Having visited many places, taken many trains , discovered again and again new rules to load our bicycles in the trains and having been sick for a while, we were reaching Jaipur with the hope of getting our head above the water for a sip of air. We had a host from Warmshowers, we were going to do a ten day meditation retreat and we had bought our train tickets to the Himalayas two weeks later, all under control.
Jaipur's parcel office where we received the bikes. Thus part of Indian railway stations are a complete world on their own, so much stuff going around that we often wonder how in that chaos our bikes have always made it to join us on the other end... thanks to the law of dharma we believe!
Thus when cycling easily through the least chaotic traffic in India so far from the train station to Monti’s house, we felt relieved. And everything after that followed on the same tone. We rested and recovered, we went to the cinema (we saw Court and we highly recommend it) and did some sight seeing. We had a break with messy India – well, to some extent of course.
View of the astronomical observatory
Curiously one of Jaipur’s attraction is an astronomical observatory built by a science enthusiast Rajah a few hundred years ago. Therein still stands the biggest solar clock of the world, precise down to 20s. On the photo you can see the “needle” , a long set of stairs with a inclination of 27 degrees – Jaipur’s latitude. When the sun shines – and it does often and hard in Rajasthan – the shadow of these stairs indicates on a dial the local time.
This instrument was a sort of astrological clock that would tell you on which constellation was the sun and which constellation was rising at any given moment. There are a few things we did not understand and did not manage to get an explanation from the guide.
Other interesting instruments are standing in the garden and we even took a guide to explain them to us. Unfortunately for them we were very exigent and the two first guides we were provided did not go through the first instrument, due to their English or their explanation. We were sorry to send them back but we really wanted to understand. Finally we found the one they consider their teacher to give us the tour. He was indeed more knowledgeable but not open at all to discussion when we told him (almost begging) not to say that the New moon raises in the west. No celestial body rises in the west but he wouldn’t listen and repeated “new moon rises in the west and moves across the sky to set in the east”… to be honest the meaning of right and left are equally disputable!
For those few days, we were lucky to be hosted by Monti, a very interesting character. He left his home in Bundi at the age of 14 to Chennai because he did not want to follow the rules of his cast and become a lawyer or doctor. He already knew that tourism was his thing. He learned French and started working as a helper for French groups. From that moment he dedicated his life to tourism and after studying in Australia he is now a very successful tour guide for foreigners in India. He honestly said that he doesn’t want to guide Indian tourists because they don’t know how to cue, how to read a map or how to be punctual! On the other hand with foreigners he always has many questions to answer – India puzzles people so much that in walking 200m in the street, westerners have instantaneously tons of questions. How he answered our questions was passionating, so if you need a guide or tour organiser, he is the man!
trying to make peace with our cousins after the incident in Tamil Nadu
Dharma bums on bikes 