Day 11: Jaisalmer

need to wake early. All that remains is to find our way into town and get to the finish line. We have beaten the Bjaj out of our chariot but feel confident that we can get it over the line today, pushing if necessary.

The final twist in our tale lies in the fact that we only have scant data on where the finish line actually is. We do know it is in the middle of the mediaeval fort that rises above the rest of Jaisalmer in a picturesque sort of manner that one would swear was concocted by Disney except that you don’t have to pay to get in.

Gingerly, we try our luck with the ‘rick. Amazingly, the engine fires after only twenty or thirty attempts and we begin our ride into Jaisalmer at the reduced rate of knots demanded by having only second gear and a dodgy engine.

The streets around the base of Jaisalmer fort are pretty much the confusing warren of alleyways that you would expect to find around the base of an old fort in the desert. But I had visited Jaisalmer twenty-some years back and, incredibly, some of the rubbish strewn, foul smelling, cow ridden back passages started to look familiar. We roared (in our imaginations we roared, in actuality we puttered) through to the main gate of the fort and immediately ran over a cow. But there was no time to stop, apologize or offer compensation – plus the cow seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing. The cobbled road up into the fort itself was steep and worn smooth by centuries of inhabitants and visitors. Remembering that we only had second gear it was essential to keep the speed up or risk stalling before reaching the line.

At last, bursting into what passes for the central square next to the palace, we see the line. There are no trumpets, chorus girls or fireworks. We had arrived shortly before nine in the morning and no-one was expecting us.

It was then that we realized we had won.

Day 10: Jaipur to Jailsamer ish

morning. The Sheraton travel desk has organized a pick up truck to take the ‘rick to Jaisalmer. The truck is made, by Mahindra, from the front end of a Land Rover Defender and the back end of something you would use to take several thousand chickens to market if you weren’t overly concerned about the comfort and well-being of the chickens

Unfortunately, the kind souls at the Sheraton had neglected to arrange half a dozen strong armed men to lift the rickshaw onto the truck. A rickshaw may well be a mechanically flimsy and capricious item, but it’s still darned heavy if you had to pick one up and put it somewhere else; especially if the somewhere else is  about three feet above where it started. The impromptu ringleader of the gathered hotel staff audience (for nothing we do takes place without an audience, even at six in the morning), rustles up some trestles from last night’s ruined nuptial ceremony and we push our ‘rick up and into the truck on the back of their top table.

Underway at last, it is not until now that we both realize just how dammed miserable the weather is this morning. The rain is hissing down and it’s chilly to boot. Nonetheless, we both are relieved. If all goes well, we can reach Jaisalmer by nightfall.

To be frank, both of us are feeling a little sheepish in throwing the ‘rick into a truck for the last big push however, we had 450 kilometers of desert ahead of us and a Bjaj that could be safely relied upon to make 50 or so before giving up the ghost. Moreover, Jaipur traffic had done for the transmission, leaving us with no clutch and a single gear – second. The deliberations went something along the lines of:

“I feel a little sheepish rolling into Jaisalmer on the back of a truckâ€

“It’s better than breaking down in the desert, dying horribly of thirst and having our empty eye sockets licked out by wild dogsâ€

“Good point, vividly madeâ€

Discussion concluded, we rolled on.

The landscape changes again as we exit Jaipur. Crags become replaced by giant boulders eroded into smooth, rounded French curves, but by what. Water, there was none. Wind, there was just enough to de-limp a couple of tiny flags on the roof of the local Police station. Yet I could have picked any two boulders at random, mortared them together and successfully passed the result off as an undiscovered sculpture by Henry Moore.

Rajasthan, more than any other state in India, feels like an old country. The topography is old. The landscape has been fought over, defended, closely husbanded for centuries. Nature has not given the residents of Rajasthan too much, but they have held it close, with a pride and exuberance that is more evident than in other, less martial states. Passing over rivers, one can see several successive generations of river crossings, evolving to meet the challenges of the day. First, a village erects a rough dirt and stone bridge to ease the ford when bringing the cattle home. Then, the Moghul enlarges the crossing, perhaps to facilitate cavalry. Then, the British put a narrow gauge railway through here to accelerate the movement of troops and guns to the latest conflagration. Finally, a road bridge is installed and our truck barrels through the geography, covering more miles in an hour than the Queen’s artillery used to cover in a day. All of these successive generations of civil engineering, less than a hundred yards apart.

