks.  I love overnight trains although this one was, as predicted by my same good if pessimistic friends who anticipated me coming down with swine flu at best, with rape and pillage an alternative option for the contemporary solo traveller,considerably dirtier than trains in India used to be, the conductor decidedly surly over my unconfirmed, or actually confirmation unmarked ticket. Once bedded in, I lay too long awake enjoying the sound of the train, falling eventually into such deep sleep that I was practically pushed out of the carriage into early morning  Bikaner with my eyes still closed.

I travelled there first with slightly mixed intentions that also took me up to Hanumangarh on the border with the Punjab, returning to Churu and Shekhavati via the Harappan site of Kalinbangan..  I wished to see more of the areas where the Vicereine, Mary Minto, whose Indian Journal I have recently edited, went on hunting expeditions with her family organised by Ganga Singh, the most famous Maharaja of Bikaner, who became a close friend to the family and whom she clearly adored. He perfectly lived up to the image of the glamorous, soldierly Rajput Prince, commanding the famous Bikaner Camel Corps during WWI, member of the Imperial War Cabinet and ADC to George V. Roles that were of less importance at home than his reforms in education, agriculture, law and prisons undertaken over a 56 year rule that ensured his almost iconic appeal to this day in Bikaner and surrounding areas.  His image or images  as well as those of his motor cars, Rolls Royces I think, soldiers and troop filled trains, are  almost standard as part of the fresco decoration of the havelis of the former Bikaner state. 

 Later buildings or more lately re-decorated havelis have been adorned also with eccentric portraits of film stars and other unexpected motifs contemporary with their dates into the 20th century.The local guides may sniff at these, comparing them adversely to the riotous more traditionally painted splendour of 18th and 19th century buildings,  but compared to the sort of appallingly glitzy abode recently built by the ex-Mayor of Churu opposite a row of demolished 19th century havelis, they remain buildings to charm and entertain their viewer. 

The architecture of early 20th century havelis evolved from more traditional Islamic inspired architecture, what we think of as Mughal or Indo-Saracenic arches and doors, as other influences arrived with the international products of buzzing import/export businesses.  Italianate Romanesque curved arches and more European motifs, hence an inflight of sickly cherubs bearing garlands, a particular and bizarre favourite in some of the extraordinarily kitsch Jain temples of the area along with glittering Belgian glass mosaic work, Persian and Venetian chandeliers, Dutch or Chinese and British tiles.

Traditional haveli decoration included walls of monumental painted elephants; domed ceilings crowded with dancing gods; stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata; the story of the camel borne lovers Dhola Maru, a profusion of dancing women; increasingly muddled up with colonial images, marching soldiers, both Indian and British; colonial officials standing, sitting, writing a letter; a postman delivering mail; monstrous cherubs; Queen Victoria, or so one supposes, with other quaint portraits of her near descendants; very occasionally the Buddha; Jesus, apparently smoking a cigar,in one picture; and always more trains, cars, soldiers, camels, elephants, and the gods dancing on to infinity or, once in a while, themselves being chauffeured in a limousine. They are the great glory of the  group of Poddar chhatris in the delightful town of Ramgarh where small painted havelis built by the Poddar and Ruia families to rival those in neighbouring Churu line the streets of the bazaar.

                                

The last cherry on the Ramgarh cake is the small Shani Temple where the belgian glass mosaic and intricate painting has been blackened by nearly 200 years worth of candles burned to reflect from the glass fragments and turn the whole space into a sort of devotional disco ball of flickering light. There is a plan afoot to preserve Ramgarh in its entirety before too many more sugar pink confections of houses are built on older foundations and before those dancing gods slip from their domes into the dust.  It is the perfect place and the people who live there are noticeably friendly in the casual unhurried and unpushy way of those comfortable in their surroundings.  Of course that is an equally casual perception but Ramgarh is a delight, aside perhaps from those who demand more 'entry fee' than the going rate to unlock the doors of the temple.-  conversely the caretaker at the Poddar havelis seeemed more interested in his newspaper and the healthy looking cows that graze the site than any proffered remuneration.

