Tiger Number Nineteen

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Click above if you want to see her take a stroll.


She's only three-and-a-half and lives near her sisters and litter-mates Numbers Seventeen and Eighteen. The ranger said they're hoping for happy news from her this year. The female tigers have individual territories 3 or 4 km square,while the males have a much larger range with several females within it.

There are about 30 adult tigers in the park now, with 11 cubs- as well as leopards and sloth bears. We didn't see either of those but we'd only been going into the park by jeep for 20 minutes when Number Nineteen wandered across the track. She loped ahead of us for a moment and then settled herself down in a shady spot.

We watched her for an hour or so; at one point there were four 5-passenger jeeps and a "canter" (open truck holding about 10 people) all keeping quiet, awestruck. The only sound was the click of cameras, including some impressively massive telescopic lenses which practically needed their own separate jeep for portage. In a private jeep, there was a camera team from National Geographic; shattering my illusions, as I'd always imagined their cameramen scaling waterfalls with the camera in their teeth rather than getting a tourist jeep just like anyone else who could afford about $NZ 50.00.

It comes with the supermodel territory: paparazzi. She ignored us with a polite but imperious disdain.

The ranger said he thought #19 was probably very hungry as she hadn't killed for a few days. Well, she might have a touch of morning sickness, if his other prediction is true. She certainly didn't look like she felt like rushing around much. The other thought that did occur to me was that, if #19 was more than a little peckish, there were some 30 tasty humans within fairly easy reach, varying between rather tough-looking and scrawny Indian rangers and much more juicy well-fed city and expatriate Indians and no-doubt-slightly-strangely-spiced foreigners. Not all of the open jeeps would have been able to start their engines and get out of the way of a reasonably determined tiger.


Good job the tigers prefer a snack of peacock or a lunch of spotted deer. One thing we weren't too keen to see: Bambi becoming tiger tiffin.

If you were a twitcher, this park would be a splendid place to visit, with many brightly-patterned birds. There was a mongoose, too, from the Snake Control Department, going about his business.

But we'd seen what we came for, heading straight for the top of the food chain; Rereata's twentieth birthday present, a real live tyger burning bright although surprisingly well camouflaged in the forests of the not-night.

Bundi is best

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If somebody asked me where they should go to stay in Rajasthan, I'd tell them to go to Bundi. Qualify this with the fact that I've spent about 24 hours there, at the absolute skinny-monkey-tail-end of the tourist season. Qualify it some more: the questioner needs to be someone else that wants to get away from tourist-packaging, tourist-marketing and glitzy palaces that have been restored to a movie-set pristine-ness. Bundi is 25 k or so off the main N-S motorway (a motorway,incidentally, which is at least as good as if not actually much better than any we have in NZ, although there are fewer cows wandering across the 4 lanes in NZ, and you are unlikely to see an elephant parked in a signposted "lay bye". And, just while we're on the subject, lay bye makes a lot more sense than layby. You lay around for a bit and then you go bye.)
The road to Bundi is narrow, splintered and pockmarked as if it had been hammered with a hundred thousand cannonballs but it runs through charming villages where water buffalo lumber into ponds and bullock-carts puddle around the potholes.
Bundi itself is a small town, clustered into a fold of some sizeable rocky hills. The streets of the old town are narrow, too narrow to be navigable by car, jeep or tuktuk although that causes no hesitation in the minds of the average local driver. We took a tuktuk ride back from the market which was far more exciting than anything you'd meet at a funpark, if slightly less safety-padded. It was a hold-on-tight-and-pray-a-bit experience, like all such rides, with the shops and crumbling buildings whirling past kaleidoscopically.
In fact Bundi is one of many Indian towns that has perfected the art of crumbling gracefully in stone without actually falling down, although I'm sure that buildings do collapse sometimes. This is an earthquake zone as is all of Northern India.
The palace, perched above the town, is threatened with restoration- so here is a message to the Rajah.
Dear Sir- or Your Majesty, if you prefer-
If you're thinking of smartening up your palace- think again! What you've got now is the most atmospheric, impressive palace that we've visited on our tour of Rajasthan. Okay, it's a bit smelly in places and the bats and the monkeys are a bit of a pest. (Thanks! by the way, for the loan of the sturdy bamboo canes for chasing away those simians. Luckily, we didn't need them.) But the unrestored miniature wallpaintings are truly exquisite and no matter how good a craftsperson the restorer may be, he or she is bound to ruin them. Just pop down to your colleague the maharajah of Udaipur's palace if you don't believe me: yes, the place is impressive and glitzy, just like when Bond was swishing around doing Octopussy- but do you really want things to be quite that manicured and OTT? And also by the way, the kids in the street outside are just like any kids anywhere and have not been corrupted by tourism into asking for money, pens and chocolate. Which is a very good thing and you might like to think about employing a few of them to take when you pension off the knowledgeable but slightly doddery retainers you've got up there now. The truth is , what you've got at Bundi is truly majestic, your Majesty- so please keep it that way. Just prop up the bits that are falling down and maybe give the latrines a bit of a hose down and a splash of Dettol.
Yours very gratefully,
two kiwi visitors
(yes, that's right, our cricket team are just the try-hards at best. No need to point it out.)

