Adventures in India 7: Hitting the Road to Mandawa

Everything in New Dehli so far was basically a prelude to the real adventure. Our friends had booked a tour across Rajasthan with a car and driver to take us from city to city. The tour encompassed Mandawa, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Pushkar, and Jaipur across a week and a half. The drives between city varied from three or four hours to more like seven or eight depending on traffic and how many times we stopped, and we mostly tried to sleep through these. On this first day, we were driving from New Dehli to Mandawa. Additional pictures from the road are on Flickr.

We went to breakfast and had the most scrambled eggs I'd ever seen (atomized eggs might be more appropriate) and the world's smallest pancakes.

Barely detectable 'pancakes'

Communication between the driver and our Hindi-speaking friend seemed a little shaky, as they apparently agreed on changing the pickup time from 8AM to 9AM, then he showed up at 8AM anyway and was a little annoyed we weren't there. Fortunately, he arrived in one of the biggest cars we'd seen in India, the mighty Toyota Innova (basically a minivan with the styling, interior, and performance of a rental trim model circa 1997).

This picture from our lunch stop

We were glad to see that the vehicle could fairly comfortably accommodate the four of us and our stuff along with the driver. We later found out that this is pretty much the top-of-the-line in tourist hire cars unless you go up to a bus.

Nausea from the anti-malaria drugs sometimes made this less fun than the picture would imply

Leaving the city, the haze in the air persisted for hours, the land turned to desert (Rajasthan is mostly desert). The roads were highways for a while, but got narrower and narrower the further we went. Ana noted a remarkable number of men peeing on the side of the road, even when restrooms appeared to be nearby. We started seeing a lot more animals as beasts of burden and just loose grazing. Along the way, we made several stops for bathroom breaks, more local minutes for our friends' cell phone, and lunch.

Haze still present an hour outside the city

If I didn't know this picture was from Day 1 of the tour, it could have been virtually any driving day in Rajasthan

We also had our first encounter with something we grew to realize was ever-present in tourist regions of India: the tourist trap rest stop. The drivers know that these venues are designed for foreigners, and that the drivers can't get in trouble if they take tourists to these places. Presumably, the standards of cleanliness are higher. They are generally pretty nice on the inside, and they'll charge you 10x+ what the food would cost at a restaurant for locals, which would still be reasonable for the US. The bigger downside is that the food is supposed to be less flavorful, even when you ask them to give you the full flavor. Certainly, some of these places were a bit bland. On the other hand, by the end of the trip bland was seeming pretty acceptable in some cases. Getting our driver, and I suspect any driver, to take you to a place aimed at locals for lunch is probably a futile effort. Our friend tried in Hindi, and, well, we ate at a lot of these places.

These places often are in gardens with awnings

Samosas were pretty tasty actually, but the cheese naan was not as good as that in our Indian place in Kanazawa

Increasingly desert landscape - note the bluer sky

Driving got slower as roads got rougher. Ana reports that her FitBit started counting steps while we were driving due to bumps. With the late start and all the stopping we did, we arrived too late to partake in the planned late-afternoon tourism and went directly to the hotel (named Sara), which turned out to be pretty ritzy but almost entirely empty. For the first and potentially only time in our lives, we were greeted by a drummer dramatizing our entry into a hotel. This was moderately successful in making me feel important.

Back lawn

Fresh flowers in the lobby

We all got our own little villas, which aside from not having internet were reasonably plush, though you got about 90 seconds of hot water from the tiny in-villa water heater, and after that it turned to ice water in about five seconds. Bather beware! The room service menu contained "Kentucky fried chicken with french fries" and I was sorely tempted to order it just to see what would be delivered.

She was a little grumpy after the long day, had to make her laugh

Her swift vengeance

We walked around the grounds and looked around - this is the view from the back fence of the hotel.  Lots of milkweed but not much else. It also started to get pretty cold.

When it was time for dinner the hotel was really the only option given that the hotel is located in a desert with nothing around it. Our friend asked around and was told that tourism was down something like 70% this year, which explains why the place was empty. Locals apparently attributed it to ISIS being in the news. I'm not sure how I feel about that, because ISIS isn't within 2000 miles of India, but then again it is in the news and people are not always particularly strong with geography. It seems plausible, much as I'd like it not to be true.

Dining room wasn't 100% to ourselves, but pretty close - think eventually three tables filled. Note I'm wearing both my fleece and my coat because it's cold.

The waiter offered to have our food prepared "European style" which means without any flavor. We declined and asked for just like they'd serve it to an Indian group. Our Indian friend and Ana were still not thrilled with the food for being a bit bland, but it tasted fine to me and the collection of flatbreads was interesting.

This dancing kid and his musician were pretty good at begging for tips but with only three tables filled we got a bit more attention than we wanted.

Dinner complete, our long day was over and we went to get some sleep before getting serious about tourism in the morning.