The breakfast at Joey’s Hostel was hilarious. The buffet was several containers in the kitchen from which we picked out a banana wrapped in a chapati, a type of sandwhich made of flat bread and containing a mixture of potato and chopped pepper, some chunks of pineapple and a bowl of yoghurt. We were also served a rather small omelette with chopped tomato and onion in it. Plus as many cups of coffee as we wanted. Jennifer got up to get another coffee and suddenly the table started rocking violently and the plates jumped up and down. Out of the corner of my eye I had a fleeting glimpse of something brown and I then noticed that Jennifer’s banana had disappeared. A money had jumped from an adjacent rooftop and made off with it. 20-30 monkeys suddenly appeared from nowhere staring fixedly at my banana. A waiter came running over with a catapult (but no ammunition) and, on seeing the catapult, the monkeys immediately fled. A particularly brave (or hungry?) one came back and while the waiter was waving his catapult at other monkeys, it leapt over and stole my toast.
The journey to Ranthambore took 7 hours and was monotonous (field after field of maize, wheat, vegetables) with several large towns and numerous villages, many with a tall chimney serving a brick kiln. Unlike the bare very large fields on the Russian steppe or the small bare paddy fields in China, Indian fields are of moderate size but contain numerous isolated trees. We are interested to see that, in the middle of the Indian winter, they still have their leaves on but Mr Mukesh tells us that they shed their leaves for one month at the height of summer.
Ranthambore is a tourist centre for safaris into the National Park with the possibility of seeing a tiger as well as other exotic creatures. We are booked for tomorrow morning and Cyrus had advised me not to stroke a tiger. The night was an ordeal because a wedding was in progress in the town and live music was being played so loudly that the hotel rattled. It stopped at 2 AM and then restarted at 3 AM before stopping at 4. We got about 2 minutes sleep before the hotel staff got up and started shouting at each other.
Waiter with catapult
Man with pole for hitting monkeys
The monkey that stole my toast
Group of monkeys waiting for breakfast
One of the world’s best breakfast views.
Golden statue of Shah Jahan