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It is the railways that hold the enviable distinction of being the lifeline of India, this is hardly the scene in Rajasthan.
Barmer-Munabao train section is one of the most interesting in India where this old train stops at every crossing for one of its guards to lock-unlock the gates and there is an in-built ticket counter too. Sadly after the broad-gauge conversion, it is a thing of past!
Still in Rajasthan, the highways prove to be the most enjoyable and spectacular experience in travel.
Two reasons. First, Rajasthan is more attractive due to its authentic lifestyle and people than for its monuments, a fact very few travel agents acknowledge, so spectacles on the waysides hold importance.
Second, traveling in Rajasthan in a lone vehicle is almost always completely safe.
As a matter of fact the highways act more or less as an extension of homes and workplaces for the people living by their sides.
So this is how it becomes a dazzling display of rural lifestyle quite unaware of your intrusion.
Curious onlookers will be more interested in seeing your vehicle or color of your skin.
More often it will be your turn of getting surprised by seeing the amazing contrast in landscape, colors and character of places while you move on.
Full of life
The highways in Rajasthan are otherwise very long, many a times seem unending but never giving the impression of a typical desert travel.
It is very lively. Imagine what it will be when you see a few unclaimed unknown bastions and cenotaphs, a few towns of different colors, a wedding procession or two, a tractor-trolley full of singing-chanting rural folks, one or two local fairs, groups of bejeweled colorful ladies and a surprisingly amazing variety of wildlife for a desert; all on or by a highway meant for transport traffic!
And to say about the traffic, the vehicles range from visibly ancient to the recent ones.
Even the newest modern trucks are not spared of the bridal makeup; ornamentations, frescoes and slogans covering its surface.
A real scene is to watch the overflowing fodder trucks which become so FAT they never let any other to overtake.
Not surprising, most of our guests comment about the highway and traffic- IT'S CRAZY!!!
Another interesting experience, when a bus enters a town like Kishangarh or Fatehpur through an impossibly narrow street, the driver has to blow horn incessantly to drive away the men and cows standing on whatever space is left on the street.
One pities those poor old havelis overhanging the street, almost touching the windows of bus, which they were not originally meant to be woken up this way in the dead of the night.
Right outside, the unfazed demeanor of the crowd even when the horn is blown right over their heads surprises none, not even the driver!
And even when the men do FINALLY move to the side (though as ignorant as they were a few minutes earlier), the cows just don't!
A memorable moment of “Indian Moments” representative on a highway....
Well! The one with my guests Kate and John in December 2000.
It was early morning drive from airport to Neemrana Fort hotel on Delhi-Jaipur highway.
Their first day in India and we had to wait in our car for two hours in the dense fog (visibility hardly 10 meters) at a TRUCK STOP!
My driver and myself were nervous of this unscheduled beginning of their trip. Nevertheless, at the end of the trip we were friends forever!
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