 The old city of Bikaner is filled with magnificently carved red sandstone havelis, their blue shuttered windows and enclosed balconies overhanging almost mediaeval streets which bustle in the days leading up to Holi. Mounds of coloured powder, giant sized plastic syringes, glass cases stuffed with sweets and cannabis leaves being diligently ground and mixed for bhang, pointers to anticipated festive pleasures.  Dogs lie on the remaining great tables close by haveli walls, stages really that were once so integral to their owners' lives, the centre of the home, where the women of an extended family chopped vegetables, ground spices, negotiated hierarchies and put their worlds to rights. Beyond the ancient walls, the city and the 16th century yellow sandstone Junagarh Fort grew and changed over time according to expediency, fashion or the sort of whim that impelled Maharaja Dungar Singh in the late 19th century to build the Badal Mahal, the Weather Palace.  Visitors today see a room decorated with swirls of stylised blue and white clouds punctuated by lightning shafts,images of monsoon like rain pour down the lower walls, a rare event in the desert city in the past. In the Maharaja's day, a water system allowed real water to pour down into a drainage system in the floor, for the entertainment, the guides say of the ruler and his children, while drummers summonsed thunder from their instruments.

 

Wealthy merchants did not have a monopoly on painted decoration in their homes and the forts and palaces of Shekhawati are richly painted and gilded; the sheen on their walls and pillars due to araish plaster, a variable recipe of lime, egg white, ground stone and tamarind that can be polished to a marble like finish. Their stone and marble work is carved into intricate patterns and scenes like the remarkable sandstone panels that cover the walls of Ganga Singh's 20th century Durbar Hall in the Junagarh fort. Ganga Singh's modernisations are much in evidence in the fort and so relatively recent is the departure of his family from these surroundings that they hold the echoes of energetic royal life. Family photographs, the Maharaja's office, desk, telephone may seem old fashioned but they are recognisably life as we know it. In the Prachina Museum next to the fort there are examples of his and his predecessor's clothes and wonderful 'prison' carpets, made in prisons as a means of rehabilitating prisoners and giving them a trade when they finished their sentence. The usual bits and pieces of tea sets and glassware are, as always, vaguely depressing as they gather dust in their glass cases.

 I don't know if Ganga Singh designed the silver gates he gave to the Karni Mata Temple at Deshnok, usually known as the rat temple.  With the glorious marble carving of the contemporaneous gate, the panels of unusually charming looking rats show a similar humour and love of animals to the stone panels in the Durbar hall. In fact this famous temple to the titulary deity of the Bikaner and Jodhpur royal families is filled with rats that are strangely appealing.  Teams drink in unison from great bowls of milk, tails hanging neatly in rows, the occasional adolescent misses its footing clambering over its relatives towards food and literally ends up in the drink.  I failed to see the white rat that brings all sorts of blessing but there were enough others in and out of pilgrims and ongoing building work to make you mind your foot work lest you tread on one. 

You might speed its reincarnation as a member of Karni Mata's extended family but it is still not considered a good thing and penalties in offerings to the temple may be steep and include donations of more silver rats.  On a warm spring afternoon the temple was surprisingly quiet, brahmin bulls bullying stallholders in the precincts for whatever they might get and few if any other foreign tourists in sight - the 'No Beggership' sign (really) on the temple's outer fence appears to be effective although perhaps the latter only arrive with the former.

 I was lucky in Bikaner, due to extreme impatience with queues, to collect a young guide, Atik, outside the fort who was able to speed up entry and knew his history plus no doubt all the good stories for tourists to which I am entirely susceptible.  He was equally not a bore and without his help I would definitely have got totally lost in the back streets of the old city, not seen where the cloth dyers work and probably not seen the frescoed Bhandeshwar temple, built one one enormous piece of carved stone, was it really meant to have been founded on a vast mound of melted butter? Finally, founded by the royal family, the Laxminath temple, as the rain clouds, much more regular these days, gathered on a darkening evening. Changing lives, modes of transport, fewer camel carts, more motorcycles and cars; jeans as much as salwar kameez; Bikaner feels still like an ancient desert town. In the old city, it may be noisy tuk tuks that think themselves kings of the road but the Brahmin bulls know who is really in charge and are reassuringly bossy over their territory.

 I was lucky too with my hotel, the Jaswant Bhawan, the former residence of the last Prime Minister of the state, adjacent to the railway station,  and now run as an hotel by his grandchildren.  Simple, spacious and comfortable rooms off courtyards, a sitting room filled with family photographs and books to be read, good straightforward veg and non-veg food, definitely home cooking. The family atmosphere added to by the presence of a new bride juggling her veil and armfuls of wedding bangles with a pot of honey, 'onny', requested at breakfast time by the handful of French guests.  In fact she has hotel experience with Oberoi hotels and with her new husband will in future be running Jaswant Bhawan but traditional appearances must be maintained nonetheless.