Further into Rajasthan, we pass through marble city. All of the floors, walls, shower enclosures, mattresses, window frames, tables, columns, fountains, bathroom fittings and anything else that conceivably might be made of marble, plus some things that really should not, apparently pass through here. Literally hundreds of marble cutters, carvers, polishers and what not, line the road. There are sheets of marble enough for ten thousand kitchen counter tops; giant blocks of marble, the size of baby elephants; giant blocks of marble that have already been carved into baby elephants. Enormous, irregular, rough boulders of marble are sloughed into town, three to a flat bed – each truck looking as if it has had the misfortune to be struck by a trio of simultaneous and curiously aligned meteorites.

Fully assembled, miniature (i.e. smaller than castles, bigger than cars) temples are available for purchase by the side of the road. No home should be without one. They seem an unlikely impulse purchase. I hope they deliver.

Rocks begin to give way to sand and scrub as we enter the desert proper. Here and there, a row or two of giant sand dunes provide backdrop to the road as it is washed over with sand. All of the color has been washed out of the landscape; what vegetation exists is more grey than green. The only vibrancy is courtesy of the bright red saris and orange turbans of the infrequent inhabitants as they go about their business. Looking about, we are both relieved not to be taking this leg in a vehicle possessing all of the reliability and endurance of one operated by US Airways.

Jaisalmer is tucked away in a corner of the desert close to the Pakistan border. After the medieval opium traders, but before the backpackers, gawkers and rick runners, came the military – and they are still here. Bases of every description have been dropped onto the topography around Jaisalmer, providing a convenient spot for those in uniform to practice throwing, firing or dropping large explosive things. India’s semi-secret nuclear tests were conducted in these parts. Some of the first planes we have seen in ages are fighter bombers of the Indian Air Force.

Dark is falling and we cannot make the finish line today, but we can get close. We locate our lodging next to an air force base and settle into what appears to be the unofficial officers’ mess for the pilots from next door. There is a delightful Rajasthani cultural show underway on the hotel lawn. There is a Kingfisher beer centric cultural show inside. It is not difficult to imagine which is the more popular.

I sleep the sleep of pharaoh’s. It is hard to believe that we are nearly there.

Day 9: Jaipur

Both fed up by spending our days (and nights) by the side of the road, in gas station forecourts and the kind of hotels that would not pass muster as prison cells in the Unites States we take a day off to consider our options.

Amber fort (yes, another fort) lies just outside the city limits, embedded in a crack in the rocks and surrounded by high defensive walls in every direction; plus two other, older forts further up the mountain. We skipped the elephant rides up to the gate owing to a combination of parsimony and a diminished sense of irony. Customers of arranged tours stacked themselves onto the pachyderms as they trudged up the kilometer to the castle gate, pausing only for poop and peanuts – the elephants skipped the peanuts.

Inside the fort, a disproportionate emphasis was placed upon the king’s bathroom arrangements, with their complex water management mechanisms and flushing toilets. Evidently the architect was a master plumber and possibly more imaginative and accomplished three hundred years ago than many of his pipe bending descendants are today.

Back in the city, I strike out for the Palace of the Winds, a smallish (in palace terms) place marked by the most curious façade, overlooking one of Jaipur’s busiest thoroughfares. The front wall is pierced with hundreds of tiny shuttered windows at which the princesses of the court (not otherwise allowed to mix with the proletariat) would sit and watch the comings and goings of the city below, in silent prayer for the imminent invention of satellite television and a more varied menu of light entertainment.

I tried it for twenty minutes and confess to having my fill of cow meets vehicle near miss action stories within the first seven or eight.

