MrGareth’s Missives

As we set off on our two hour road trip to Udai Bilas hotel our driver was horrified that we were spending four nights in a dead end rural town with nothing going on. "Too much, you will be very bored". We started to worry we had made a mistake. We had just met a very dapper, cravate-wearing hotelier who claimed he owned the property - just 50km outside Udaipur - now world famous for being the setting of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which we knew in fact was just outside Udaipur. We were offered a stay there should we chose to return. No doubt many men in Udaipur will make this claim but he seemed kosher.

But just five minutes inside the grounds of Udai Bilas and we unreservedly resolved to honour every minute of our four-night booking.

 

The Palace is a 19th century downsize from a far older and sprawling 12th century Juna Mahal Palace (well worth a visit) in the nearby town - the amusingly named "Dungarpur" - which had remained consistently in the same family of Maharajas for 800 years.  (We met both the unofficial incumbent and the future heirs). They live in one wing of what was converted into a truly unique hotel experience in the 1930s to help with maintenance costs.  Having roamed Rajashtan enjoying its countless Palaces and Forts, to finish up the roadtrip actually living in a Palace was a special treat and a perfect venue for a what in India would always be a very strange Christmas.

 

Just like the Palaces all across the Desert State, Udai Bilas is a museum to the eccenticities of power courtesy of the last officially ruling Maharaja - Laxman Singh.  There's a series of photos telling a tale of a strong love for Cricket in the family, and no end of photos of one glamourous trip after another as well as political and regal pomp and circumstance.  Most disturbing, and exceedingly un-PC - though is the drawing room in which we were invited to have sundowners on the first evening.

 

We counted about 200 heads on the wall - of shot game that is.  Wilderbeast, Rhinos, Boar,  Gazelles etc.  All with "shot" dates ranging from the late 1950s to the early 1980s.  A prolific - if not decidedly distasteful - shooting career.  The room contained even more distrubing detail.  Here and there, the foot of an Elephant or the hoofs of Gazelle had been converted into the legs for small foot stools.  With the guests a motley crew of eclectic western tourists from Australia and England, any moment now we expected Hercule Poirot to enter and explain a perplexing murder.

 

The proportion of staff to guest was almost one-to-one it seemed which further emphasised the sense of Palacial living.  The Hotel manager, one H. V. Singh, had the air of Mr Benn about him.  Whenever a question popped into your head, "as if by magic" the Hotel manager would appear and answer it.  He seemed to have the telepathic qualities of M*A*S*H's Radar.  The staff went to extraorinary trouble to accommodate our Christmas, with Christmas Lunch served on the lawn by the lake - ironically across from the Shiva Temple - and while dubious in places certainly served to fill a festive hole.

Lazing by the quite beautiful Lakeside pool, walks in the local town (filled with some of the most welcoming and friendly people I've ever had the privilege of meeting) and extravagant dinners at the al fresco marble/jacuzi dining table characterised the rest of the stay, building towards a climax of Christmas Day evening drinks in the Maharajah's personal Automobile museum which included a not inconsiderable collection of a Buick, several BMWs, a E-Type and all manor of other paraphenalia and memorabilia.  

 

For fans of the Marigold, there are enough Indian-isms to make the experience authentic: power-cuts, plumbing idiosynchracies, spelling mistakes in the menu, food that demands bravery - that sort of thing.  But for a very reasonable spend, anyone travelling in the area and looking for that unique, regal and highly memorable break - Udai Bilas is for you!

 

That was how the audio tour of Jodhpur Palace sought to sum up the history of Rajasthan among other similar melodrama: "Glorious, bloody and spectacular."  Fortunately our road trip around what the tour also called the "Land of Kings" has only been glorious and spectacular and something I would urge anyone to find the time to do.  Its a region of quite remarkable beauty not only in terms of its countryside - varying from desert to jungle - but also in its architecture, artwork and of course its people. 

After what has seemed a relentlessly intense and overwhelming journey across North India through infamously crowded metropolae such as Calcutta, Varanasi and Agra; Rajashtan has offered some very welcome respite from India at its most.  The people have taken tourist-bating - the sport of continued interference, salesmanship and confidence tricks - down several gears bringing new freedom in our willingness to engage with them.  (Although that is not to say that the endless game of "come to my Emporium - no obligation to buy" - hasn't been pursued with the same enthusiasm).

