Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Rangeela Rajasthan

in last November I spent a fortnight with some very nice people in Rajasthan. Jaisalmer was our first destination. Here I met The Lady Ms Meghna of Nachna Haveli. She has transpired this small Haveli in to a beautiful place. Her personal Touch was seen everywhere in the building. Everyone was praising the stay at Nachna Haveli. I wish if they had some control outside of their Haveli but one can educate those shopkeepers to keep the area clean. No foreign tourist wants to see garbage around. They are not use to of it and it's hard to digest the habit of throwing the garbage on street. Walking in some of Jodhpur gullies can ashamed any Tour Guide of the country. We walked in some of the most filthiest gullies of Jodhpur.   
It was hard to keep people busy for whole day in Jaisalmer. In my opinion Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Pushkar are the places of Hippy Era. People keep on coming back to same place made them popular on Tourist circuit. I met few people who are visiting Pushkar since 70's only because at that time they spent months here and now they visit only because they knows the place better. It is all word to mouth kind of job they are doing for promoting few destinations in the country for Tourism Industry. Now present marketing system has taken over and we see more tourists than ever at these sights.
We were looking for a picture in Jaisalmer and that kept us busy for most of the time. Climbing on hilltop or walking for sunrise pictures was great.
Other interesting place in Jaisalmer is dunes at Sam village. We stayed at desert Dungri and that was a mistake. There services are downhill in a year itself. I wont suggest that place to anyone ever.
Blue city Jodhpur was no different than last year. Although we were there just after Diwali but still finding nice blue houses was a tough job. People are friendly and many group members were invited us in the houses for Tea.State Archeology department in Rajasthan is not a Tourist friendly organisation anymore.
Pushkar was as colourfl as before. Only thing that changed the mood of Pushkar was begging. Now every person big small  finds himself poor in front of Photographers and demands money in advance. This was not before. If you starts paying as per their demand then you will find yourself more poor than them within a day. Even money was demanded for photographing camels. Too many photographers in such a small place has created this situation. Normal blief is that photographer earns lots of money from there photos but real truth that all those pictures can not be published through an agency until unless they have release paper. No one carries a model release form in their pocket, minimum I have not seen anyone carrying it.

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