Flamingos and friends
Jaipur to Pushkar, 30th October - 1st November
Well, I ended up spending a lot of time in Jaipur. I'd planned to attend my family wedding on the 13th and 14th, then perhaps stick around for Diwali on the 20th. That would already have been a very long break by my standards, a whole week. Fate had other plans, and I came down with a fever on Diwali and wasn't up to cycling for a good while. I ended up staying in Jaipur until the 30th of October, making it an over two-week break. I stayed in a variety of places: my aunt's house, the wedding venue hotel, a hostel private room and three different hostel dorm rooms. I made friends, too, and often had company to go around the city and eat with. Jaipur is a big tourist destination so there were no shortage of Indian and foreign travellers around. I even got a chance to dust off my Italian, getting a brief lecture on the etymology of "papa kaput" from a former English teacher visiting from Italy.
Staying in one place was useful for errands, for socialising, and as a break from the experience of constantly moving around, but it also wore me down. Being sick certainly didn't help things, sapping my energy for days after the main symptoms had gone, and when I was feeling well enough I knew it was time to leave. Indeed, getting back on the road felt amazing. I had a clear goal and I knew what to do. It was about 150km to Pushkar and I was thinking I might be able to make it in two days, but I decided to add a detour to Sambhar Lake first. A striking feature on the map, it's India's largest inland salt lake and home to some flamingos as they migrate south for the winter. I really wanted to see some flamingos, so I headed in that direction out the city.
My joy at being back on the road was strong enough that I hardly minded when a motorbike bumped into my front wheel at a junction (my first collision in India, but it was gentle enough and my bike seemed fine). However, my mood did get dampened by the weather: humid and grey, with an insistent light drizzle. My rain jacket was completely useless, having been packed for India more as a lightweight backup than a serious waterproof, and it soaked through. acting more like a wetsuit. When the rain intensified I decided to give up for the day and took refuge in the next roadside hotel. It was one of the worse rooms I've been in lately, with no hot water and a colony of ants taking an interest in my snacks. Still, I remind myself that I'm living in luxury compared to wild camping - I have plumbing, power, and a real bed. Putting my shoes on when I go to the bathroom isn't so bad.
It was a short 22km ride to the village of Sambhar the next day, giving me plenty of time to go visit the lake. I got myself a room in a dharamshala (avoiding the expensive luxury resorts), left my panniers, and got back on my much lighter unloaded bike. I went up to a cafe on the salt lake, where along with lunch I got some local knowledge. I was told that the flamingos had arrived (phew - it's right at the start of migration season) but the place to spot them was a temple on the west side of the lake, more than 30km away. There was realistically no way I could make it all the way there and back in the remainder of the afternoon, with just three hours until sunset, but I set out anyway in the hope that my information might have been wrong. It was only one source, after all, and people here often prefer to give a wrong answer than no answer.
After a couple of kilometres with no luck, I was starting to worry. Perhaps I'd have to make a detour the next morning with my loaded bike instead - not ideal. Seeing an auto parked in the next village, I decided to try asking for a lift. A woman sitting nearby told me the driver lived down the next alley, so I asked at the mosque there. The guys at the mosque really took it on themselves to help me: I was told that that guy wasn't around, but there was another guy who would take me up to the temple and back to Sambhar for a decent fee. He'd have to drive up from Sambhar, and in the meantime I could lie down on a charpai they brought out for me. It's pretty amazing that I was able to get a ride sorted just by talking to some random villagers, but that's classic India - it doesn't even surprise me anymore. Neither did the children coming up to my bike and squeezing the horn while I was trying to talk to the guys from the mosque, although them sticking rubbish (an empty snack packet) in my pannier rack was new.
The driver arrived and we squeezed my bike into the back of the auto, with me sitting in the front. After a long ride which I definitely couldn't have myself before sunset, we reached the temple and I saw the flamingos. Apparently they're usually around closer to the town, but since all the rain a few days prior they'd only been at the temple end. The rain has also caused the lake to swell up, so the flamingos were pretty far from the shore. Even at a distance, though, it was a sight to see. Thousands of flamingos - a great pink line on the horizon - with more flying over to meet them. The sound carried to the shore, too, and I picked up a couple of white-pink feathers to take home.
