Beyond the Back of Beyond

We left Jodphur and our nice haven behind to relocate to Udaipur our last stop in Northern India before saying goodbye to Ashok and flying south to Kochi in 3 days to round off our Indian adventure.

Left at 9.30 and arrived at 4.30 so another long day punctuated by three stops – morning coffee stop, visit a Jain Temple at Ranakpur and then lunch somewhere on route.

More time to engage with Ashok!

But first some “fun facts”

·      An Indian toilet roll, should there be one available, is approximately 1/3^rd the volume of a NZ one and is 1 ply

·      If we had 10 rupees for every time we saw a man urinating on the side of the road, be it in the countryside or bang in the middle of a city, our trip would be paid for.

·      In the city there are also men’s urinals completely open to public view

·      Women are absent from waiting jobs but very visible in the fields and also on construction sites

Ashok’s agricultural business 

·      His wheat field is cut by hand but the wheat is then mechanically processed

·      It takes 5 days to cut an acre with 4 workers

·      1 acre produces 50,000 kg which he can sell for 30 rs/kg

·      1 acre of mustard plant produces 25,000 kg which he can sell for 70 rs/kg

·      He has 2 acres of each

Indian Social Welfare  

·      Each household each month  is given by the Government

          5kg rice

          25kg wheat

          2l mustard oil

·      Each person has 5lakh rs per year put into a health account to cover medical expenses ($10,000)

·      Since the last election (2024) every “poor” family is entitled to have one of their members employed by the Government 

We can’t vouch 100% for the accuracy of the above but that is what we took from our discussion with Ashok

Everywhere we have driven has been on terrain that would please members of the Flat Earth Society except when we turned off the highway to visit the Jain Temple at Ranakpur where it became anything but.

Sherry said we were driving at the “back of beyond” whereas I thought it was “Beyond the back of beyond”

The construction of the Temple commenced in 1389 and was completed in 1436, though some accounts has it completed at least 50 years later and is carved from marble – it is one of the most significant Jain Temples in India.

A video of a walk around of part of it is here.

We then continued up through the hills, passing inquisitive monkeys on the road before stopping for lunch at the café atop the summit

The roads both up and down were narrow and atrocious and Ashok deserved every rupee of his salary manoeuvring the vehicle round, through and over potholes, putting it on to the shoulder to let others coming towards us get through or just to miss the cattle on the road- it wasn’t a pleasant part of our tripping around India! It made me look up the annual road toll for India – an average of 153,000 per year over the last 10 years!!!

We stopped at one point to take a photo of an old style water pump

We arrived at our accommodation, which is situated right in the old town and on the edge of Lake Pichola, which looks far better on the internet than it is in reality- a bit of a letdown following our superb accommodation at our last two stops.

A view from our balcony during a call to prayers is here and requires your computer to be turned on its side to view.