Back at the hotel, preparations are well underway for a society wedding. Ours is not the most exclusive residence in town, but surely makes into the top half dozen. Early arriving guests are scattered over the grounds, with the groom’s parents no doubt wondering why they consented to a match sealed in the Sheraton rather than the plusher Taj hotel down the street. Our ‘rick is parked/abandoned right next to the entrance to be used by the wedding party as they enter the property. Non-one has asked us to move it, and I’m not certain that we could if we tried.

In a couple of weeks, after the honeymoon is done, a meeting between the happy couple and the photographer will no doubt center on how a pale blue auto rickshaw can be Photoshop’ed out of its prominent position in the first day of the rest of their lives.

We decide to put the ‘rick on a truck and enlist the help of the hotel. The bargain is quickly sealed – we leave at 6:30am tomorrow morning.

Editorial: The algebra of missing home

Readers of Douglas Adams may recall a theory put forward in his first volume roughly regarding the degree of dislocation one feels from home being directly proportionate to the distance one is separated from it. The further away you are from where you ought to be, the harder the impact of missing it.

Now, Douglas surely concocted this for comedic effect, but I am starting to think that perhaps the deceased humorist was really onto something.

I am accustomed to travelling and being away from home. Yet here, half a world away, the normal tug of home and family are amplified; the anticipated pull being replaced by something much more harsh.

Day 7: Agra to Jaipur ish

This is supposed to be an easy day; a softball; the kind of day one might otherwise decry as lacking in ambition. 225 kilomteters from Agra to Delhi seems like something we could do with one hand tied behind our respective backs. Foolish optimism.

I start the proceedings with a dawn visit to the Taj. It opens at sunrise (6:06 am today), so I saunter up with fifteen minutes to spare, somewhat surprised to find a charrabanc-load of tourists had beaten me to the starting line. We file through the West Gate in close order and gaze upon the pile within.

Readers, if you are not yet convinced that the Taj is worth a look, then I have no words sufficient to convince you otherwise. Take a look at the photos. Better yet, just go.

Careful followers of the narrative may be wondering where Dave is, while I am soaking up the architectural symphonies. In bed is the answer. Suffering sorely from the night before. He may be the only person in recorded history that has gone all the way to Agra and not got within touching distance of India’s favorite edifice because of a hangover

Once we are on the road, I take first stint. Dave sleeps in the back.

The first breakdown happens at the toll booth outside of Fatephur Sikri. We push the beast into town and find a mechanic. With carb cleaned and timing adjusted we are back on the trail with barely ninety minutes wasted – for three kilometers before it breaks down again.

I hitch back into town to find the mechanic again. Surely his repair of twenty minutes ago is still under warranty. The mechanic heads out to our stationary steed and conducts further investigations.

At this point, our story demands some technical details regarding the mechanics of the ‘rick, such as they are. In contrast to an automobile, a rickshaw has no fuel pump. Gasoline (mixed with oil) is dribbled into the engine in the best way that gravity can manage. We had started the race without a cap for the gas tank, but had purchased a replacement in back Varanasi. Our roadside Fatephur mechanic suggested that our new gas cap was simply too good. A rickshaw gas cap *needs* to leak, otherwise a vacuum is formed in the gas tank and no fuel makes it to the engine. In summary, we would be better off without one.

So, with cap in hand, we set off once more.

We make it a further fifty kilometers before the Bjaj dies once more and we push it to a gas station. The mechanic from the next village concludes that things are serious and we set about the process of getting a new cylinder bored. For readers not of a mechanical persuasion, this is a big deal. If you had a car that needed this sort of thing you would probably give up the ghost and buy another one.

Disassembling the engine, boring the cylinder and putting it all back together will take all night. We begin the search for another roadside place to stay while the experts beaver away through the night.

Our heads would rest six kilometers downstream.

Although the insect population was less than the previous  road side stop, the mattress, if anything, was even firmer. There must come a point at which a mattress cannot become any thinner and still be considered worthy of the moniker ‘mattress’. At some point, it becomes so thin that it merely becomes a ‘mat’. Our lodging tested this definition to its limit.

Nevertheless, the food was good, the Kingfisher cold. I slept sound.

Day 6: Agra ish to Agra

Wakefulness comes early. Too early.