The next morning proved to be very foggy, with visibility comically limited. I quite liked the ambience, but the damp clinging to all my clothing was less welcome. Rajasthan gets surprisingly cold at night, and it is November now - the sun sets before 6pm. I made a stop at the same fancy cafe I'd eaten at the previous day and enjoyed the luxury of a clean Western toilet. The fog had cleared by the time I was done with breakfast, and I wanted to make a good pace with the remaining daylight hours. I had at most seven hours and I wanted to make it all the way to Pushkar, which would make this my longest day in a while at over a hundred kilometres. This was part of what I decided to do differently after Jaipur - longer riding days and reminding myself that I don't need to feel an obligation to stop in every village and talk to the locals.
It was a long, long day and I didn't make many stops, always keeping an eye on the time and the distance ahead of me. Lunch usually slows me down, both in the eating time itself and the subsequent lethargy, so I skipped it. Salty snacks are ubiquitous in village shops, and cold soft drinks are available if they have a fridge. That's a little bit harder to come by - one shop told me that I'd be unable to find any cold drinks in the whole village, and I'd better go ten kilometres down the road. My strategy worked to keep me fast, but I did begin to get tired in the afternoon.
I got a very welcome break when a couple of boys on a motorbike came up beside me and started chatting. They asked the usual questions, and I, uncharacteristically, asked them for help in the form of holding my hand to tow my bike. They weren't keen on that, worried about a collision and the sideways forces. I've done this before with no issues, but I can understand the caution. What they proposed instead was for one of them to ride my bicycle while I rode pillion on the motorbike. This would give them control of all my possessions and my means of transport, while I would have the contents of my pockets and be at the mercy of the motorbike driver. A month ago, I would've been far too worried about their intentions to accept such an offer, but I now believed they honestly wanted to help (and have a ride on my bike). I accepted, and handed my bike to one of the boys.
Eight kilometres later, I got my bike back. To my relief, it was still in one piece, just a little muddier than I had left it. I'd had to explain how to operate the gears, as nearly all Indian bikes are single-speed, but it seemed that he'd gotten the hang of it and had been riding it in the very fastest gear. Good for him! My legs had had a rest, I'd gotten eight kilometres for free, and he'd had a good time. The motorbike driver got the worst deal in my view, having not gotten to ride the bicycle, but I hope he was happy enough to have had a chat with the foreigner.
One thing I've noticed here in the south of Rajasthan is that locals sometimes start speaking to me in English instead of Hindi, or ask me "your country?". I suppose they're more used to foreign tourists here, although I'd still be surprised if they see many bicycle travellers. I haven't seen any myself since meeting Nigel from the Lake District outside Chandigarh, which was a long while ago. Taking the bus to Jaipur has caused me to skip a chunk of Rajasthan and there are a few differences in experience that I've noticed already. One striking change is how many villagers walking the roads here are carrying hatchets - I even saw a small girl carrying one. I haven't seen any more snakes, though, and I'm hoping I haven't missed my chance now.
I eventually made it to Pushkar half an hour before sunset, having listened to hours of podcasts through the day. I usually default to listening to my surroundings or my own thoughts, but it's nice to have so many hours to listen to media, too. It would be a perfect opportunity to get into audiobooks, which I've tried a couple of times before but never found exactly what I was looking for. I feel a little guilty tuning out the world around me too much, though. The point of travelling by bicycle is surely to experience every place you pass through, and I'm trying to balance that with the sheer overstimulation that I've been getting in India.
Pushkar provided an opportunity to stay in another backpacker hostel, a rare thing in India. I'm on the tourist trail now, especially with the Pushkar Mela happening this week. I relished the comfortable, clean bed and the fancy cafe, and of course the shower. I'd be taking a day off to visit the mela the next day, and I'd even be seeing some British tourists who I'd met in Jaipur. They'd taken the bus to Pushkar and I'd come the slow way, but they were spending longer here than I was so it worked out. It's nice to have some fellow travellers to hang out with, and it's definitely something I've been missing in India. Ideally, I'd meet some fellow bicycle travellers but I think that's too much to hope for right now.
In the mela, was mostly looking forward to seeing the camel fair; I'd been told that the north of Rajasthan had more camels generally than the south, but I'd missed that by taking the bus to Jaipur so this was my opportunity to compensate by seeing a huge field full of camels for sale. The rest of the mela didn't interest me so much: fireworks, lights, shopping, and huge, dense crowds. For that reason, I was planning to spend two nights in Pushkar: one full day of crowded mela would probably be quite enough.