To the Women of Rajasthan
April 14: Day 13 - Jaisalmer to Udaipur
Although Jodhpur (yes, the birthplace of jodhpurs) had been on my original itinerary before arriving in India, after visiting Jaipur I pretty much decided to skip it as the prospect of facing another busy and polluted city hardly excited me. However, my train ticket had been booked and so I planned to just get the bus straight to Udaipur, rather than staying for even one night. However, my train arrived late (8:30am as oposed to 5:20), just missing the bus to Udaipur and there wasn't another until 2pm. I found a hotel that was happy to store my bags for the day, and decided to visit the fort for which Jodhpur is also famous - I'm so pleased now that I did as it really was well worth seeing, plus the entry fee included an audio tour so it was educational too! The tour was outstanding, the fort was excellently maintained and massively impressive, with some fantastic views over the blue-washed city below. I almost regretted the decision to move on so quickly, but when passing back through in a rickshaw I didn't spy anything I hadn't already seen elsewhere.
Boarding the bus made me laugh, as I seemed to have well ad truly slipped into Indian/traveller mentality; I looked like a raggedy-Ann doll, with dishevelled hair, dirty feet (I've redeveloped permadirt, that lovely stamp of Asia), was still wearing the clothes I had slept in the night before on the train as I'd had nowhere to change, and the 6-7hr journey ahead of me on a non-AC bus didn;t bother me in the slightest! Once I had gotten used to the driver shouting at rather than talking to the person immediately next to him and his constant honking on a rather tuneful horn (gotten used to = iPod saves the day), it actually passed quite quickly and I enjoyed watching the world go by.
The Rajasthani countryside was truly fascinating to pass through, and it was on this journey that I awakened to the role of women in India (in this state, at least). As I've said before, the city streets are totally male dominated, but I really saw the women come out in force along the road to Udaipur (where Octupussy was filmed, so I've been told - just a useless fact for anyone interested!). While the men in the towns sat in their stalls selling snacks, watching Bollywood films and drinking chai, the women were out in the bazaars shopping and pulling their children along the street. This is normal, yes, but on the stretches of road between the towns it was the women who were collecting rubbish from the roadside, shifting rocks for roadworks, washing clothes in the rivers, milking cows and goats, carrying water back home from wells in bowls on their heads and other general field work. I loved watching them as I went by, especially their bright saris contrasting starkly against the barren countryside. Seeing them made me feel, again, how comfortable our lives are in the West but also made me feel somewhat deprived; these women deal with real hardship every day, getting food and water for themselves direct from the land, and they are happy to work outdoors and apply themselves, something which must produce real grit and strength of character. I could travel or live here for years on end, and I still don't think I would get a true picture of the shapes of their lives. One of the shopkeepers in Jaisalmer had already struck me in telling myself, Tim and Roberta that once he had purchased fabrics, he passed them straight to his mother, wife and sister, who would spend their days stitching away upstairs, on a wage of 80 rupees per day (the minimum here for official paid work), while he spent the day in the shop selling the garments, but also chatting with customers and friends. The sights of rural Rajasthan confirmed my suspicion that, while the men might act as India's limbs, the women are undoubtedly its backbone.
P.S. Apologies for any appalling typos and other errors in my India entries - the keyboards here are useless, and I'm tired!
Although Jodhpur (yes, the birthplace of jodhpurs) had been on my original itinerary before arriving in India, after visiting Jaipur I pretty much decided to skip it as the prospect of facing another busy and polluted city hardly excited me. However, my train ticket had been booked and so I planned to just get the bus straight to Udaipur, rather than staying for even one night. However, my train arrived late (8:30am as oposed to 5:20), just missing the bus to Udaipur and there wasn't another until 2pm. I found a hotel that was happy to store my bags for the day, and decided to visit the fort for which Jodhpur is also famous - I'm so pleased now that I did as it really was well worth seeing, plus the entry fee included an audio tour so it was educational too! The tour was outstanding, the fort was excellently maintained and massively impressive, with some fantastic views over the blue-washed city below. I almost regretted the decision to move on so quickly, but when passing back through in a rickshaw I didn't spy anything I hadn't already seen elsewhere.
Boarding the bus made me laugh, as I seemed to have well ad truly slipped into Indian/traveller mentality; I looked like a raggedy-Ann doll, with dishevelled hair, dirty feet (I've redeveloped permadirt, that lovely stamp of Asia), was still wearing the clothes I had slept in the night before on the train as I'd had nowhere to change, and the 6-7hr journey ahead of me on a non-AC bus didn;t bother me in the slightest! Once I had gotten used to the driver shouting at rather than talking to the person immediately next to him and his constant honking on a rather tuneful horn (gotten used to = iPod saves the day), it actually passed quite quickly and I enjoyed watching the world go by.
The Rajasthani countryside was truly fascinating to pass through, and it was on this journey that I awakened to the role of women in India (in this state, at least). As I've said before, the city streets are totally male dominated, but I really saw the women come out in force along the road to Udaipur (where Octupussy was filmed, so I've been told - just a useless fact for anyone interested!). While the men in the towns sat in their stalls selling snacks, watching Bollywood films and drinking chai, the women were out in the bazaars shopping and pulling their children along the street. This is normal, yes, but on the stretches of road between the towns it was the women who were collecting rubbish from the roadside, shifting rocks for roadworks, washing clothes in the rivers, milking cows and goats, carrying water back home from wells in bowls on their heads and other general field work. I loved watching them as I went by, especially their bright saris contrasting starkly against the barren countryside. Seeing them made me feel, again, how comfortable our lives are in the West but also made me feel somewhat deprived; these women deal with real hardship every day, getting food and water for themselves direct from the land, and they are happy to work outdoors and apply themselves, something which must produce real grit and strength of character. I could travel or live here for years on end, and I still don't think I would get a true picture of the shapes of their lives. One of the shopkeepers in Jaisalmer had already struck me in telling myself, Tim and Roberta that once he had purchased fabrics, he passed them straight to his mother, wife and sister, who would spend their days stitching away upstairs, on a wage of 80 rupees per day (the minimum here for official paid work), while he spent the day in the shop selling the garments, but also chatting with customers and friends. The sights of rural Rajasthan confirmed my suspicion that, while the men might act as India's limbs, the women are undoubtedly its backbone.
P.S. Apologies for any appalling typos and other errors in my India entries - the keyboards here are useless, and I'm tired!