Living like and with Royalty

Was woken early this morning by fellow guest's loud chatter out in front of the restaurant as they waited for their breakfast before loading up their bus and away.

During the day the desert is extremely hot but overnight the temperature drops significantly and whether it is the difference in temperature or in fact it is cool jumping out of bed to a warm shower is something to look forward to, except in our “luxury” tent there was no hot water!

We left the camp at 9.00 and have travelled around 280kms to Jodhpur arriving here at approximately 2.30 with one stop of around 30 minutes for a coffee. With an average speed of around 55 kmph it gives some idea of the state of some of the roads. On one stretch it was so rough we were only able to travel at around 15 kmph and it looked like the steering wheel was being ripped out of Ashok’s hands.

I’ve mentioned before the military presence in the Western India area and as we drove  out of Jaisalmer a military area was continuous for 13 kms along the highway.

One of the cities we drove through was Pokhran the site for India’s  first underground nuclear weapon test in 1996

There was time during the drive to get some more information from Ashok:

·      Having seen a scooter carrying two large cans we learnt that that is the door to door milk delivery service 

·      Cow’s milk sells for 50 rupees (rs) per litre ($1)

·      Buffalo milk sells for 70 rs per litre

·      Diesel sells for 91 rs per litre

·      There are 6 companies selling fuel in India 

·      Ashok is from the Yadav caste

The caste system has intrigued us and is something we have tried to get an understanding of.

There are 4 castes in India, Brahmins (priestly class), Kshatriyas (rulers, administrators and warriors), Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, tradesman and agricultural) and Shudras (labouring class) and then there are the Dalits (untouchables) a group who sit outside the caste system.

However within those 4 castes there are upwards of 30,000 subclasses and Yadav seems to be a subclass of the Vaishyas.

We have exceptional accommodation at Ratan Vilas which was once the private home of Maharaj Ratan Singh and his great-grandson and family who reside in part of the building have turned it into an exceptional heritage hotel – our suite is spacious and superbly appointed.

Having booked in and a very late lunch in the restaurant we took to the streets around the hotel to get some exercise after the journey. The surrounding area is very typical of Indian towns but nevertheless we enjoyed a 4km out and back stroll arriving back hot and sweaty so it was into the pool to refresh.

Following a dinner in the restaurant it was back to the room to write this post and watch the remainder of the cricket NZ v Bangladesh (NZ currently 178/3 needing another 59 from 89 balls with Ravindra just completing his 4th ICC competition century)