I have slept barely a wink on a mattress made of marble, when simultaneously the electricity snaps off (taking the a/c with it) and one of the grasshopper specimens that I share the room with launches itself with suicidal intent at the grimed over window. The power stays off. The a/c remains silent. The remains of the grasshopper lay beneath the window treatments praying for an improved lot come the next round of reincarnation.

Grasshopper mourners gather on my nightstand to ponder the futility of their existence and , reminisce fondly over summers past when they were mere pupae, or eggs, or whatever it is that grasshoppers emerge from.

One particularly prize winning example of the species sticks around on the bed for a while, too overcome for a swift exit. This one is too large and too dignified to jump without good reason and slowly executes a 180 degree turn to face me, individually unfolding and repositioning its six outsize legs with all of the grace and élan that a possessed, and thus independently mobile, grand piano might exhibit during a similar maneuver.

We regard each other for some time with interest. Evidently neither particularly enamored with their lot in life that early morn.

As dawns grey light seeps into the hotel we are off (David and myself. The grasshopper having elected to stick things out at the Gundam), hoping to make Agra by mid-morning.

Make it we do, and roll into the Sheraton with showers foremost in our plans.

Suitably cleaned up we head for the fort and spend a decent amount of the afternoon, tooling around the red edifice taking pictures while our ‘rick is placed into intensive care with a roadside mechanic.

I retire early, while Dave heads out for a night of carousing with the mechanic and his chums.

Editorial: The Difference between Night and Day

Driving by day is a matter of endurance – for time and for bumps. The difference between day driving and night driving is well, day and night. Challenges abound at night, of which bumps are low down the list of priorities.

When dark comes, as it does around 6:30pm, it comes fast and completely. Major highways are unlit. What light there is, comes from widely dispersed villages, strung with the low wattage fairy lights that are used to cook by. The roadways themselves are inky.

Never fear. The ‘rick is blessed with a single front headlamp to go with its single front wheel. Contrary to expectations, it actually does a reasonable job of illuminating the road ahead. Our problems lie with the other road users:

1-      Animals. Animals don’t have lights and heed no more their peril at night than they do in the daytime. The middle of the road is a favorite place for dogs to call it at day and reflect.

2-      Vehicles with no lights. Lots of stuff simply doesn’t have lights. Horse drawn carts are a particular menace.

3-      Vehicles that have lights but have decided not to use them. All trucks have the full complement of illumination, yet many elect not to use it. One trucker truthfully explained that he wished to save the battery – an empty battery being far more scary than the certain death of plowing into oncoming traffic.

4-      Miscreants. The nighttime road is populated by shadowy figures of uncertain provenance. On several occasion they had strewn rocks across the road, hoping to cause a crash and relieve the dead and injured of their now unnecessary possessions.

5-      Oncoming trucks. The worst of the oncoming truck variety are those that are oncoming straight at you on the wrong side of the road. Thankfully, only one in twenty act in this unfathomable manner.  The other nineteen merely keep their bright headlights on the whole time. This seemingly quite innocuous act renders everything completely invisible for as few seconds. There are signs everywhere imploring truckers not to do this, but no-one takes any notice.

Day 5: Varanasi to Agra ish

With spirits high after our rest, elect for an early start. A very early start, I would say ‘crack of dawn’, but if there was any crack at all it was of the hairline variety and possibly only detectable by powerful scientific instruments. In short, it was still dark, and almost impossibly humid.

Our goal for today is Kanpur, although after reading the blurb for the Kanpur Tourist Agency we immediately set a stretch goal for the day of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. (“Kanpur is one of the most polluted, overcrowded and congested cities in a country with a marked talent for polluting, overcrowding and congestingâ€). Agra is over 530 kilometres ahead and truly a stretch – the furthest we have travelled in a single day even when truck powered.

The cause of our optimism – the Grand Trunk Road, or G.T. Road for the cognoscenti. The G.T. Road is the grand dame of subcontinent road transport - Route 66. Shah Jahan kicked the thing off in earnest to link his capital in Agra with the remainder of his domain. It was later extended under colonial times (and named the G.T. Road) from present day Bangladesh to Pakistan, possibly as a means of encouraging trade, but mostly as a means of facilitating the travel of visiting cricket teams.

