The Travels of Kara Keeton

Andrew’s - Brown, Bananas and Bourbon

Here is yet another installment of Andrew’s thoughts from the road.  I’m sure you will enjoy!

I am not sure if I shouldn’t have changed the title to
“Paw-prints and Poo”, but I will leave that to you.

When last you heard, we were looking at an easy day of
travel, departing Agra and heading to Sawai Madhopur,
the closest train destination to Ranthambhore National
Park.  Of course, we are in Incredible India, where
the train system is the supposed bloodline of the
country, and if that is the case, I have to admit that
the patient is in dire straits indeed.  At least based
on that particular day…

Arrived at the train station by 11:30, an hour before
the train is to depart and all is well.  Go inside,
sit down, and wait… and wait… and wait.  Every
hour, the train is delayed by another hour.  Meaning
that leaving the station isn’t exactly an option.
This goes on for seven long hours before our “Super
Fast Express” train finally makes it into the station.
To be fair, once we are on it, it makes up a little
time, but not a lot.  Plus, nothing beats arriving at
a new destination at midnight.  Roaches and aroma of
the 3-tier AC seat notwithstanding, the ride itself is
workable.

Our stay at the station was broken up into a number of
phases.  Initially, we were entertained by masses of
rats scurrying about, I called this the “I am about to
get the bubonic plague” phase.  This was followed by
monkey raids of stands/people, or the “I am about to
get rabies” phase.  There was also the never-ending “I
am getting stared at and questioned to death” phase.
It was quite the slice of life that we witnessed
there… but all was well in the end, even if we were
dog tired after sitting around a train station for an
entire day.

At Sawai Madhopur (Ranthambhore), we felt that some
relaxation was in order and decided to go rather
upmarket.  No roach motel here, this was the
Ranthambhore Regency, were the uniformed staff was a
slice of colonial times transposed to ours.  Not
necessarily cheap, but quite relaxing.  We also took
the opportunity to take a number of tiger safari rides
into the park.  Three times we lucked out and managed
to secure jeep seats (as opposed to the 20+ seater
buses), and three times we got no closer to spotting a
tiger than fresh paw-prints and even fresher tiger
poop.  Clearly, the tiger doesn’t exist.  It’s just
part of an elaborate hoax to hook tourists in… the
ones who do see “something”, are probably taken in by
a little dude in a tiger suit.  Yeah, that’s it.
However, we did get to see plenty of parched brown
vegetation, populated by mostly brown on brown deer,
sambar, boars, and other beasties.  To drown the
sorrows of our failed tiger “hunts”, we downed the
last of the bourbon over some bananas.... and there is
how the title was born!

At the hilltop ruins of Ranthambhore fort, built in
944 AD, we are witness to plenty of brigandry being
performed by troops of monkeys.  As one of the hotel
staff calls them, naughty cheeky monkeys.  How quaint
is that?!?  I had a good chuckle, but seriously, these
things are major pests.  They are also quite happy to
show you their fangs if you opt to push back.  So
after having seen people get jumped on, hair pulled,
bags ripped apart, or ripped off, I have a whole new
perspective on the things.  They are to be avoided, no
matter how adorable they look.  Well, they are kinda
cute, with those tails and little fingers, and those
bright eyes.  No, no, no… m’am, step away from the
monkey!

Speaking of the fort, there is a story floating about
that the ruler was of a cruel nature… and for
self-amusement, would have prisoners and hapless
peasants pumped full of water dyed in various colors
and then thrown over the walls… he was an artist of
his time I suppose as the intent was to see the
patterns that they would make on impact.  Sounds like
a nice little feller, eh?

All good things have to come to an end however, and it
was time to call tiger-spotting quits and move on to a
new locale.  Recharged, we hired a taxi to drive us to
Bundi, a town about 140 km away.  During the daytime,
this was a definite stipulation.  To our surprise, the
guy shows up on time… starts driving, and within 15
minutes breaks down on the side of the highway.  So
much for that.  To be fair however, he calls in
reinforcements, and we are soon on the way with a new
driver, and older car… at least this one makes it
there, even if it does smell like diesel inside.

To be continued in… There ain’t freakin’ no bats in
the belfries.

Posted on January 28, 2009 at 2:50 AM

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Recent Posts

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