In Hanumangarh, close to the Punjab border, the country feels and looks much more like that green agricultural state, especially sloshing along on wet and muddy roads between borders of crop filled fields after a spectacular all night storm. I stayed in an invention of a so-called heritage hotel.  I have come across these before, concrete and plaster palaces complete with mughal domes and turrets that have spring up in an eyeblink in areas such as Sawai Madhopur to be filled with visitors to Ranthambore National Park.The Rajvi Palace seemed even more out of place; the relatively helpful if perplexed staff thought the same of me and they were probably right. Their major custom comes from local wedding parties and, from observation, other high days and holiday involving a good solid Punjabi family looking for a good solid lunch. I may have been the only person staying in one of the sparse but perfectly comfortable room in 4 floors of recently painted passages and verandahs.. Hanumangarh, reputedly a thriving town, is a poor place on a damp grey Sunday and seems not entirely to be sure whether it is an enormous farmyard or a centre of industry surrounding its spectacular, ruined fort which was what I had come to see.

One has the feeling that The Archaeological Survey of India signs bonked on monuments all over India are seen by government as a sort of mantra or spell conferring magical preservation from further damage and depredation and allowing withdrawal of official responsibility. Not unfortunately the case anywhere in the world let alone a huge and highly populous country where planning rules are flexible to say the least, government distant and people must live.  That having said the vast Bhatner Fort of Hanumangarh has had considerable restoration work on its walls and water courses whether or not it has now been ticked off the conservation list. The interior of the fort is more or less a local park with a ruinous temple on higher ground at one end. The great walls dominate the town, difficult to get a good view without an invitation to someone's roof involving reciprocal photography of most of the community and much incomprehensible hilarity.  A theme continued in both respects at the busy Mata Bhadrakali temple on a river bank a few kilometres out of town where photographs of architecture were impeded by both the usual pilgrim sheltering steel and corrugated passageways and the weight of would be photographic models.

                         

It's an odd thing the photography and, where children are concerned, the polaroid camera can be a boon although also likely to involve a fight at some point over ownership of images as crowds begin to gather. The desire to have your person recorded in some stranger's camera, probably then to be deleted, certainly unlikely ever to be seen beyond a one off glance at the camera playback window, is one I can never quite understand albeit sometimes works in favour of the photographer's wish for a particular image.  More often not. One young man, after whipping a comb out for a quick spruce up before his camera moment, pointed out crushingly that his image was excessively dark and he would be obliged if I should use the flash for a second effort.

From Hanumangarh to the Harappan site of Kalibangan, another overnight downpour having turned the lawns of the Rajvi Palace to a lake and smaller roads fringed with eucalyptus to muddy tracks , a dozing owl on a branch, fields and the high chimneys of brickworks stretching out on either side across flat land.  Raju, the excellent driver I was lucky enough to have, negotiated them without fuss in spite of every evening spent polishing the car paintwork, a thankless task in this weather. Almost as perplexed as the Rajvi Palace staff by my determination to visit somewhere he had never heard of, he was interested enough by the great antiquity of the site at Kalibangan to leave the car and explore the rather meagre contents of the museum, no cameras allowed, before we both walked into the site collecting quantities of clay-like mud on our shoes. 

 Here the usual ASI signs have not stopped local black salt burners driving tractors round the site to transport their product out but the major part of the excavation of the ancient town has been re-covered with earth, hopefully one day to be opened properly for viewers.  Meantime acres of pottery shards cover the ground, most no doubt centuries or millennia later than the Harappan civilisation, others, recognisable pieces of bangle or decorated pieces of a pot or a cup, look so like the exhibits in the museum and have become so hard with the years that is is easy for the imagination to peel away the layers of time to see a bangle, complete in the mind's eye, clinking with others on a wrist 4,000 years ago. 

The air dried and warmed up, the sun came out as we left wet green fields behind, a handful of rare as rare vultures flying high in the sky, and headed back towards the desert and Churu at the heart of Shekhawati.  Squeezing through the narrow gate in the centre of the city, the first sight of the Malji Ka Kamra hotel, may not be of breathtaking beauty like that never forgotten first view of the Taj Mahal but it is astonishing enough in its own way. A stupendous layered spearmint green confection of a 1920s restored haveli set in its own garden and adorned on the outside with bizarre statuary and wide terraces, inside with a forest of pillars and painted rooms. It is as good as it looks too, the staff are perfectly charming including the young and enthusiastic manager, Gaurav Kumar, who seemed one minute to be painting a wall, the next orchestrating early morning bird watching from which thick fog forced us into tactical retreat after a visit to Sethan Ka Johara reservoir, built as part of famine relief efforts in the final years of the 19th century. It is an attractive place through the early morning mist but all too obviously the local drinking hang out and littered with rubbish and broken botttles. The head waiter in the restaurant was exceptional. My only complaint, the cold in the dining room that whistled round the feet at dinner at this time of year, I could have done with ugg boots. O but there are electric fires in the rooms and the water is hot too after a run off of cold water into a bucket that is then used to water the garden.

