Jodhpur, India
We leave Jaipur in blazing sunshine only to drive into a dense wall of fog sitting just outside the town. Fortunately ahead of us lies a three-lane motorway that's long, straight and just about the most modern road we've seen since we arrived. No swerving animals, dodging oncoming lorries or bouncing over potholes. Sadly though this high-tech new road with its flyovers and crash barriers means we lose a lot of the colourful chaos that makes driving in India such fun.
However the locals are not to be stopped, wandering across the road and clambering through the central reservation as though they're just nipping out for a pint of milk. Which they probably are. These ghostly apparitions appear out of the mist with little warning but thankfully the bright saris and turbans of the Rajasthanis take the place of fluorescent safety jackets and two hours of smooth travel pass without incident.
By the time the sun has burnt away the fog we speed back onto local highways and the clear road is replaced by the normal parade of trucks, tractors, carts, scooters, cows and more. At Kisangarh huge blocks of marble line the sides of the road, quarried from nearby Makrana, source of the building material for the Taj Mahal centuries ago.
As we approach Ajmer I ask if we can detour into the city to visit Dargar Sharif, a Muslim shrine to the 12th century Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, a global centre for Islamic pilgrimage. Kamal is quietly reluctant to take us into the city but does as we ask. Ajmer is the only Muslim urban site in the whole of Rajasthan but also hosts minority Hindu and Christian populations and as we enter the city we see the first church on our travels.
Kamal pulls up at a rudimentary car park, where we are immediately accosted by beggars and hawkers from all sides. There are no other tourists to be seen, and surrounding us is sheer poverty. Our huge SUV, personal driver and blazing white skin make us stand out as if we'd just doused ourselves in luminous paint.
Kamal warns us to take very little money and no valuables so we leave our wallets behind and secrete some small rupee notes in our pockets, hiding a little camera too. A child is selling skullcaps for 10 rupees each which we purchase and then Kamal picks a man out of the throng and speaks with him. Kamal tells us the man will take us the rest of the way to the Dargar Sharif on a tuktuk as we shouldn't walk, while he will stay with the car.
We career down narrow backstreets past shops and houses. Open sewers flow, there's grinding poverty on display and we see the lame and crippled in greater profusion than before. Suddenly we stop at a dead end. The tuktuk driver gestures us to get out. Unsure I start to feel a bit uncomfortable. "My brother takes you", he says. This doesn't feel right. We are led deep into alleyways and I'm starting to feel nervous, thinking this is a big mistake when I notice he's also leading two women in jeans with headscarves and, to my sheer amazement, one has blonde hair poking through. Is he some kind of local guide? We spill out of a narrow passage into a crazy street scene.
This is India real and raw. There's no nice car or familiar face, no phone number for us to call, just a teeming mass of humanity, smelly, loud and strange. The area feels dangerous, unpredictable and threatening. We definitely don't belong here.
But there in front of us is the arch of Dargar Sharif I've seen in the guide book. The 'guide' points at the boys on the steps of the arch surrounded by shoes and we realise we must enter in stockinged feet. The guide is now nowhere to be seen, the women with him have vanished and in front of us are guards with metal detectors through which people are pouring. I walk through, setting it off and the guard finds my camera. He tries to take it from me but I refuse. I tell Coman I'll wait for him on the steps so Coman gingerly presses on ahead to see if I'm completely insane to have brought us here.
I wait for almost ten minutes wondering what the hell we've done. We're split up with no way of contacting each other and suddenly I realise we're in the middle of a hostile-feeling city where we're the only white faces to be seen with no idea how to get back to the tuktuk, let alone find our way back to Kamal, waiting on the outskirts of the city. Still I wait and then across the sea of people I spot the tuktuk driver, who has appeared just like Mr Benn and is waving to me. With great relief I wave back and gesture for him to wait for us.
Coman emerges from the arch and tells me it was worth the effort. So I hand him the precious camera and set off through the metal detectors and into the big mosque complex. It's a new world of cool marble and trees offering shade from the bright sun, but it's still bustling with commerce and noise. The air is scented with incense and flowers, there's music playing and men sat cross-legged chewing nuts. In another area women are gathered together praying but the sexes mingle together as they crowd around the courtyards and antechambers, buying and selling in great profusion.
As I penetrate further, the domed building at the centre is surrounded by queues. This must be the inner sanctum. People are jostling to get into the tomb but sneaking round to the far side I join a fast-moving queue and get a peek inside, to see clerics chanting and directing people as they circle the tomb which is clad in silver with exquisitely wrought filigree designs. This all feels very different and foreign so, unsure if I should even be here, I work my way out past curious stares, and find Coman back at the entrance.
