Jane’s ABC of India

As always, anyone who comes to visit us has their say on the blog (this is not because we are lazy, honest!). So here in the form of an A- Z, is Andrew's mum Jane's take on her holiday with us as we travelled over three thousand kms in our little Ambassador car around Rajasthan.



Animals - on an equal, if not higher, par to humans. Certainly, they have road priority, even on the highways; the sacred cows, the long-eared, shifty-eyed goats, the darting deer in the desert, elephants painted for the tourists or burdened for the workers, chewing camels pulling crates of building materials and pregnant sack loads of chaff, scrums of sheep huddled to keep cool, cheeky chipmunks (photographed in all poses for the twins), mummy and baby pigs which Sarah wants to adopt and call Rashers, crocodiles that we left for Andrew and Michael, the tiger that turned the table on us by creating a jeep queue as he snoozed in our tracks at Ranthambhore, monkeys , cute and cuddly, and fierce and threatening, like the guardian redface at Bundi who scared the shit out of me. A grand-dad goat complete with jumper at Fatehpur Sikri.






Bazaars – if Oswestry market was a tenth as good as India’s bazaars, I’d be up the Bailey Head every Wednesday.
Bartering – at which I’m crap. ‘How much?’ Sarah chastised me as I emerged with my Taj marble artefacts. In the end she did a wholesale job for gifts with a stall holder next to their local ‘Honeys’ in Arpora. That said, I got nearly 3000R knocked off my gems in Jaipur.
Beauticians – that Sarah prodded me into, like a caring mother hen, and from which I emerged the proverbial preened phoenix, a new Jane.
Cocktails – 2 for 1, each containing about 4 shots of different spirits, losing count on the third round while waiting for freshly caught fish to tandoori. Resulting in a tile by tile analysis of my bathroom throughout the night, and an almighty hangover /sleep deprivation for the entire flight from Goa up to Rajasthan.
Delhi Belly – which we all suffered with in varying degrees. I reckon it’s bacteria in the water, though in Goa it was probably cocktail-induced. I think that’s why there are so many mothballs in all the bathrooms, though in Jaisalmer, we had to resort to incense burners. All I can say is, thank god for Imodium.





Elephants – though I didn’t ride one, they were everywhere. The Goan resident elephant used to entice photos (with the inevitable tip); the road walkers carrying enormous loads, the painted tarts in Jaipur, and a lone highway hopper returning late from a Wedding ceremony. Lots of cruelty with rocking elephants chained up for hours and vicious spikes to prompt, so I’d rather see them in the wild.







Forts – I didn’t realise it, but I love Indian forts, or to be more precise, the interiors – the decorations, the stories, the materials, awesome. They have inspired me to consider just what is possible with a blank wall. My DIY drive shifted to a whole new ballgame. The times they are achanging.




Goa – or to be more precise, Joa, as we all reckon this place was built for my sister Josie. A haven for layabouts, lots of weed/s and palm trees, restaurants, bars and beaches to trip you up and keep you there for years, if you could. Cheap cuisine that caters for all – Jamie’s fillet steaks and melting pork rib, Rasa’s tandoori treats, Honey’s giant prawns and Baba De Rhum pizzas and pineapple slushes. I’m dribbling just writing this. Andrew getting a grooming in Goa.

Hammocks - at Home, strung between palm trees in this beach restaurant in Patnem, S. Goa, where a mother rocked her baby to sleep to the soft sound of classical music, and fellow travellers read books in the hollowed out circle seat, and we ate breakfast before moving on to Agonda.




India – I love you. I return home humbled, appreciative of my lot, inspired to become more creative, and to give more of my time whenever I can. I acknowledge your poorness and I applaud your richness. You have things still that we have lost. Just look at this roadside temple.









Jain temples – didn’t realise I had a religious following. Vegetarians with a capital V. Temples are plain outside but wonderful inside. That is, apart from the guards blowing referee whistles to stop us photographing the gods, which tested my ability to adhere to their doctrine of non-violence to all living beings. Like an idiot, I went round telling fellow worshippers and attendants my name was Jane. Anal or what! I never saw thelarge ‘good luck’ white cobra, which was said to slither between the dish of drinking milk and the dish of donations. I reckon the tale was as long as the tail. Look, whistle ready, shit he’s seen me.

Jodhpur – where the trousers come from.



