"Where have all the camels gone?" I discovered myself humming on the bumpy track out of Bundi. It's odd how the transportational paradigm has shifted so radically from camels- to cow-pulled carts, ironically at the point where the landscape becomes more desert-like. It seems camels would be ideally suited to this barren wasteland. I regretted leaving Bundi so soon, since for me it marked the first truly appealing town we've come across in India, full of crumbling palaces, ornate ancient mansions and mysterious narrow streets. Even our room --in a 200-year-old haveli---had been perfect, with geometric stone screens, abundant little alcoves, and lots of colored glass.
Our tour of the town's fort had also been a highlight. Our young guide J.P. and his even younger brother ably led us around a ruined wonderland of palaces, wells, temples, wall paintings and treacherous passageways. But tiny Bundi quickly receded under our tires and we were swallowed by the desert. We had learned from experience to carry plenty of extra water and were loaded down with a gallon apiece, feeling like the camels that were so conspicuously absent. Just as I was thinking how much more colorful and friendly the people were becoming in this part of the world --all turbaned and bejewelled, smiling and namaste-ing---a man leapt up from a group of people waiting by the side of the road (presumably for a bus) and motioned for us to stop.
I went through my usual charade of smiling and shaking my head, indicating the horizon towards which we were headed, but this man wouldn't take no for an answer. He made me stop by clamping himself on to my rear rack, and then did the same to Fred, who had come to my aid. The man had a crazed or drunken look (perhaps both) and was hurting Fred, digging his nails into my beloved riding partner's forearm. When it became clear that this aggressor's intent was hostile, I acted instinctively, pulling our my pepper spray and letting loose. While I didn't get him in the eyes the heretofore unused canister had its desired effect.
The scary ogre let go of Fred, stood there stunned for a moment and then hurled curses and stones at us as we pedaled breathlessly away. I instantly felt terrible having used such a nasty weapon, but for other reasons than Fred. "That was stupid Andrew!" he chastised me, "those people were waiting for a bus. How do you know they won't come the same way as us and throw stuff out the windows at us, run us off the road, or worse?" I thought he was being unduly paranoid, yet cringed every time I heard a vehicle coming up from behind.
Though marked as a major highway on our maps there was virtually no traffic on our road, and the dreaded first bus didn't pass us until hours later --without incident. At one point our route climbed sharply through violent rock formations to the top of an arid plateau. Just as the road crested we heard a car honking excitedly behind us. Was it our enemy from down the road? No, it was Howard and Jane and their Sikh driver. The most enthusiastic British couple we've ever met on the road, they stopped to chat with us and supplied us with much-appreciated fruit.
Jane even dug out her first aid kit to tend to Fred's scratches. A little further, in the center of a small town called Bijolia, a major crowd had gathered around a white Jeep. It held three bewildered-looking Danes, en route from Sawai Madhopur to Udaipur. I was relieved to see that not only cyclists receive undue amounts of attention in rural India. Beyond Bijolia, the terrain grew progressively more hostile, dotted with strange little villages made entirely out of great chunks of rock, making them nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. The people living here were obviously very poor, and we wondered what they could possibly be living on in such a hostile environment.
At an unmarked crossroads in the middle of nowhere we turned off the main road onto a smaller, utterly abandoned track. We didn't see any sign of life for miles. Fred began to fret vociferously over whether we'd made a wrong turn somewhere. But when a village eventually appeared, a cluster of squatting men with elaborate *tikas* assured us that we were on the right track. Leaving them behind, our road took a sudden, dramatic plunge from the plateau back to the level of the valley. Had the road been smooth it would have been a fantastic descent... Below, it was as if we'd suddenly been transported into a tropical Eden.
Our route was shaded and everything was green. Pastures flourished, birds chirped and peasants smiled and waved. When I asked an adolescent pedaling alongside us where Begun was he informed us we'd already arrived, and led us to the little town's transportation hub. Naturally we were instantly swarmed when we stopped to inquire about lodgertunities. None of our interlocuters agreed as to where or if a suitable hotel could be found in the vicinity. When someone indicated a "guest house" just above the bus terminal Fred muttered bitterly, "Let's just take a jeep to Chittor." But we'd read about the local palace being a hotel (in Howard and Jane's guidebook) and I figured it was worth investigating.
