Rajamatazz

I’m all alone.

And I’m so lovin’ it.

It’s nearly 11am, and I’m sitting in an old haveli, a Rajasthani mansion. It’s so beautiful in here, spacious, cool, and with a beautiful view of a small lake, Nawal Sagar.

My breakfast is on the make.

The whole place is empty, a little run-down, but the grand design of the place, the stonework, the aesthetic, makes it sort of timeless. It’s still used enough that it feels comfortable, and clean.

There’s hardly any tourists about, here in the small town of Bundi. It’s not that sort of a place, even though it’s only 5 hours from the well-touristed Rajasthani capital of Jaipur.

It’s funny that. You never have to veer very far from the tourist trail at all before you become pretty much the only non-local there.

The pigeons outside are cooing, hanging just outside the big decorated windows, wishing they could get through the strong screens. A soft breeze is blowing. The temperature’s somewhere between just right and perfect.

I had a good sleep. I’ve needed it. It’s so great to get out of the crazy but stimulating chaos of the big city and breathe some cleaner air. It’s also so good to listen to the sounds of the birds and the insects, rather than the incessant honking and noisy motors of never-ending rickshaws, trucks and buses, and the general cacophony that defines any Indian city.

I’ve been here for 2 nights already. It’s so restful. Yesterday I did pretty much nothing. I’m still recovering from a throaty chesty infection thingy, but it’s definitely improving here. I mean, the air is not clean clean here either. It’s dry and dusty and a little hazy, but it’s infinitely more breathable than the air in Jaipur, or the toxic plume of lung-killer Delhi.

A huge breakfast, which sort of became brunch.

Amber

A few days ago Paiton, Evie, Kevin and I grabbed an Uber to the incredible fort/palace of Amber (pronounced ‘Ammer’), about a dozen clicks from our guest house in Jaipur.

We were all gobsmacked at the magnificence of the place.

Amber was once the capital of the kingdom of Kachwaha, before the maharaja Jai Singh II built a new capital in Jaipur. It sits atop a huge hill, and the walls of the city extend for miles, into the distance. It’s truly an amazing sight to behold.

First view of the magnificent palace, from across the water.

Climbing the countless steps with Paiton and Evie

There were loads of Indian tourists about, unsurprisingly, having a wow of a time. They’re so friendly and nice, and we all posed for countless photos with many complete strangers.

Yeah, pretty amazing isn't it.

The Rajputs loved their mirrors. As do I.

The Great Wall of India, in the distance. One of very many, I can tell ya.

The gold spires were a sign to enemies that the kingdom remains independent.

There were hundreds of windows with screens like this, so the city riff raff couldn't look on at palace comings and goings, and to keep out the monkeys and birds from certain rooms. The thing is, each of the screens has been hand carved out of a solid sheet of marble, and every single one is different from all the others. Unbelievable.

After exploring the palace and fort for ages we wandered into town, to look for something to eat.

We stumbled upon a political rally, for the Congress Party candidate for this district. It was pretty hard to miss actually, as they were setting off shitloads of fireworks, and our eardrums were close to bursting.

This guy strolled past

Lunch stop

Kevin trying out the chai

We went wandering afterwards

Ancient temple

This is what’s called a stepwell in these parts, which, believe it or not, is a well with steps leading down. It's designed to be accessible to many people at once. According to tradition, you never return up the same steps you used to descend. It’s bad luck.

I can just imagine this in full use centuries ago, people coming down with their large ceramic pots, collecting water and taking it back to their small stone homes.

Poledancer

Three of the four amiga(o)s

The colourful local market

I probably won't

Kev and Evie being selfieish

Jawan

That night we went to a Bollywood flick, in the most amazing cinema ever, the Raj Mandir.

It was amazing! There weren’t any English subtitles, but we completely understood the plot the whole way through. It was a huge action packed extravaganza, complete with massive dance scenes, incredible fights and stunts, and loads of suspense.