Teaching people your language and the media in the world's largest democracy

It started with the guy with a sweet smile who looked up from the strip of resin he was bending around a red-hot stake and said kia ora -you want look my bangle shop? The kia ora he'd learned from some passing kiwi tourist ensured that we bought a few camel-bone and silver bangles from him and not from any of the dozens of other bangle shops.
You've got to have an edge to make a rupee, but really, how often do New Zealanders wander down that dusty, narrow street in Jodhpur? Kiwis that want to buy bangles, that is. To tell the truth, the charm and persuasiveness of Indian shopkeepers often means that when you set out to buy shampoo, you come home with a new shirt or a set of framed miniatures.
Everybody asks you what is country, and some try to pretend that the Black Caps are more of a success and less of an embarrassment compared with a team that proudly represents a billion people, many of them small boys who bowl and bat away for six in dusty villages.
But it was the guy in charge of shelves of sandals at a temple in Udaipur today that really impressed. Namaste, kia ora, haere mai, he grinned. Bells clanged, incense wafted and ladies in saffron and orange saris chanted . A boy shared out a cardboard box of barfi. The mothers-in-law come every day to gossip and wait for this moment, when the gilt-edged purple velvet curtain in front of the image is drawn back and the ebony face of the god revealed. And on the way out, hopping across the scalding-hot midday marble, the slipper guy said it again. Haere mai.
And this is the world's largest democracy: not a perfect one, as none are, but a country where in Jodhpur there is a free public newspaper reading room where people (men) gather to read the news. Literacy is around 60 % - higher for men- much improved in the last 20 years. The reception staff of the hotel we stayed in squatted on the verandah together, reading the news in Hindi and in English.
The Times of India, in English, seems a good solid newspaper. I've read stories about people fighting corruption, about scandals involving accidents and about women courageously fighting for justice over rape complaints and exploitation. Movie stars and their marriage plans, too. The death of the maharajah of Jaipur, reported very even-handedly. The death of Sai Baba, also not uncritical.
And, the other day, the story of the snake charmer's protest. They picketed the house of the Minister of the Interior, a woman because they want to be recognised as an official minority.
I hope they get their recognition quickly because, if I was the lady minister, some of the last people I'd want to piss off are the snake charmers of Delhi.

Jaipur Pink City

Jaipur is the pink city and the capital city of Rajasthan; so it's another loud, hot, jostling swirl of people and motorbikes and trucks and camels and dogs. When we arrived, we learned that the 84-year-old maharajah had died the day before and so the city palace and Amber Fort were closed for his funeral.
The maharajah inherited his title just at the time when Indira Ghandhi's government took away the last vestiges of his political power. Life seems to have revolved around business and polo and hobnobbing with other royalty, but he seems to have been popular. Our guide at Amber (silent B) fort said that he was going to the funeral the next day ( he was the secretary of a political party) and that there would be 20,000 guests.
The usual way up to the fort is by elephant, but the queue was too long and we didn't bother. It's not every day you can say that you couldn't be stuffed waiting for the elephant. It was good to learn that the elephants only do 3 trips and then they go home as it's a long way up.


