9/ 100 Matchbox Dog
A week into our most recent India trip we found our seats on the 06:00 train leaving from cold and rainy Jaipur and traveled to a place that was completely new to us – Jodhpur.
The train trip was long but uneventful and it was great to watch the beautiful day break over the desert towns of Rajasthan. It was also extremely frustrating to see some stupendous photograph opportunities along the way that we could do absolutely nothing about. Just as the sun was peeping over the horizon we were moving slowly through a bizarre landscape of salt pans punctuated with unrecognisable trees that had been carefully pruned into otherworldly shapes. There was a thick fog and the effect was absolutely wonderful.
Since the windows of the train were heavily tinted, and hadn’t been cleaned this decade, I knew that attempting to photograph the view through the glass was pointless so I was forced to sit and watch it all pass by with only my brain recording it. It reminded me of the times when I was forbidden to photograph wedding ceremonies in churches (my actual job). Sitting on a pew being forced to watch the key moments pass by – the exchange of rings, the first kiss – without photographing them was agonising.
When we arrived at the railway station in Jodhpur we felt that a gloomy cloud had lifted. Here was the India we knew and loved. Blue skies, warm breezes, the smell of tasty snacks and the sort of relaxed and happy atmosphere that’s hard to immediately recognise unless you’ve just had the juxtaposition of a less-happy place to compare it to. I instantly loved it.
We were led at a frantic pace by the driver who had been sent to collect us. He had actually come an entire day early, poor chap, but he didn’t seem angry about that. Here was a very fit and young man who had clearly never had to carry two people’s luggage through the crush of an entire (and very, very long) train, all trying to make it to the bottom of the only set of narrow steps that led up from the platform. He was already too far ahead to see so I sent Fiona on a mission to keep up with him whilst I did my best to catch up.
Finally I made it out of the station where phase 2 of the usual onslaught began – the rejection of the hundreds of other taxi drivers who all want your business. Next there was phase 3 where you would get latched onto by a poor person with a baby who really wanted you to give her some money for food. They walk alongside you, rabbiting away in a language I don’t understand in the slightest, and only leave you alone when you take a swerve towards a policeman. Phase 4 is crossing the car park without getting run over and the final phase, 5, is always trying to fit our luggage, and ourselves into the Tuk Tuk.
We travel very lightly wherever we go, and especially in India. Fiona’s dodgy spine means she often can’t carry anything other than her own small rucksack so I have to carry both of our main bags. Fortunately they each only weighed about 11kg each but that’s still two bits of luggage to stash inside a Tuk Tuk that wasn’t really designed to take any. Fortunately the drivers have become very adept at packing a ridiculous number of people, or even just two very large tourists and their bags, into their trusty three-wheeled chariots so we tended to just sit back and let them do their thing.
Because I am a bit too tall for a Tuk Tuk my head was up in the roof somewhere as usual and could only look downwards through the clear-ish part of the PVC door cover and see a strange view of the ground as it whizzed past. Occasionally I’d spot a dog, or the wheels of a bicycle, or the hem of a brightly coloured sari, but mostly it was the very rough road surface, dog poo and, as the lanes grew narrower and narrower, ancient and crumbling walls painted in the blue colour that the city is so famous for, flashing by just a few centimetres from the edges of our steed.
We arrived at our Haveli, dropped off our bags and headed out to explore this wonderful new town in all its blueness and, of course, spend too long trying to pick from the multitude of options available for lunch.