And not even a kiss in the whole movie.

The film, Jawan, is the 5th highest grossing Indian film ever, and stars a couple of big names, Shah Ruth Khan (‘King Khan’), and Nayanthara, who actually hails from the Tamil film industry, Kollywood.

This is the foyer of the over-the-top cinema. Kev's getting popcorn.

The psychedelic cinema ceiling

Just like an old-school theatre. We were the last to leave, because there was more film going on as the credits played. No one else seemed to care.

Later we feasted like Rajs

Hmmm. Shrappe?

A guy making malai, a spiced cream used in Indian sweets. It’s even sometimes used in savoury dishes. Despite his frown, I did ask him if I could take his pic, and he was fine with it. Pic posing doesn't necessarily equal smiling around here.

Beautiful minaret. The mosques were going off all day and night near our guesthouse, with their beautiful calls to prayer.

Of course we ended up in another sweets shop, this time I had rabdi, a sweetly spiced milky custard, with dried fruits and nuts. It actually has flakes of malai in it too.

I forgot to take a pic, but it looks like this:

Bundi

And so it was time to leave the city behind. I said farewell to my buddies and strolled to the main Jaipur bus station.

I jumped on another local bus to this historic small town, Bundi, and it took most of the day to get here. As usual, it was an interesting ride.

This little girl was fascinated with me, and me with her, we chatted in sign language and laughed. She ate my oranges. She wasn’t shy in the slightest.

As some point she hung out of the window like a dog in the wind, it scared the cowshit out of me, as one sudden sharp swerve or brake by the bus driver (which happens quite regularly) and she could fall right out of the bus. Imagine that. Her mother didn’t seem to notice. Luckily the ticket man told her off quickly and she got back out of harm’s way, before I needed to butt in.

So then we shared some huge papadams.

Later on another couple of kids squeezed in next to me, chatting and playing and joking around, regularly elbowing me and jumping on me accidentally. Personal space doesn't really exist in India.

Poha, a delicious lunch snack, made of spiced flavoured soft flattened rice, with nuts, raw onions, herbs and various other bits and pieces.

I grabbed a rickshaw, and jumped out when I saw this guest house:

The inner courtyard

I got an incredibly cheap room, overlooking a little lake.

The building is also a haveli, an old stone mansion, a three storey place with a courtyard in the middle, and extensive outer buildings and gardens. It’s cool, well built, and full of character.

Happy chappy

My sarong trying to blend in.

Now that’s pretty random. A German tourist must’ve left it behind once upon a time.

Chair for a very short person.

Then I strolled for a bit, and found a rooftop eating place, to tuck into a thali. I was starving.

Sharing the sunset with the budgies

The next day I did virtually nothing, just resting, and allowing my body to heal. It was so good to just sit around, sleep, eat, read and write. Nowhere to be, nothing to do.

An absolute gift.

Hot lemon ginger, with honey

I watched this cute gilehari (squirrel) for ages at brunchtime

Garh Palace and Taragarh Fort

After a long leisurely brunch I finally got off my butt and headed up the hill, to the amazing palaces of Garh and Chitrashala, and then up to the Fort of Taragarh, which towers above it.

Bundi is the former capital of the princedom of Rajputana. Like many kingdoms ruled by the Rajputs in Rajasthan and northern India, Bundi fought tenaciously to remain independent when the Muslim Mughals first invaded India from the northwest in the early 1500s.

The Mughals themselves originated from Persia and Turkey, and their first great king, Babar, was a descendant of Timur, an Afghani king, on his father’s side, and Genghis Khan, the Mongolian ruler, on his mother’s side. In fact, the word Mughal is just the Persian word for Mongol.

The Mughal invasion had mixed success. Initially they won battles and took control of many kingdoms, but Rajput descendants continued to fight, and eventually agreements were reached, which allowed certain Rajput leaders to rule quite autonomously over their own kingdoms.