The water palace where the maharajah's saffron was grown.

The mirrored hall in Amber palace and the zenana (women's quarters)- the guide said that the maharah would have 12 wives or so.

Life in a vast stone palace on a mountain crag surrounded by 12 km of walls involved a lot of infrastructure and engineering.

Water had to be hauled up from the lake far, far below, apparently by human hand. The shaft up which the buckets were dragged is now full of bats (Rajasthani royal version of having bats in the belfry, perhaps?) but there was enough water for these gardens in the central courtyard and for a system of copper piping that sprayed water around the scorching marble terraces, including the one where the royal children played and swung above a 200 m or so drop. It may be that some dodgy scrap metal merchant has made off with these pipes, but some sort of cooling system would not be out of place nowadays.

On the way into the fort, we visited a shrine and were garlanded and daubed with yellow powder. Note on yellow powder: take wet wipes when visiting shrines. Otherwise much of self will end up smeared in yellow. On the way out, we gave our marigold garlands to monkeys, who apparently find them quite tasty.
Note on maharajahs: there are quite a few of these knocking around, which is just as well for the likes of Eton and Harrow. And the Jaipur one used to pop in to the local bookshop quite regularly, according to the proprietor. This chap, who had the brandysoaked Christmas-cake richness of accent of the Indian Army officer (retired, on his wife's orders "if it was a choice between obeying my wife or my commanding officer- well-") showed us some shots he'd taken of a tiger about 8 metres away, in Ranthambore National Park. Photo shots, you understand. The tiger looked faintly harrassed but intent on having a peaceful walk around a nice spot of jungle.

Let's hope we get that close to a tiger, too. Next week.

Multistorey bamboo scaffolding in Jaipur.

The view from the Amber palace

12 km of walls surround the fort.

Pushkar

We were in Seventh Heaven in Pushkar- literally, as that is the name of the converted haveli that we stayed in. Rose petals were strewn around the marble fountain in the courtyard and on ledges and windowsills. Food was delivered to the rooftop restaurant via a basketwork-pulley arrangement which seemed to work well.

Another of the many hotels is called Pink Floyd- yes, this place is on the hippie trail all right. Apparently Bruce Chatwin "holed up" in a hotel near here to write one of his books- I used the quotation marks because, despite the numerous tourists, a foreigner would not go sufficiently unnoticed to gain that much seclusion. But this would be a place where you could come and write peacefully- except during the camel fair and religious fair, when apparently 200,000 people come here and camp.
Pushkar is reached over a winding, rocky hill road called the Snake Mountain, which has plenty of sharp bends on which to overtake trucks, buses, motorbikes and camel carts. Our taxi driver, Ravi is a pretty cautious driver compared to the average Indian road merchant but even he seems plenty daring to me. Heart occasionally in mouth and slight concern about whether Indian version of WOF (MOT) involves checking brakes.

The town is supposed to surround a lake, but we couldn't find it when we set out on foot. What we did find was temples- there is a gold-plated temple to Brahma-, cows, cow flops and the usual merchants trying to inveigle us into their shops. Far too many of these guys address me as "auntie" - although this is a term of fond respect in India, it is disconcerting to acquire many, many Indian nephews of all shapes, sizes and states of dentition.

The next morning, Ravi took us to the lake on our way out of town, after too brief an overnight visit. Part of the reason the lake may have eluded us is that it is quite small, although in the early morning sunlight it was golden and peaceful, with only a handful of people diligently lathering themselves at the bathing ghats which surround it.

Yes, this is a place I would come back to, a place to chill out and drink mango lassi on the roof of the seventh heaven...

Jaipur

It is possible that we are getting slightly acclimatised to being in India. Monkeys jumping onto parked motorbikes hardly faze us. We're getting quite good at ignoring shopkeepers who do everything short of dragging you into their shop bodily. (It's more honest than TV advertising, in truth.) Child beggars and manic traffic: no, there's no getting used to those.