These days, the G.T Road forms part of the national highway infrastructure and runs right past Varanasi. We were betting that a road as grand as the Grand Truck road would enable rickshaw velocities hitherto unobtainable on the garden variety of Indian roadway. Trouble is, first we would have to get to it.

The road out of Varanasi was congested, even at 5:30 in the morning. There were an awfully large number of trucks trying to get into Varanasi and similarly large number trying to get out. The available road could handle either of those two populations but unfortunately not at the same time. We juggled our ‘rick in and out of oncoming traffic, seeking advantage at the margins of the road through mud, water and other detritus but still it was slow going.

Then, just as we hit the on ramp, presaging troubles to come, the ‘rick died. Senor Murphy may have never visited the subcontinent. I am confident he never visited the outskirts of Varanasi under the G.T Road junction, just after the bridge over the Ganges. Nevertheless, in crafting his law his timing was impeccable. The ‘rick died in the middle of the busiest junction we had yet to encounter and we had to push it out the way.

I immediately assumed that the game was up, and a roadside mechanic lay in our immediate future; but no. A couple of jiggles on the fuel line and she fired up again like a champion. We joined the G.T. Road and enjoyed six hours of incident free progress, gobbling up the distance between Varanasi and Kanpur without any conviction that Kanpur was where we really wanted to be. Agra was our true prize.

We reached Kanpur by noon. The omens were good. Agra here we come.

Immediately post Kanpur we filled our tanks with fuel and with hopes high, charged towards Agra. Long hours passed, again without incident. Just beyond Etawah we transferred the first of the Kanpur sourced fuel into the ‘rick and soon our troubles began. Barely 10 kilometers beyond the Etawah precinct our steed died; with no amount of coaxing or cajoling tempting it back to life.

At this point it is worth noting a principle difference between your two correspondents. When I open the rear end of something mechanical it is merely to enquire whether the engine is still there. When Dave thrusts his forearm into the rear end of a ‘rick it is with a confidence that he understands what all of the various internal organs do. And thus it was, at the side of the road near Etawah, facing nought but fields, buffalos and fading light. Carburetors were examined, throttle lines exhumed and re-interred, spark plugs extracted, wiped and duly re-inserted. But nothing  would make the dog bark

As we contemplated our fate, the dark fell – and fell hard. We were stuck with the prospect of a night sleeping rough until a knight in slightly grubby pink armor appeared and offered a ride to the next village to seek a mechanic (in return for a consideration to be negotiated at a later date).

Dave went mechanic hunting, while I stayed at base camp and attempted to convince the locals gathering in the gloom that I was neither a threat, an opportunity for a mugging or a cabaret to be appreciated and relayed to family and friends over Sunday dinner.

After returning with a multitude of potential helpers, audience members and associated hangers on, we were eventually towed to the nearest gas station. Our problem had been diagnosed – we had filled the beast with diesel by mistake. Our new found mechanic drained the tank and as an added bonus cleaned the carburetor, with his tongue. That normally costs extra.

Palms were greased all round and we set off once more for Agra. Trouble is, we were now driving at night. This can be compared to seeking a black cat, within a black hole with one’s eyes closed. In summary, the sense of touch is the most useful of the five for finding your way around. Unfortunately, the sense of touch is least appropriate when applied to a series of fast moving trucks.

After deciding that night driving is more or less a suicidal occupation the task at hand is to find a place to stay for the night. Almost immediately the Gundam Resort swam out of the murk. Gratefully, we gobbled up some grub and retired for the night.

Lots of things in India are made from marble – floors, walls, tables, plates. The Gundam Resort tried making mattresses from the stuff. Needless to say, slumber was hard to attain and harder to hang on to.