However when the religiously intolerant Mughal leader Aurangzeb came along in the late 1600s, war broke out again with the Rajputs, as Aurangzeb tried to enforce Islam on their Hindu populations. Endless wars weakened the Mughals, and eventually they were defeated.

When the Brits came to town they did deals with the Rajput kings, allowing many of them to continue to rule independently within their territories, in return for ceding control of their foreign policy, and, of course, paying taxes.

Heading up the hill to the ancient palace.

Garh palace was first built during the 17th Century, with many further additions constructed over the next couple of hundred years. It sits on top of a hill overlooking Bundi, and is jam packed full of incredible buildings, courtyards, rooms and frescoes.

It’s a little run down compared to some other Rajasthani palaces. It doesn’t get the tourists nor the funds to really renovate more than just a part of it.

It’s still magnificent though.

Ticket office

One edge of the palace is many storeys tall

As usual, Indian bureaucracy required me to provide all sorts of personal details before I could enter the palace. Their bookwork never ceases to amaze me.

The palace is huge. There’s so many rooms, many carved out of huge sheets of marble.

The Maharaja would sit here, and listen to the disputes and problems of his subjects, and make rulings. This seat is carved from marble.

Bundi is sometimes called India’s second blue city. The famous blue city is Jodhpur, I plan to visit that place at some stage on this trip.

Which century am I in?

This double-pillared structure is a swing. The Maharaja and his Maharani would sit there and swing away. Maybe they’d even hold hands, or intertwine legs, who knows?

Pretty elaborate swing though. Notice the curved stone carvings at the top?

In the palace I teamed up with a bunch of Indian teachers from Delhi, who for the past three months have been living in a nearby city, Kota, working on an education project. They were really nice.

I deliberately joined their posse, as before I went up to the fort at the top of the hill one of the gatekeepers told me to grab a large stick because of the monkeys. Hmmm. I knew I’d be safer in numbers, so I teamed up with my new Indian friends.

It was hot and dry.

When we climbed way up the hill there were groups of aggressive and unfriendly macaques, some of whom were big alpha males. I was happy to have people with me when running the gauntlet of those buggers. We all put our phones and sunglasses away, made sure our bags were secure, and didn’t look any of them in the eye. They take staring as a challenge, and may attack, to prove their dominance. Bloody alpha males.

Luckily none of the testosterone-charged buggers did anything more than growl at us.

Heading into macaque land

Taragarh fort was built to protect the palaces below, and is connected to a long series of walls that radiate out all over the hills. The fort’s a little run down, but it was amazing to be up there so high, the views were beautiful, and it felt incredible to imagine what life must’ve been like up there when the royal family and all the nobles ruled over the land below, and all its lowly peasants.

Fountain

These thin sheets of rock are walkways. It was pretty scary walking along them.

The view from right at the top.

Bustling Bundi Streets

I explored a lot of the town on foot.

Looking back up at the palace

Let sleeping dogs lie. In whatever weird way they want.

Walking the back lanes

When this massive guy kept veering towards me I decided not to take the bull by the horns. I crossed the street instead.

Temple

This is another stepwell. So disgustingly filthy. My mind seriously boggles when I see things like this. How hard would it be to clean it up?

Jait Sagar Lake. Also a rotting mess. It’s sad for me to see things like this. I really don't get it.

A cute little mosque.

Kids and teens all over India are currently letting fireworks off left right and centre, as everyone celebrates Diwali. The really young kids have tiny little crackers, they come over to me and shake my hand, hold it, then let a small firework off at my feet. In the cutest way, of course. They’re not dangerous, we all laugh a lot.

Wild boar

This type of art is called mandana, it's a traditional tribal art style in Rajasthan, and these designs and symbols are sometimes painted on walls and floors.

The designs are believed to provide good luck, and apparently they ward off evil. Here's another example from the web:

Stoneyard

Public transport

Diwali decorations are appearing everywhere. Often shops adorn their buildings with verandahs or archways made of cloth.