But neither of us wanted to get to close to the snake charmer just setting up for the day outside the City Palace in Jaipur. When I was a child, I'm sure I had a Ladybird Book of Peoples of the World with a picture of the very same snake charmer; perhaps it was his Dad or Grandad. Snakes coming no poison, he said. What do they do with the venom when they milk it out of the cobra's fangs, I wonder. Not stuff you want to have hanging around, surely.

The City Palace was impressive, with the late Maharajah's Merc parked in the courtyard under a special Merc car cover with a little pouch to cover the Merc bonnet -what are those things called? Logos? Best to have plenty of flunkies in white outfits plus turbans and sashes to polish the shiny metal bits. No shortage of flunkies at the City Palace, anyway, all with splendid moustaches and hopes of earning a tip by posing for a photo with a visitor.

The palace had a morning-after feel with canopies and mats still laid out for people who'd come to pay their respects to the maharajah who died on Sunday. Much polo paraphernalia in evidence, and plenty of dusty chandeliers. Beautiful doorways: one for each season into the inner courtyard. Don't know which season R is adorning here.

Rereata has turned into a demon bargainer, beating local jewellers down by many many dollars. This previously unknown talent for haggling is turning out to be very useful. On to Pushkar yet (not pushing a car though, happy to ride in it)...

Holy Cow

That cows are everywhere in India is hardly a revelation to anyone who knows anything at all about this country. Sacred holy animal, meandering through the dessicated mud of the streets, chomping on a thorny branch, munching a hunk of bread, licking hopefully at a split sack of flour. Big cows and little cows in tasteful browns and greys and creams and fawn. A cow with a broken horn lingering outside a marigold-strewn temple doorway. Cows unheedingly holding up traffic on the motorway, a cow hesitating about the wisdom of crossing three lanes of manic motorcycle, truck and van traffic on a city street.

I'm grateful to cows for bringing us here. I wrote a story called Cattle Love and won the tickets from Cathay Pacific. The story was inspired by a woman student, a refugee from East Africa. We went to a farm park and she found the cows and could not tear herself away from them. She said, they are like my cows, I miss my cows so much, we had so many cows when I was young. And I thought that a person can lose a great deal in their lives but if they have lost their animals, then the animals have lost them, too.

Perhaps the person that judged the stories came from here and knows that cows are special. Good for you, cows; lurch elegantly between the market stalls and the rickshaws, look neither to right or left; come to a halt, and rotate your head slowly through a full-circle view of the rubbish heaps and scraps. Find something to eat and move on, taking your own good time. There is plenty of time, on the sacred cow beat.

Another Day in Delhi

This is our third guest-house room in Delhi, in a house that owner Ajay's grandfather built*. He says that he'd overcome family sentiment and rip it down to build a bigger hotel if he were allowed to but it's in a heritage zone so he can't. It's guarded by the Dog Who Does Not Like To Be Touched. Not an Untouchable dog- that's different.

Since we were in the neighbourhood, we started our day with Humayun's Tomb, in a thunderstorm. The thunder didn't drown out the much-amplified adjacent devotional sermonising and music show, the sound of which wafted appropriately around the domes and turrets. Humayun was the 2nd Mughal emperor - this was built in 1565. The inside could do with a bit of Jif and elbow grease- water blaster? -but the beauty and grace of the formal gardens is being enhanced by the toiling gardeners. The guy I was standing next to couldn't read the Koranic quotes in Arabic either- I could only make out Allah, rather frequently. I'd never understood the significance of this sort of filigree screen before.

The prophet was saved from his enemies by a spider's web...

Dogs are unclean animals in Islam, I believe, but nobody told this puppy that lives at Humayun's Tomb...

We also joined many, many Sundaying Delhi-ites at Purana Qila . The tower was built in 1556 and, unfortunately, caused medieval India's worst ACC moment when Hamuyun fell down the steps to his demise.