 Lal Singh the knowledgeable and knowledge seeking guide to an area he has lived in all his life, provides carefully drawn maps and sightseeing lists to order and is a wealth of useful information. Also, again, so vitally important for impatient travellers, he is NOT boring and has ambitions for greater things.  I hope he succeeds. He lives in the fort at Mahensar and is busy rescuing anything he can afford of the doors, windows and smaller items that are being thrown out of havelis due to demolition or the desire for something new. Mahensar is a delightfully sleepy village, the last inside the border of the old Jaipur state, that holds one of the great treasures of Shekhawati, the Poddar golden haveli, the Sone-Chand Ki Dukan, as well as the haveli like 19th century Raghunath mandir with its families of quite strange doll-like Carrara marble gods.The priest, with the expected suitable show of reluctance, was prepared for a small fee to draw back the curtains that covered the shrines after opening hours while his wife bathed their two small sons and hung rows of washing in the sun that warmed the temple's upper courtyard. 

 

The Narendra Niwas hotel in the fort is quite clearly the place really to get away from it all although I was assured by the owners that there is wifi.  You would need to be fairly certain on your feet to survive endless stone steps and I am quite sure I would freeze inside those thick walls until the summer heat warmed the stone. Bathrooms are not luxurious for winter cold either but the food is reputed to be excellent, the owners are charming, the village peaceful and friendly and, sitting in your eyrie at the top of the fort,  it would be hard to find somewhere more or less with all mod cons, within touching distance of major cities, that felt more away from it all

In nearby Bissau, the fort, sold by its owners in the 1960s, is a crumbling wreck, now apparently owned by members of the extended Poddar family who live in slum conditions in one courtyard while the building dies around them.  Bissau too has its havelis but on brief acquaintance it is a dispiriting place full of plastic rubbish, a filthy polluted tank and a gloomy atmosphere of decay which is hard to fathom. It was a relief to reach the cheerful if almost deserted Dundlod Fort, now a heritage hotel.As its website suggests, I did feel had stepped into bygone times if only as bygone as the oldest landrover in a shelter in the corner of the courtyard which was probably about the same age as me.  My grandfather certainly had the same model and the fort has the recognisable air of a country house wherever in the old world many generations of the same family have lived. Life has changed but the essence of the place remains the same among old photographs, venerable furnishings, threadbare carpets and endlessly touched up paintwork.  It is a lovely place and familiar up to and including the rather chaotic sitting room/office on the top floor where an old black labrador declined to move beyond a gentle thump of the tail and apparently only ever stirred to find a quiet corner by a pillar when the need arose to make a mess which nobody might ever notice.

                            

 Nawalgarh was heaving with people on the countdown to Holi and is crammed with beautiful havelis. The Poddar Haveli Museum, a 1920s haveli that has been beautifully restored is one of its treasures with around 700 frescoes of every possible subject.  It has slightly mistaken but faintly touching additional exhibitions such as that on 'Forts of Rajasthan', a room full of peculiar polystyrene models of the same that may possibly have been made by pupils of the school on the upper floors of the building.  The Bala Qila Fort is hidden away in the bazaar area where guide books threaten harassment for lone travellers. Without the help of an excessively helpful young man, I probably wouldn't have found my way through the crowds, certainly lost my car for good, but the Bala Qila is worth a struggle for its glorious Sheesh Mahal. It is reached nowadays through a shop and someone's house, the someone surprisingly producing an official book of entry tickets as she ushers you through her bedroom. The small round kiosk of a room was the dressing room of the Maharani of Nawalgarh, it is very red and very dark but has stunning painted scenes of Jaipur and Nawalgarh, ornate mirror work and, best of all, a perfectly glorious painting of the turbanned Maharaja with a shotgun under his arm and a sam browne belt over a green tartan shooting coat and what used to be called Strathcona boots.  

The huge Mandawa fort and hotel has lost that atmosphere of home for all its painted rooms; individuality bled out under the weight and requirements of a serious business catering for group tourism.  In fact the whole town of Mandawa seems set up to cater for group tourism and good luck to its shopkeepers, hoteliers and restaurants.  I just find it less interesting and I find myself also resenting the somewhat patronising air of those who cater for the herd.  I can feel ice entering my soul, stiffening my spine and turning me into a sort of demanding dowager - put me half way up a mountain with a donkey, a tent, frozen feet and a cup of tepid tea and I would never behave like that but I resent paying to be treated like a mindless idiot and to be expected to think the bad is good because it is different. I thought the food, intended no doubt to suit tourists like me, even chosen from the a la carte menu after a quick view of the dreaded buffet, was dull to dismal.  On the other hand, the pool area is well done; there is an efficiently run spa, of which I made happy use; I had a heater in my roof top bedroom and my bathroom with a sunken bath on a different level and inexhaustible hot water, was nothing but pleasure.