Kumbhalgarh – I climbed to the top, and tossed a few personal angina ghosts off the turrets. This fort has a 22 mile rampart, wide enough for an elephant or six horses to ride abreast. The scenery was stunning, and I think the photo Andrew took captures just how I felt with my surroundings and myself.






Lassi - with saffron, yoghurt, rosewater, almonds, raisins and butter milk in Bundi, one to die for. I’d go back to India just for this lassi!


Madhogarh hill fort – A sumptious start to the Rajasthan tour. As the only guests we had the pick of the rooms. Like kids in a toyshop, we went for the best. Silver service meals in the firelit courtyard, Andrew turbaned, music and dancing, distant noises from the town below – magical. Plumbing still a bit in 1600s but hey, can’t have everything. I lay in my silk sheets, scanning the fantastic wall decorations, listening to my ipod, watching a tiny gecko run behind the photo of the maharaja to escape the whiffs of the mosquito coil smoke. Pinch me someone. The Maharaja’s just making a brew!

National holidays – you think the towns and cities are busy, think again. For, on national holidays, it seems India goes mad. Tents are erected on street corners which need more than a good sweep, food and drink appear in abundance, beggars have another angle to plug (whichever god is being celebrated), villagers sporting hug flags walk miles to gatherings at temples, fairs spark to life in the bigger places, families cluster around the garage fronted shops that line the streets, the traffic, wheeled and bovine, comes to a standstill and horns honk and honk and honk.
Onions – used in the desert to buffer the effects of nuclear bomb testing. So many were used, the price of onions for the consumer market rocketed and the onion-eating Indian people voted the Government out. Yes, another Michael anecdote.
Pakistan border – when we slept in the desert we were only 150k to the border. The roads here were well maintained because of forces use. As we drove back to Bikaner, I counted a convoy of 50 trucks and 20 large guns. The roads are narrow, with no pavements, so overtaking is a nightmare experience. We heard many jets taking off, and there’s an underground airport solely for forces use.
Poverty –glimpses, like the woman who had made her home inside a dead tree trunk on the roadside, collecting cow pats to sell. In your face, the beggars. Some with borrowed babies to get the sympathy vote, some old and frail, but minds alert; always children clambering for money, chocolate or pens. You knew that any personal greeting or compliment would always be appendixed with a request to buy or give.
Pavements – non existent

Spices – sniffing the wide ranging smells of Indian cuisine and tasting tea. A family of girls running the business; well impressed with the informative demo of saffron (real and fake). I bought spices for colds. Even had a lassi given us, but, still thinking in saffron demo mode, a fake compared to the Bundi lassi.
Spitting – Is it the dust?






Taj Mahal - a sunrise start to see this place of love. I wore the coral jewellery Rob gave me. We floated around in our felt shoe covers, trying to find adjectives to captured its essence; ethereal, shimmering, unreal. It was only when we visited the craftshop afterwards that I fully appreciated the detailed floral ‘pietra dura’ work of the Taj with inlaid precious stones. Brought back to earth, Indian style, with a Michael quote: they’ve closed the four minarets because of the suicide jumpers.









Well – The communal gathering place where, even in the poorest villages, brightly coloured sari-clad women fill containers, children play, and match-stick old men strip off , squat and wash the daily dirt and dust away.










Yellow – the colours of the overhead sun, saffron, saris, marigold garlands to greet us, sandstone screens and carved window balconies letting in the wind to cool interiors of Jaisalmer’s desert homes.
Zzzzzz which is all I seem to have done since I arrived back home.
I’ll end with one of Michael’s many informative asides. When the Taj Mahal was finally completed, the Mughal emporer, Shah Jahan, not wanting this beautiful building ever to be out-done by another, ordered that the architect hands be cut off. The Persian designer received an agreed huge bonus for his huge loss.
Having completed this guest blog, and whilst you can’t compare it to the Taj, it did seem mammoth when I tried to unwind the scribbles in my head and diary while I clicked and cropped hundreds of photos which I’m, no doubt, going to bore people with over the coming months. So I’ll close my laptop and toddle off to the beauticians, as instructed by Sarah, and limit the cutting to just my fingernails. Ah, All is well.






Have a look at our new world food blog website The Food Atlas.com for world food recipes and stories.
Are you interested in food recipes from around the world? Have a look at www.thefoodatlas.com
Computer speed problems? www.systemoptimizer.org