I'd seen these umbrella hats for sale in two dollar shops but never before have I seen anyone actually wear one. Against the sun, not the rain.

Many, many people shopping in one of Delhi's main matkets, too. Yet the henna-decorators- men, surprisingly- trace the fiddly designs with fierce concentration.

The kindly folk at Ajay's guesthouse (confusingly called One One which is almost the same as the name of Sanjay's wife's guesthouse...) loaded a box of mineral water into the car for the next stage of our trip, the part we have named Getting Out of Delhi.

In Miniature

The National Museum of India has a wonderful collection of miniature paintings. The first one above is an illustration of a Christian story told by Indian miniature painters- as a result of contact between late-medieval English royalty and Indian royalty... there are 2 details from this exquisite thing, which is about the sizeof an A4 sheet.

The other painting is a Girl with a sparkler. It's postcard-sized. The photographer reflected herself in the photo in quite an arty way, if unintentional.

There are rooms and rooms of these lovely things. I'm really glad I'd got my new glasses. I'm less glad that I forgot to put them on. Can't imagine what happened to the painters' eyesight. Anyway, the World is a Small Place.

So Delhi is a crazy, noisy,dusty city and we found that out on Day One. And it's a beautiful city with secluded green oases (for the well-heeled) and far, far more amazing and historical buildings than you could shake a stick at.

Ravi the driver was a welcome sight in the morning, arriving to pick us up for a day of sightseeing and shopping. He took less of a kamikaze approach to Delhi's traffic than the guy that picked us up from the airport, which is just as well because our miniature travelling pharmacy of what-if drugs does not include tranquilisers.

We started out by going to India's wonderfully impressive avenue of Government buildings- Parliament and ministries flank the approach to the President's house. That's me standing in front of the gates which apparently Lutyens copied from some he'd seen in Chiswick. Lucky he hadn't had in mind something from the tube in Brixton, really. These are rather gorgeous and would look quite good on our place in Greenhithe although I still wouldn't be able to park my car at the right angle to close them.

There would have been fewer monkeys stalking around in Chiswick- also the case in Greenhithe. These simians were so sour-faced that they must surely be reincarnations of the sort of lower level bureaucrat that sends you back to the end of the 45- minute queue because you ticked the wrong box on Question Two.

Delhi, incidentally, is also the City of Dogs: I narrowly avoided tripping over one in the street last night and they are everywhere. Not doing much. No barking, whining, fighting. Never heard of a pat. Dog roll? That's what happens when you get too close to a hurtling tuktuk. Avoiding eye contact. Best to keep out of trouble and humans are definitely trouble in Dog City.

That's a Delhi Dog itching its fleas in the remains of a mosque built in 1494. In 1936 Lady Willingdon thought it would be a frightfully nice spot for some gardens and it was just too bad about the 2 villages that were in the way. The guidebook I've purloined from the Auckland City libraries does not elaborate on the fate of the removed villagers but the good folk of Delhi now have a nice place for dating and dalliance (Closes at 8 p.m. Sharp. Daylight dalliance only.) I hope things turned out well for Rajesh and Manju.

We spent the rest of the morning at the National Museum, mostly marvelling over the gorgeousness of miniature paintings, which deserve a whole separate posting. I suppose it is admirable that the museum is trying to keep its carbon footprint to the minimum but switching off so many of the lights does make it hard to see some exhibits. However, it was light enough to note that the average exquisite Indian goddess wore a generous C cup and there are both lithe and handsome young Indian gods (that Vishnu was Vi-dreamy) and also cute ones with round tummies.

Lunch was at the Lodi Gardens (Rereata quite taking to the daybed-with-floaty-curtains) and our vote was for the Pink Drink featuring cranberry juice and mint leaves.

In the afternoon we went Shopping. First to a near-deserted luxury emporium with icy AC and legions of overly helpful staff.

"We're going to look at scarves."

"Let me show you this silk carpet."