We blindly put our faith in two men on motorbike who only spoke Hindi. They led us back out into the countryside to a small house which was definitely not a hotel. Then somehow Fred found a tall and elegant guy in white pajamas who led us back to the town center. He rapped on an old iron gate, which creaked open to reveal a run-down institutional-looking building set in a desiccated garden. "This is a hotel?" I asked incredulously to our new guide, who nodded vigorously in response. Someone was sent inside and two seconds later a handsome young Hindu emerged, self-possessed and genteel.
When our pajama'd friend started bowing and scraping I knew we were dealing with a local bigshot. "Excuse me, but is this a hotel?" I repeated. "Well, we're not yet properly equipped to take in guests, but perhaps you'd like to come in and discuss it with my father," came the remarkably civil reply. If this isn't yet a hotel, I thought, why isn't he sending the sweaty likes of me on my merry way? No one had to explain to me that the person I was about to meet was the head honcho of the village. A small crowd had joined Fred at the gate to peer inside with awe.
I walked through the door and past a desk indicating "Hari Singh Palace Hotel" and into a large dining room, where I shook hands with the beaming personage of Rao Hari Singh. When I explained to him our story and our predicament all he said was: "I want to see these bicycles." When I told him that they were outside the gate with Fred, he insisted jovially, "bring them in, bring them in." Ajay, as the son is known, led me back outside, explaining without the slightest hint of pretense "I should tell you that ours is the leading family of Begun."
"I kind of guessed that," I rejoined. Over tea we learned that Rao Hari Singh was the 22^nd^ in his noble line, an offshoot of the royal family of Udaipur. He told us of the many changes India's nobility has had to endure in order to survive, how he and his sons had all attended a special school for Rajput princes in Jaipur ("but now anyone with money can go"), how in his youth he had hunted tigers ("but of course they're protected now") and how he had decided to convert his abandoned castle-fort into a luxury hotel ("it's really the only way to maintain such a property.
We ourselves have just moved back in after twenty years in this house, in order to get a feel for the place as well as ideas for guest rooms."). Ajay noted the time and said we ought to get going if we were going to see anything before dark. So off we set in a little jeep with a curtain in the back seat (he explained that his mother still keeps *purdah*, a fact which astounded me), quickly covering the 200 meters separating the two palaces. To enter the compound one first crosses a moat, then past a medieval-looking hamlet inhabited by members of the family retinue, under a gate or two, past the former elephant stables (now housing prized Holsteins) and into a large courtyard surrounded by grand buildings in various stages of decay.
Ajay guided us up ancient staircases leading to series of long-neglected rooms, now being refurbished. Serfs --I mean servants---were installing a septic system and no fewer than twelve bathrooms. He showed us his apartment, then that of his parents. The latter of these had fantastic peacocks molded onto the walls and a little porch hanging over the valley right out of a dream. We saw the little shrine where the rao performed his *puja* every morning and I was struck by the level of intimacy so easily being shared with strangers. We also visited nearby stepwells, temples and the royal cenotaphs where one former rao --murdered in his sleep by a servant---is worshipped now by the villagers as a god --wow!
The rao was waiting for us when we returned, with buckets of hot water to bathe with. Our room had been set up and it was settled that we'd have dinner with the family up in the castle at eight. Why was he so determined to take such good care of us? Is such alarming hospitality a typical Rajput trait, or had we stumbled onto something special here? Dinner was superb. As we munched *aloo* *palak* and various other treats, the rao explained how he had formerly been "strictly non-veg" but had had an epiphany a few years ago where he realized that "to kill an animal just to please the tongue"
would not improve his karmic balance. Ajay, on the other hand, had undergone precisely the inverse of this mental process. Until recently he had been a strict vegetarian, "but then I realized that this idea of not hurting other living things could also be applied to plants, so I abandoned the whole idea; now sweet corn and chicken soup is one of my favorite dishes." We could have stayed up all night talking with this delightfully quirky and erudite pair. I wondered how often they got a chance to share their level of cultivation in backwards Begun. Falling asleep that night I realized we had just experienced what would probably be the highlight of our whole voyage through India.