Jhunjhunu where the Jhunjhunwalas unsurprisingly come from has, apart from some interesting havelis that stand above the noisy rush of the market,  a popular and rather appalling mandir, Rani Sati. It celebrates a 14th or 15th century Sati, Narayani Devi, who may or may not have spontaneously combusted after her husband was killed by Muslim invaders.  The story varies but it is certain that the glorification of sati in an area where a number of women have burned to death on their husband's funeral pyres since the mid 20th century is frowned on by the authorities and by women's groups.  Meanwhile the mandir,whatever its original form, has become a uniquely unholy riot of bad taste and inferior craftmanship. Huge amounts of money have poured in, allowing everyone his or her chance to add a bauble to the whole.  It is like stepping into a huge, over-decorated cake but my it is busy during the Holi holidays and it is kept immaculately.

 Those Jhunjhunwalas are responsible for the dramatic refurbishment of the fort that stands high above the town of Laksmangarh, apparently as a guest house for their global family.  I was required to examine everything from very dusty chandeliers to fridge interiors once I had bought my way through the padlocked entrance into the smartly painted interior. The upkeep seems to be supported by the letting of lofty roof space for a forest of aerials that make the place look like a major communication hub which I suppose it probably is. There is a panoramic view of the town including the enormous char chowk four courtyard, Ganeriwala haveli.

Salasar is a small town that has grown to fit the millions of visitors to its remarkable Hanuman temple, Salasar Balaji, where metal barriers and a one way system to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple indicate its importance as a pilgrimage site. Built in the early 19^th century, its popularity is further illustrated by yards of silver wall panels and doors illustrating the life of the monkey god, within which teams of priests field offerings of food that are later returned for family feasts or donated to the poor.  There is a certain amount of unholy but relatively friendly argy bargy involved with Holi crowds but this must be nothing to the hordes that arrive to fill the array of dharamsalas in the town on a temple festival day.

                 

       

En route for Holi in Khimsar, the magnificent 12^th century Ahhichatragarh Fort at Nagaur has been beautifully renovated, its pavilions, painted rooms and remarkable water systems now providing spectacular space for major events such as the Sufi festival in February.  As a refuge from too much Holi festivity and indelible pink powder, the Dune Village, a slightly ersatz desert experience camp belonging to the Khimsar Fort Hotel probably couldn’t be bettered but the day itself dawned cold, windy and grey after the glorious clear desert night and full moon the night before. Much to the relief of the staff whose only guest I appeared to be, I decided one night was enough and decamped for the comforts of the main hotel and a day spent reading on the ramparts.

 The Manganiyar musicians who arrived to play by the camp fire the evening before had ended up with an appreciative audience of precisely one as Belgian and British groups headed straight for their buffet and half bottle of wine ration at the first possible opportunity.  It turned out to be rather an expensive concert, not helped  by my determination to have a whole bottle of wine at dinner, half bottles were off for solitary travellers anyway, which was clearly considered slightly shocking but did effectively drown the rather dreary food. The unfinished bottle appeared again the next morning, carefully wrapped, to carry with me, and, when I thought I had actually hidden the remains, the next morning too….  

 

I stayed in Phalodi in the Lal Niwas haveli hotel which may be almost the only hotel in Phalodi but according to local rumour never has anyone staying. Its good veg restaurant is a draw for locals, mainly Jain businessmen who market the products of innumerable small artisans and jewellers in tourist centres like Jaisalmer. Old red stone havelis are inhabited by extended and extensive families, open doors show quick fingers threading beads, hammers beating silver chains. New houses from newer wealth have sprung up next to old but the town around the small locked fortress is quiet and seems somehow like the end of the road. It was indeed the end of the road for me, a final night after the temples of Osian and at last seeing the Koonj, the elegant red eyed Demoiselle Cranes whose migration across the Himalayas to winter in this part of Rajasthan is the stuff of myth.  In Khichan village down the road from Phalodi, they are fed every morning in a fenced ground and have become an important tourist attraction.  For myself, I had rather see them wandering sedately among the water buffaloes by the several small lakes in the vicinity and taking off to fly lazily over the flock, practising for their staggering journey to come.

  

Rainbow Travels of Delhi arranged my travel in Rajasthan and managed to re-organise things for me at very short notice as I changed my mind about where I wanted to go or stay.