We fled to another place under the arches of a flyover (Shake, shake, thud, thud. "That's a bus- it's OK, we are being here 45 years.") where we enjoyed buying Indian clothes, in my case being measured by a small withered-looking tailor who is probably trundling away on the side seams at this very minute. Well, he drew the line at measuring the circumference of my upper thigh and Rereata and I had to fumble around in the changing room. Looking forward to delivery of custom-made outfit in tasteful green.

Then it was back to Yatri House and a long discussion with the urbane and very helpful Sanjay. He's been running a guesthouse since 1982, so he's seen everything tourists can throw up. Not literally,one hopes. He's given us a lot of good advice, which has panned out well so far. You need a lot of time and energy to find your own way in India, especially if you are just 2 innocent wee Kiwis.

Unfortunately, the popularity of Sanjay's enterprise meant that we had to transfer to a another guesthouse run by his buddy. Even more unfortunately , Ravi the driver misunderstood and took us to the guesthouse run by Sanjay's wife. We unpacked, had showers and went out to dinner. In the middle of masala dosa (yum) in a jumping South Indian restaurant in the Defence Colony market, Sanjay suddenly materialised ("I was in the area"- nah, he's one of those astral projection type gurus I suspect) and explained that we would have to transfer again to the right place.

After our tuktuk driver had got lost enough to have had to ask the way 3 times, we went back and did this. Luckily our 3rd room in 3 days is very nice and it remains to be seen whether Ravi finds us again today. Not only is he going to drive us around Delhi some more but also many many miles around desert Rajasthan., starting Monday. Can't wait.

Delhi Delhi Delhi

WELL HERE WE ARE!!! After a smooth flight-but 16 hours of it- we are here in Delhi. Arrived at 2 AM and then it took an hour to get a visa at the airport. (Kiwis have been able to get a visa on arrival since last year- the only English-speaking country in this category along with countries like Thailand and Cambodia. Is it because of Sir Ed?) Luckily, the rather taciturn driver from the Yatri House guest-house where we are staying was still waiting for us,on the very end of a long line of sleepy-looking blokes holding up signs in English,Hindi and Chinese. Plus entire families in their best silk embroidered outfits who'd come to pick up Cousin Raj -unless they just live there.

Or maybe the driver wasn't so much tacititurn as grumpy, as anyone would be after being kept from their bed at 3 a.m.

I don't know whether this guy's subsequent driving style was inspired by dissatisfaction or by malevolence but I like to think it was the former. Neither of us had any idea it was possible to travel through worm holes in space on the Delhi dual carriageway but that's the only way it could have been possible to get between that huge truck belching out a further contribution to the smog and that spindly motorbike carrying nana and grandad on the back, white sari and dhotis fluttering in grandson's face as he wove around the potholes.

Yes,Delhi is smokey and smells of cooking fires and pollution. Huge cranes tower over building sites hung with multicoloured fairy lights and all the broken old bits of concrete in the world have come to rest on the sides of the roads. Blokes teeter along the hard shoulder on bikes laden with their entire market stall, tables included. Those humps of tarpaulin held down with bricks are probably someone's house. A blaze of more fairy lights bedeck a huge Buddha or Hindu god at a roundabout.

Crazy,crazy, crazy says Rereata. Here she is in Yatri's quiet (ish), pleasant courtyard

Somebody's started drilling in a concrete wall next door to the room. It's a signal for us to go out into what is probably mayhem...

Off tomorrow

Well, we're off tomorrow. Family dinner at Lone Star- right to left Adam, Rereata, Guy, Peter, John and me.

Passport: no flight confirmations

Hats off and a big round of applause for Hoani from Internal Affairs! And I don't believe that a Government bureaucrat from any other country would have rung me up so nicely to point out that, er, actually I'd forgotten to include my photos with my passport application-then, the very next day after I'd dropped in the missing pics, my new New Zealand passport was delivered to my door. So, now I've got a kiwi passport which means that we can spend both time queuing up for a visa at Delhi airport when our flight gets there are 2 a.m. or something. And that's another thing- the excellent Betty of Cathay Pacific says that she is hassling Head Office in Hong Kong to confirm our flights. It's less than 2 weeks before we are supposed to go and we have no confirmations. OOOOOh- nervous....