Chapter 8 – Road to Dungarpur

Leaving the city, we began to travel north on highway NH 8 which which would take us to Dungarpur. The highwa was better than many of the highways at home; the pavement being dark black and the lines being bright, it was obvious that the highway had just recently been refinished. Trees, large trees ringed with ochre and white paint, lined the sides of the highway. The branches of these huge trees reached across the highway to provided a shaded canopy, protection against a very bright sun. The shoulders of the highway, made of packed dirt were almost as busy as the highway itself.

The number of people on foot, with animals and little motorcycle taxis called tud-tuks were surprising. Goats, sheep, and cows were seen in abundance. As in Delhi, most of the cows had their horns painted red, yellow and blue. And then, we saw a camel. I knew that there were camels in this part of the world, but I never expected to see one along side a highway. I somehow expected that I would only see camels in the desert. But then again, in a way, we were in desert country. My expectations of desert country were about an unbroken area of sand and sand dunes, an image that had been fed by so many posters and stories of deserts.

After a while, the trees disappeared and the roadway became a bit rougher reminding me of many of our Saskatchewan highways. Not only were they rougher, they were narrower. And almost inversely, the traffic picked up speed and became noisier with a constant barrage of horns. It seems as though all the drivers had decided to engage in challenging each other to the road space belonging to other drivers. Little cars showed no fear of larger trucks who refused to give way. And a number of times along the way, the shoulder became part of the main highway, another lane for passing. The only time people seemed to come to their senses was when a cow decided it wanted to wander onto the pavement. Then, traffic slowed, even stopped. It was with caution that the vehicles eased their way past these sacred animals before taking on the challenge of driving as fast as possible.

Women were walking along the roadside, working women, women carrying wood, carrying bowls filled with dung, carrying branches, carrying metal pitchers – all balanced on their heads. This became the most common sight along the highway as we continued to drive north towards Dungarpur. The women at work wore multi-coloured saris which would have been dressy enough for any social occasion in the western world.

Men? Yes, they were there as well, with most of them sitting on their heels watching traffic go by, or enjoying a cup of chai at one of many roadside stops, or standing in groups listening to one of the group speaking. And occasionally, there were men leading animals, men working.

Kilometre after kilometre, the scenes continued to shift as we moved closer to our destination. After about four hours of driving we came alongside a lake, Gaibsagar Lake. We turned off the secondary highway to follow the road into the small city. Well, it really wasn’t into the city but along the edge of the city with the lake on the left side and a narrow strip of buildings on the right side. Along this side, we saw number of interesting temples, with ordinary buildings for businesses and even farms interspersed. Looking out to the left we saw a small island that was covered in small domes pavilions near the west side of the lake. The streets of the town, along the waterfront, were busy with people, cars, bikes and animals. We slowly made our way through the throng and then left the town to head south along the west side of the lake. At last, we came to Udai Bilas Palace, the home of the current Maharawal Singhji.