What is so marvellous about this part of India is that for the citadels of Jaipur, Jasielmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur and many others, all the mystery, romance, chivalry of the desert and its kings are not fairytale fantasies but instead the extraordinary facts of a thrilling history.  Magical and at times preposterous, tours of the palaces and hill-top forts that pepper this land reveal the stuff not only of legend but of Bollywood script.  Maharajas, Maharinis, elephants armies and breathtaking treasure form the backbone of the history of Rajasthan in a character that becomes almost predictable.  The opulence of the regal palaces is some of some of the most awesome artwork - both islamic and Hindu - and the impregnable nature of the forts bely a past that still seems tangible today (in a way that we discovered quite personally and surprisingly).

In many ways, despite twenty-first century trappings such as mobile phone branding, Bollywood and the internet, Rajasthan has not changed all that much and Indians remain as deeply embroiled in their relationship with the deities as they were then.  Many of the Maharajas still sit on their thrones - most notably in Jaipur - and the influence of their ancestors is palpable and ubiquitous, particularly in the way their monuments literally overshadow the modern cities.  But for most Indians, life is no different than it was in the days of the Moghuls.  A detour on the Silk Route, the area still does a roaring - and quite regionally specialised - trade in all the same products: gems in Jaipur, silver in Jaiselmer and spices in Jodhpur.  Continueing the history of the place as a bastion, and only 130 km away from the Pakistan Border, Rajasthan boasts countless army deployments off everything from helicopter gunships to camel contingents.  In the corner of an museum in BIkiner Fort we discovered the relatively obscure Maharaja (Ganga Singh) in a painting containing Lloyd-George, Winston Churchill and Lord Kitchener as THE Indian military representative to a meeting of the Imperial War Cabinet fighting the First World War.

The desert reality of Rajasthan is ever present with every camel that walks down the street and the experience is incomplete without a camel trek (advisedly brief) across dunes into the sunset.  My own highlight of this part of the trip underlies the magic of the place as watched a traditionally dressed muslim emerge (pictured above) from the dune-haze like a mirage while talking on a mobile phone in order to sell us beers as we watched the sunset vista.  It confirmed like nothing else the maxim we are often reminded of: "in India, anything is possible".

(I must take a brief moment here to praise the network of people who ensured we had a smooth, enriching and rewarding tour.  Janu of Janu's private tours introduced himself to us at Jaipur Train station and from that moment set about tirelessly attending to our logistics and welcome with remarkable astuteness and resourcefulness.  Rakesh, the driver/guide Janu appointed to our service drove us around all of Rajasthan with the care and attention of a true professional. Sanjay of Sanjay's Villas in Jaiselmer laid on the most enduring memorable excursion into the Desert involving not only aforementioned camels and beers but also quite oppulent "gl-amping" and the romance of peasant folk music.  As well as their man in Udaipur - Jamel - I sincerely recommend that anyone venturing into their domain plug into this highly capable and cost-effective network to get the very best out of their stay here.

While I've come out of Rajasthan with any number of my own stories, including our Christmas retreat in a living Maharaja's Palace by the lake in Dangapur, it is some of the yarns I've picked up along the way that will define this adventure.  There's the little nine-year-old girl we found perfectly tight-rope walking - without a safety net - seven feet up outside the gates to Jaiselmer Fort.  Her own father had been disabled and so her mother had set her to work monitizing the amazement of tourists for the sake of the family's survival.  The look of concentration and determination on that little girl's face is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.  Then there's the devotee who volunteered to be buried alive in the foundations of the 15th Century Fort at Jodhpur as the human sacrifice to negate the curse placed on its future by the disgruntled hermit who was evicted from his mountain-top retreat to make way for it.  

FInally, there's the quite astonishing story of Kuldhara.  Quoting the "Travelenz" Blog: 

"The story is that the Diwan of Jaisalmer,  Salim Singh, is believed to have developed a lecherous eye for the village chief’s daughter who was stunningly beautiful. He was keen on adding the beautiful lady to his harem or else face the threat of unreasonable taxes. With pride and honour overruling all worldly interests, the chiefs of the 84 villages decided to go away in a single night with whatever they could carry with them leaving behind not just their homes but also a curse. That anyone who tried to live in the village would perish."

The spooky ruin of streets, houses, temples and wells that remains to this day is the greatest testament not only to the mystery and romance of the desert but also to the sheer mystery and insanity of India.