He has kept the driver in sight and now we are back together again, we rescue our shoes and feel brave enough to get out the camera. I grab a few shots and then the driver leads us back the way we came and returns us to Kamal. We pay him well for our safe delivery, feeling guilty for our suspicious and paranoid Western minds. The experience has been worth it and we have emerged unscathed. The threat and hostility was all in our minds.
In the car as we leave however Kamal tells us that Ajmer is a dark city where gangs of organised pickpockets work and unwary travellers have been found with throats slit. "Muslims are dangerous people" he says. "Not everywhere, but here in Ajmer. They do not welcome other people into this town. It is not safe here".
I don't know what Kamal had told the tuktuk driver earlier to ensure his lunatic guests were kept safe, but he has earned his daily tip big style today.
Back on the road to Jodphur, which is smooth and well maintained the whole way, we encounter a few interruptions. A train we have to wait for at a crossing, the odd traffic jam on the usually clear road and at one stage people erecting a lamp post by pulling on a long rope that stretches across the road causing a tailback of lorries. After waiting five minutes Kamal snakes along the inside edge of the road and at the front of the queue drives the car under the rope. "Bye" he shouts to the disbelieving workmen as we speed away, his cheeky smile belying his man-of-few words nature.
The road stretches on through endless, semi-desert plains with an enormous blue sky above us. Occasional towns and villages appear and then in the middle of nowhere for about two miles trucks line the side of the road, pulled up at shacks with water pumps outside and the odd petrol station. These are driver's "hotels" - motorway services for long-distance drivers.
About 160 km from Jodphur, just outside a city called Beawar, we stop at Laxmi Vilas Palace, a shiny fast food service station, obviously designed for tourists being driven between cities. I order a club sandwich, which turns out to be five pieces of burnt toast with mere hints of filling between each slice, one of which is just a mere smear of mayonnaise. Yum. Coman has nuclear yellow coated fries with bright orange ketchup. In the loo there is a regular sit down toilet. I lift the seat only to find footrests on the rim. Obviously when presented with a seat, some people still prefer to perch over the bowl and favour the long drop option. The mind boggles.
There are still four hours to go. As the desert takes hold we see women with silver water urns on their heads. They often walk three or four kilometres to the pumps each day and sometimes villages club together to hire a tuktuk to travel to a pump with a big pot to keep a few families in water for a couple of days.
Later we enter more mountainous countryside, a welcome change from the desert plains. Rock formations and hills with big twists and turns punctuate the drive for a while but soon the flat desert re-emerges and the road disappears in a vanishing point on the horizon again, just a distant liquid heat haze. I thank various Hindu deities for the advent of in-car air-con while Coman gently snoozes in the back.
About 100km from Jaipur greener pastures start to become the order of the day and these infinite roads that run straight for miles are lined with trees. It could almost be the south of France.
Eventually eight hours after setting off we enter Jodhpur. Situated not too far from the Pakistan border there is a strong military presence in the town. Army barracks abound including the Desert Corps amongst other divisions. We see tanks and soldiers and certain roads are closed to the public. But as we pull up at our hotel all we can think of is relaxing and letting the stress of the day unwind.
Unfortunately we don't reckon on the hotel staff who, unlike everywhere else we've been so far seem incredibly highly-strung and almost unwelcoming. It seems there is a problem with our booking. After having to fil in the copious paperwork required of foreigners in all Indian hotels (which has previously been filled in by our travel company rep who meets us in each city to help with check in) we are shown to our room by a porter with attitude. We have only 20 rupees in small change, and don't think carrying two bags up in a lift warrants the 500 rupee notes which are all else we have. So we give him the 20 rupees and tell him we'll give him a bit more when we next see him. We may as well have spat in his face. He strops out of the room.
We look around. A darkened room with a very small window situated in the bathroom that looks out on a rubbish strewn alleyway, plus two small beds; this doesn't feel like the superior room we have listed in the itinerary.
Back at reception we ask to change rooms. The rather snooty receptionist makes a big deal over this, not seeming to understand the concept of a window that let's light in - and as for one large bed for two men? He's positively bemused, as is the hotel software. While we wait for his computer to process this information he changes some money for us. And what luck, our favourite porter is back.
Now he has to take our luggage from one room to another. "Are you 'friends'?" he asks intrusively now he knows we have requested a double bed. "Yes" I reply. He smirks. And as he tries to force us to make a restaurant reservation at the in-house, and unattractively named, restaurant Kebab Express, his attitude is distinctly off. He gets 60 rupees this time as a tip, just to get rid of him. A second look of disgust.
Everywhere else we have stayed we have been shown nothing but respect and kindness, and we have returned it in abundance. But here, we have definitely not been flavour of the month. We can't wait to fill in the hotel questionnaire that will be thrust upon us before we leave. The Indians love their forms after all. Sadly, they might not like the answers on this one.