Editorial: The willingness of things to react to horns

The most frequently used device on any motor vehicle is the horn. Affectionately termed the Indian brake pedal, the horn may be used at any and all times and can convey a variety of meanings. For example:

1-      I am here behind you

2-      I am here behind you and wish to overtake

3-      I am here behind you and don’t wish to overtake, at least not at the moment

4-      You are a cow, goat, dog, person so please get out of my way

5-      There is a bend in the road ahead and I can’t see around it. Moreover, this is road is so narrow it will only fit one vehicle at a time so if there’s anyone coming in the opposite direction, please slow down or we’re both dead

Clearly, the vocabulary of the horn is richer than that we are accustomed to. In fact, some vehicles have two separate horns to be used on different occasions – each of them tuned to the attack, sustain and decay requirements of their operators.

 I confess to a wholly inadequate appreciation of horn etiquette but have compiled a glossary of how different commonly encountered species tend to react to one. This glossary is presented in order of responsiveness.

1-      Dogs. Dogs are by far the most responsive of the species encountered on Indian roads. It is rare that a dog, once honked at, does not get up and get out of the way. Unless it is dead, in which case you run right over it.

2-      Monkeys. Monkeys are bi-polar. The majority of monkeys will instinctively shrink from close human contact. A blast on the horn merely serves to underline this instinct. However, come up against an alpha male macaque and the horn will have no impact whatsoever. On the contrary, a roused male may bare his teeth and run after your vehicle in the manner of a smaller, but more aggressive, King Kong. Beware.

3-      People. People tend not to be aggressive. They also tend not to think too hard about road safety. A honking horn may have to be backed up by a shout, a holler and a smack on the side of the head as one drives past in order to elicit the desired evasive action.

4-      Cows. A lot of people have a poor opinion of the intelligence of cows. I do not subscribe to this theory. In the presence of a fast moving vehicle a cow merely wishes to examine the situation in a more methodical fashion than circumstances demand. Chew the cud, so to speak. Ultimately, a cow will yield.

5-      Goats. Goats are satanic. As one makes eye contact with their weird 90 degree swiveled eye socket you understand that a goat is merely daring you to hit them. They seem to have an innate understanding that high speed contact between a vehicle and a goat is likely to result in the death of the goat and an expensive trip to the body shop for you. Nobody wins under those circumstances. Avoid goats at all costs.

Day 4: Varanasi

After titanic efforts the last couple of days, we elect today to be a day of rest. I believe I forgot to mention how one spells nirvana. For just this moment in time it is spelt R-a-ma-a-d-a. Varanasi is blessed with sufficient tourists and pilgrims to support a series of hotels in which lavatory paper is not an optional extra.

Before retiring last night, I headed for the shower. My garments were not removed deliberatively; rather they were flung into a corner, where for all I know they remain still, festering. Oodles of hot, hot water supplied by the geniuses in Ramada’s employ, stripped me of two days worth of road grime carapace and made good progress towards rendering me human once more. I still stank though. Doubtless a second, morning ablution was necessary to scrape off the remainder.

With no mileage target to make, I wake when I am ready; which turns out to be around eight. Never before has the Ramada breakfast buffet looked so appetizing. Nectar, ambrosia, spring to mind as I dive headlong  into the sausages and fake scrambled eggs.

India shares a curious breakfast habit with England – the presence of baked beans at the morning table. It is one I am immensely fond of and partake of in shovel loads this morning before heading for the ghats.

The ghats of Varanasi are famed as a pilgrimage site for Hindus who seek enlightment, atonement and embarkation into the afterlife, and abutt the holy river Ganges. Many of the ghats are used for bathing in the holy waters, a couple are used for the cremation of the faithful, many are employed for the much more prosaic: laundry, washing the water buffalo, kids playing ball and so forth. Here at the ghats, the citizenry of India loses some its innate reticence and prudery – living its life and its death in the open air.

Cremations are a highly commercialized endeavor. Different types of wood yield differing spiritual benefits during the burn and have correspondingly different price tags. Prior to setting the fire, each type of wood is carefully weighed on giant scales so that the loved ones can be appropriately invoiced afterwards. Sandalwood is most expensive.

The ashes of the dead mix into the river beneath the burning ghats in gray clumps, slowly floating away to be dispersed amongst everything else that lives and dies in these waters.