I was going to find a tiger.
There are only around 3,500 tigers across the entire Indian continent.
They are endangered and sightings are rare. I realise that looking for wild
animals can be very dangerous. I didn’t realise that this search would have me rushed into hospital for emergency surgery.
In 2005 we had gone to Mumbai and Tamil Nadu to pitch for our first Indian client. By mid 2006 the contracts had been signed and work had begun. Omar went to Mumbai start the implementation of the program.
He was meant to be away for three weeks and ended up staying for two months. He stayed at the Taj Lands End and had wonderful views of the start of the monsoon season breaking across Mumbai from the Arabian Sea.
He had to drive to Andheri everyday for work and was constantly hassled by begging children. Omar developed the habit of filling his bag with fruit from the Taj. He figured that the children would be able to eat the food but would have to give any money to their pimp.
During this time he went on a site visit to Udaipur and drove to Pune to check out computer developers. Nothing came of either trip but he got to see more of India.
A resting sacred cow in Udaipur
Udaipur
Food seller Pune
Beggar Pune
Shop keeper Pune
Temple Pune
He arrived home grey and weak with dysentery.
Omar had to go back in September for more work and we decided that I would go with him. After a week in Mumbai I was going to Rajasthan to look for a tiger. We arrived early morning to be assaulted by the noise, smells, pollution and chaos that are Mumbai. We’d booked into the tower section of the Taj Hotel, in Colaba, to save a bit of money. In 2005 we had staying in the heritage section of the Taj and loved it. As we were checking in the concierge came over and directed us back to the heritage section and upgraded us to the club floor. The trip was looking up already.
This floor was seen in flames during the 2008 terrorist attack.
We mainly worked and acclimatised ourselves to the heat and humidity with an occasional wander around the general area. The beggars where still there, and the taxi drivers still used the gutter as their latrine. You always got into a cab from the road side as the footpath side was unspeakable.
Because I was flying out of Santa Cruz we moved to the Sun’n’Sand Hotel at Juhu Beach to be closer to the airport. Juhu Beach has a reputation for luxury hotels that are frequented by Bollywood film stars. This hotel was not one of them. We were met at reception by three identical, very large gentlemen in very formal suits. They each did just one thing. One looked at the passports, one took our details and one handled the keys. They recited a detailed list of the things that were forbidden at the hotel. The place was clean enough but was very tired. We went to the pool to get some lunch but the kitchen was closed. We could eat in the dining room but couldn’t take anything outside. It was a bit like Fawlty Towers.
Juhu Beach was crowded with families picnicking, paddling and playing cricket. We were the only Westerners on the beach and attracted quite a bit of attention. The views along the beach were spectacular and the cool sea breeze was refreshing. We did find some of the luxury hotels that had been mentioned and they were very grand. We had all our meals at these rather than risk the Sun’n’Sand.
We also took a side trip to the Basilica of Mount Mary in Bandra. The Portuguese built a chapel here in the 17th century, the current chapel dates back to 1904. The Basilica is visited by Parses, Hindus and Muslims as the veneration of the Virgin Mary transcends their normal religious barriers. It’s famous for its strange rituals to reinforce the power of prayer. Worshippers place wax replicas of body parts on the altar so the Virgin Mary can heal that particular body part. The wax parts are available outside at stalls; dentures, legs, noses, feet and much, much more. I would have loved to fill my case with body parts.
Now the adventure really begins. The search for a tiger.
Omar was staying in Mumbai to work and I was flying to Udaipur and staying at the Shiv Nimas Palace Hotel. The plan was, with a driver, to go across country staying at out-of-the-way places, visit Jodhpur, and to meet up with a tour group in Jaipur. The group was going to tour
Jaipur, drive to Ranthambore National Park to look for tigers, catch a train to the Keoladeo Ghana National Park at Bharatpur for bird watching, drive to Agra via Fatehpur Sikri and finish with a drive into Delhi. I was to stay in Delhi for a few days before flying back to Mumbai. Well that was the plan.
Omar saw me off at Santa Cruz airport and I was greeted at Udaipur by a travel agent who took to me to the hotel at the Shiv Nimas Palace. This is the largest palace complex in Rajasthan. It was built in 1559 by the Maharaja Udai Singh.
Just a short explanation of all the palace hotels throughout India. The Raj loved building palaces. They would build one as their summer retreat, another as a hunting retreat, another one for winter and another for their favourite wife. You get the picture. Well it was easy for them as their subjects paid for the construction, the royal families didn’t. Because the palaces are such a rich part of India’s heritage the government paid for their upkeep. When Indira Ghandi was prime minister she saw the inequity of the rich being paid to look after their numerous palaces while a large part of her population starved and she stopped the practise. If the clans couldn’t afford to keep their palaces they had to sell them. The excess palaces were snapped up and became luxury hotels. Most families kept their
prime palace as their home. But even then the palaces are so large that the upkeep needed to be supplemented by turning parts of their home into hotels as well. So you can travel across India pretending that you are part of the Raj.
I was lucky in Udaipur as a decade old drought had broken and Lake Pichola was full. The Shiv Nimas Palace complex comprised eleven palaces with courtyards, pavilions, terraces and a hanging garden. The Royal family still occupies a large section of the complex that is off-limits and I saw the prince’s polo horses being exercised. As well as a hotel the palaces have been turned into museums and tourist attractions.
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Udaipur is a pastel city. Very pretty. Everything is painted in soft pastel hues and has a genteel feeling of decay. I visited temples, went on a boat ride around Lake Pichola and went over to the famous Lake palace for dinner. The Lake Palace was built in 1753 by Maharaja Jagat Singh II as a summer palace. It is now a beautiful but over-priced enclave for holidaying Europeans.
In the lake are many small islands that have built on by the Royal family for observatories, dining rooms and get-aways. The Shiv Nimas has a beautifully located restaurant, the Sunset Terrace that over-looks the Lake Palace and is aptly named. The evening views were breath-taking.
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In Udaipur there is a great museum of folk art, toys and puppets, the Bhartiya Lok Kala Mandal. There are colourful dioramas depicting dances from the local villages. The collection is worth visiting although the museum is dusty, water-damaged and in need of a large injection of money and care.
I also went to Saheliyon Ki Bara, the Garden of Maidens. It was built in 1720 by Sangram Singh II for the 48 female attendants who came as part of a wedding dowry. Although the palace was large there was not really a place for women to be outside without being seen so this was built as a get-away for them. The design revolves around some very clever engineering and water management. There are fountains everywhere and they were designed to operate from gravity feeds from a local dam.
On my final day the travel agent picked me up and introduced me to Shivanth Singh Rathan. He was to be my driver for the next five days as we drove across Rajasthan. The plan for the first day turned out to be overly-ambitious. We were to head off first to Ranakpur, one of the most holy
Jain temples, and then onto the Nimaj Palace Hotel. Nimaj was only 180 km away but because of the condition of the roads it was to take 7 hours. Our first stop, Ranakpur was 2 hours north.
At Udaipur I made my first mistake, white women sit in the back of the car, not this one. I had no intention seeing Rajasthan looking over the front seat of a car, I wanted to see out the front window. That settled we departed. Later in the trip an older English woman saw me get out of the car. She came over and told me that I was doing the wrong thing and giving people the wrong idea of my relationship with the driver.
Off we went to find a tiger.