After two weeks of touring the tourist beat through Rajasthan today we decided to take a detour. It was time to step away from the tourist bazaars with stalls all competing for your rupee, German bakeries and tourist cafes all selling croisants and 'continental food'. People trying to pull you into their shop to show you something special, and being just another white face in the crowd not venturing too far away. The freedom machine came to the rescue again and we were set for some cycling!!
Now while this sounds all lovely and peaceful, a lovely trundle along the lake fronts etc etc, remember that we're in India. That's why for this post there's no more photo's, my hands were firmly gripping the handle bars and my mind was thinking "what's coming to hit me next". So you'll have to paint a picture in your mind for this one.
We picked up our trusty steads and forked out our 75 rupees each ($1.50 aussie) for the days hire. We were given 2 shiney new looking bikes that I'm sure half the Indian kids we passed were very envious of, and a photocopied map that showed half of where we wanted to go. This was no problem, as I'm sure you remember our previous dealings with maps in India ie, they're good for nothing.
The morning actually started out quite leisurely, quiet streets, and a big lake to ride around (we still had to get off at the locked gates and squeeze our bikes through while the guards looked on. Why exactly are the gates locked? No idea, plenty of people were in there. Our guidebook mentioned a craft village about 4kms out of town and just past the lake, so we pointed our wheels in that direction. We then asked a few locals, and turned our bike around in the other direction, this was the bit of map we were missing!
We happily found the village of Shilpgram, an experience the not quite like Souvereign Hill 'Village' but trying to be. And things continued to disappoint, the 'village' was really just a small recreated historical site with a few traditional huts that were tired of standing up and plenty of weeds enjoying the freedom that comes when not many people appear. There was a bit of life here though, the 'craft' in craft market was a collection of people who panicked into action when you looked at them, "customers, quick do something, wake up!!" and small but interesting music and culture museum. We had to wake up the caretaker, who unlocked the door for us, turned on the lights and shooed away the rats, but it was interesting and worth a look. Although he must get a lot of sleep, on signing the visitor book on the way out, we noticed an average of 6 people a day were visiting.
Onwards we peddled, with a brief lakeside somosa lunch, and into the thick of it. Our next aim was on the other side of the city, so we had to go through the middle! We've mentioned the traffic before, but just as a reminder, add tooting and honking, motorbikes, scooters, pushbikes, rickshaws, cars, buses, push carts and cows going in every direction, then add street signs written only in Hindi and roads with holes all over them. Riding here took a lot of concentration, Melbourne seems like a country town in comparison. We weaved our way through roundabouts, crashes, crowded bazaars, work sites and all sorts of obstacles heading the wrong way, and straight towards us! The place we went to see was like a big cemetary so we just did a loop around the outside, and left the attendant calling out to us from the gate, "sir this way, come in" No thanks, not today!
Now it might not seem like the day was that good, but we had a great time getting in the mix. Evreywhere we went the people stared, waved and called out "hello". And this was the big difference. The tourist areas are full of "hellos", but they usually mean, stop and look in my shop, stop and get in my rickshaw, stop and let me show you around. But out of the main areas, the "hello's" have a curiosity to them, they mean welcome, have a good look around, I hope you enjoy your day and my country. You can really hear the difference in the tone, and you can't get sick of hearing it. We were often waved to from cars and buses, Soph was even whacked in the arm by a bunch of overly excited school boys on a scooter waving madly. A dad tooted his horn next to us until we noticed his young son waving out the window, then drove off once we'd waved back. A scooter pulled up next to me for a conversation about where I was from, what I did etc while we continued down the road.
So we ventured around the edge of the city, slugged our way up the small hills and exhausted the energy from our somosa's. Another great day in India!
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