Firing up some peanuts

I’ve had a slight toothache lately. But I’m not sure if I’m quite ready for one of these traditional fixes. Those rusty old pliers look so inviting, don’t they.

Biscuit wallah

Mobile bandstand

This must be Music Street

The guitar looks a little worse for wear.

These water chestnuts look really unappetising, but actually taste quite delicious, like normal chestnuts. I tried one. They've been cooked in a fire, and you take off the blackened skin and eat the white bit. I'm not quite sure why they display and sell them in this way.

Not a sheep, like all the other bikes.

Pot vendors

This chai wallah was so full of beans and personality, she was so lovely. Pretty much every chai wallah in India is male, so it was nice to chat with a woman for a change.

I stayed for awhile, and Swiss Clemens turned up, he’s from Luzern. We chatted for ages, he’s a really interesting guy. He told me his life story, it was fascinating.

Clemens has been through it all - he was the CEO of a massive IT company, and had everything he ever needed materially, but he didn’t know how to be happy. Then his wife died, and he crashed even further, bigtime. He retired, and then had chronic back problems for a long time, before he realised he needed to let go of a lot of grief from the past.

With the help of a meditation teacher and a huge change of lifestyle, he learnt how to relax. Now he fully appreciates everything he has, every day, and has realised that the most important thing in life is to accept that you can’t control everything, that shit happens, and that we all need to constantly let go.

Yeach, exactly.

Amma’s chai spices

Sticker wallah

My local temple

Jewellery wallahs

Milk and curd pots

Offbeat eating place. Looks to me like they need to drum up some more business.

Laundry

Looking up at the palace

Hip hairdresser

I hung out in Bundi for a few days. I found the rooftop Rainbow Café, and discovered that its lovely owner, Sundi, has a steel-stringed acoustic guitar. Say no more. We were immediately friends, and I spent a lot of hours playing the guitar in there, shredding my fingertips on those tightly tuned sharp steel strings. It was so good. My fingers haven’t played many guitars like this lately.

Sundi has been writing a hit song for over five years now. He believes that when it’s finished and he records and releases it, he’ll become a rupee billionaire. Till then, he’s decided he can’t marry, and needs to focus completely on his song. He’s now 40.

He played me the song, it’s definitely not ready, nor is his guitar playing or voice. What to do? What to say? I told him that all the great singers and musicians work really hard on their craft, and most of them create a lot of songs and music before they actually make it. Relying on one song to hit the bigtime is not necessarily the smartest strategy. A huge amount of luck is required if you just do that.

And I told him that while some musicians become hugely successful, many more never really earn a proper living from their music anyway. That’s not a reason not to try though, of course.

Hey, that reminds me of a joke.

Q: What’s the difference between a musician and a large pizza?

A: A large pizza can feed a family of four.

I tried to encourage Sundi to finish his song, record it, and move forward. Five years is long enough. It’ll never be perfect. He listened, and seemed to take note, as he respects me because I play guitar, and because I’m older than him. But whether he takes my advice or not is another matter.

I really hope so.

The Bundi lassi is so expensive because it's special. It has bhang in it (marijuana bud/leaf paste).

To Udaipur

So, late at night I headed off into the dark streets on a rickshaw, to the Bundi Junction Railway Station.

No, not Bondi Junction.

I was expecting a chaotic mess.

But it was the complete opposite - a relatively new, clean station, with hardly anyone waiting to take trains.

And then I got on the train, and I couldn't believe it.

It was empty! Well, relatively.

I was shocked.

It was the most relaxed and chilled Indian train ride in my history.

After midnight I arrived in Udaipur. Now that was a little more like a normal Indian train station.

I rickshawed it to a guest house recommended by my haveli owner in Bundi. The rickshaw driver insisted that the trip from the station would be much longer than normal, because all the roads were closed for Diwali, so of course I would have to pay more. I eventually succumbed.

