Royal Enfield "Bullit" 350cc Single cylinder

The motorbike ride was  really good though a bit scary at the start as I tried to find my way out of the crazy city streets and alleys. There are maps  of course but the concept of a map hasn’t fully expressed itself here, the maps being a bit more like lines showing which towns area connected to which but not accurately displaying every road or exactly where turnoffs are and so on. Thus it was a bit hit and miss, the first challenge being to find the petrol station before the  tiny  amount of petrol the last hirer left in the tank ran out. After that  I headed for the hills  my usually good sense of direction being less than reliable because the sun is in the wrong place in the Northern Hemisphere. Effectively I had no idea where I was most of the day but I turned up interesting side roads and often was bumping along really rough village tracks past rough little homes and poor villages. Several times I stopped and had communication of a sort with kids and grown ups who came by, and I bought food and drink at roadside stalls. Ive  worked out I ended up about 40km from the city and I made it back just before dark.

Nice  lakes, nobody there

Classic Rajasthani look

Poor kid probably has to lug water like this every day

Camel train  going by

Time to slow down

Today I havent done much but  arranged my travel from here tomorrow and my  accomodation to Bundi, a much smaller place, a place the LP says is the ideal place to stay and write that novel - however I wont be doing that this time. Ive been reading a really interesting Penguin book called "Being Indian" It  gives great insight into the mind of the average Hindu and the way their religion interacts with their lifestyle.  The authors view is that the Hindu religion in practise, somewhat ironically is thoroughly materialistic  and indeed encourages the quest for worldy wealth and pleasure, this being "artha" one of the four purusharthas, the four fundamental goals of life. The others are Dharma, Karma and Moksha. His view is that religion is practised not so much for ethical and spiritual values but for worldly ones. He paints quite a ruthless picture of the average Hindu.

Reading the  Times of India is really interesting as well, for the Indian view of the world and for whats happening and being reported in India. Gruesome rapes and murders and even honour type killings are  frequently reported, and named defendents are always described as  "alleged" which is italicized for emphasis. Lately there has been lots of reporting about illegal mines and the completely irresponsible way in which the  hills are being mined and left in ruins.Theres lots of  editorialising about corruption, and there are always  funny quirks of expression that make me laugh - like talking about someone being at the ":fag end" of their appointment, and referring often to "cops"  There are several pages of sports, lots of ads but not a great deal of detail about international happenings, though in todays paper there were two seperate mentions of the worlds largest cake having been made the other day in New Zealand.

The other thing I wanted to comment on is the noise. Its incessant and unbelievable - there seem always to be religious  things going on with trumpets and drums and  stuff, and also massive bangs from huge crackers you can buy everywhere, plus chantng and loudspeaker broadcast religious music, then of course all the hooting horns, and tonight   when  everything else  stopped momentarily I could hear the Octopussy soundtrack from at least two places...speaking of which I managed to watch it last night after dinner, and it was really fun, and streets scenes and the palaces of Udaipur are easily identified.

The View from my room at Night