The Roads and Sights of Rajasthan, India
It was time to leave the last of the Rajasthani great forts behind and begin the ride to Udaipur with a stop at Ranakpur to see the Jain Temples on the way...View image. You may have never visited India and even if you have, perhaps it wasn't a driving trip. Fortunately, there are many new airlines like Kingfisher and Jet Airlines that fly to these distant area.
Unfortunately, there are times that you still have to drive on India's roads. For ex-Marine and myself, Indian Road is just another word for atrocious. Granted, there are roads like this in other countries but they have mitigating excuses. Smaller, poorer, and less man power. India had the second highest growth in the world among major economies in 2009. India has a population of over 1 billion people. India has Bollywood. Why can't India build decent roads? One ride that we still dwell on was from Kanha to Bandhavgarh. It took six hours of agonizing, jolting and swerving over pot holes to go maybe 70 miles ! Can you believe six hours to drive 70 miles?
Now that we have an understanding about what the majority of the roads are like once you leave a city, let's talk about Incredible India's road sights that make it worthwhile. Rajasthan has colorfully dressed women working and walking on the roads, carrying heavy baskets with stones on their heads, threshing in colorful saris of gold, pink, vivid oranges and wearing armfuls of bangles. Not only that but they are so graceful. Every now and then you'll spot men wearing equally bright turbans.
The easy way to thresh rice and grain without any mechanical means of doing so is to throw the whole mess onto the road and let vehicles run over it. Saves time and effort when hands are the only equipment you've got.
You will always see cows lying in the middle of the road, ambling down streets and sidewalks and refusing to move. God forbid you ever run over a "sacred cow" and all cows are sacred in India, a crowd would probably go into a lynching frenzy. The driver just leans on his horn and eventually the cow may decide to move an inch or two. They are the scrawniest, underfed and half starved cows without much to graze on.
There are camels, sand dunes, lorries carrying fascinating produce. And if you are very, very lucky...an occasional elephant will lumber into traffic. Prepare for excruciating roads, get a wonderful driver and enjoy sights that will be seen nowhere else in the world.