When we got to my guesthouse and I said to the driver there wasn’t one closed road on the whole trip, he insisted I was mistaken. Sometimes they really take you for mugs. I’d actually roughly followed the route from the station and knew that the route we took was completely direct. Of course I paid him what he wanted.

That’s India for you. Sometimes people will tell you anything, just for a few extra rupees.

I’d do exactly the same thing if I was in his thongs.

The door to my little room. I need to bend down to get in. Even though I haven’t been properly hiking for a couple of weeks, my legs still get a workout in this city, not only from walking around, but from the stairs to all the rooftops I’ve been hanging out on, or going up or down from my room.

Yeah, it's modest

My guest house owner's wedding

Our courtyard shrine

Magnificent Udaipur

This city is really stunning, the most beautiful I’ve visited in Rajasthan so far. It’s an ancient place, built alongside huge beautiful lakes, and it hosts some of the biggest and most amazing Indian palaces ever built.

Yeah, the Rajputs definitely weren’t short of a quid in their heyday, I can tell you. And their hey was way more than a day. It was centuries long, almost half a millennium actually.

Udaipur was founded in the mid 1500s by Udai Singh II (hence Udai-pur, pur meaning town or country), and the city was the capital of the huge Rajput kingdom of Mewar. The city was built after the previous capital of Chittorgarh was ransacked by the Mughals, under one of their most successful and famous kings, Akbar.

Udaipur itself eventually did a deal with the Mughals, allowing the Mewari dynasty here to continue to rule autonomously over the centuries. The Mewaris claim to be the oldest continuous dynasty in the world (but, ummm, maybe check that one with some of the mob in Oz, let alone other places).

The steep ranges of hills and general geography of this area, coupled with the many kilometres of fortress walls that Udai Singh built, kept the city of Udaipur pretty safe from the Mughals’ horse-based armies.

When the Brits came here they also did a deal with the Mewaris, allowing them to rule over all internal affairs, and after independence the kingdom was incorporated into the new state of Rajasthan.

The ex-Royal family, the Mewaris, are still influential in the city to this day.

The old city, flanked by a few kilometres of tall walls, is a maze of small laneways, lakeside paths and bridges, and is an absolute delight to walk around. The city is very clean (relatively), the lakes are kept rubbish-free and beautiful, and the general vibe here is of a more cultured city, with proud and educated inhabitants.

Of course, that means Udaipur’s pretty attractive to tourists, and, along with Jaipur, is the equal third most visited place in India, after Delhi and Agra (the location of the Taj Mahal). But Udaipur is way more beautiful than Jaipur, because of the exquisiteness of the palaces, and the spaciousness and views the beautiful lakes give to the city.

Morning strolling

Paddleboat cleaner

Jagdish temple

Indian standoff. The cow won.

Diwali decorating is happening full steam at the moment. Many women and girls have been painting these beautiful rangoli outside their homes (they’re called kolam in the south). Some are quite intricate, others quite simple.

Notice more of the mandana traditional symbols, the more intricate white designs on the step.

Another incredible carved stone temple stupa, called a shikhara in Hindi.

Good ole Rajasthani hospitality

Having A Royal Blast

Shubh Diwali!

Fireworks are blasting all over the place. Hugely loud ones. The night sky is lit up.

Every building has coloured lights adorning it, celebrating the festival of light, and its triumph over darkness.

There’s music blaring out from rooftops everywhere around this amazing city.

People are happy. They’re celebrating. They’re visiting friends and family, spreading the love. And spreading gifts and sweets, and giving to the poor.

It's a lucky time, so people are gambling. They're visiting temples.

Udaipur is a really beautiful place to be, on this, the most festive of all the Indian celebrations.

I’m gonna stay here for awhile and soak it all in.

I’m so loving Rajasthan. It’s some of the very best of India.

And I’ve only just started to really discover it❤️

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