We were in Karauli—a small, non-touristy fiefdom in Rajasthan. Camels trotted slowly yet stoically outside my hotel's walls, men leading them patiently to somewhere else. Children played on rooftops. Cows meandered down the streets.
To say we cycled here also seems surreal. But we did. We started yesterday in Bharatpur and cycled some 60 kilometers, from one royal family’s residence to another.
The roads were wild, a place where sacred cows have the right of way. They often stop in the middle of the crumbling road to take a nap. There are fewer flies here. It’s their world. We’re just passing through from one life to another.
Women in brilliant hues (oh, the colors!) walked gracefully along the road’s edge. Always smiling and laughing together with saris hiding everything but beautiful deep eyes and large easy grins. They carry silver vessels on their heads. The shinier the vessel, the higher the family’s status in the village.
There was no danger in terms of the occasional large bus or truck. You could hear them coming. Incessant honking is a rule of the road in India. And in rural parts such as these, it’s rare for a truck, jeep, car, or tractor not have a speaker facing outward, blaring Rajasthani folk music, creating a soundtrack to our cycling.
Motorcycles passed on both sides, and swerve to the right and back to the left to follow unbroken ground. Women sit side-saddled on the back, their orange saris trailing behind them like a shooting comet.
It’s chaotic. Hypnotizing, even. And it’s hard to explain, but it works. It’s elastic, like a rubber band, waving in and out and never crashing in the middle. There is order to the madness.
While every sight we saw was strange, we, by far, were the strangest. On a roadside break, our sag wagon set up a table with drinks and snacks. In less than five minutes, more than twenty Indians had stopped or pulled over on the road to just stand next to us, a chorus of an audience not wanting the show to end.
We quickly learned if we wanted a private bathroom break while cycling, we had to hop off our bikes and run into the nearest field to squat before our audience arrived. Because they will arrive.
Cycling through India is indescribable. As the one of our guides said, “Indians don’t hide anything. You’ll see everything.” This is true. Lives were being lived in the open. On sidewalks. On roadsides. In fields. In front of their homes. Every second that passed on our cycles was another colorful snapshot of an Indian life being lived.
Children waved, yelling “Tata!!” or “Namaste!” Some practiced their English with a friendly “Hello!!!”, “Hi!”, “Beautiful!”, and even a “Thank you!”
Smiles abounded from the least suspecting faces. One woman stood by the roadside with a basket of stock on her head for the cattle. Her red sari covered her face completely. But as we cycled by, she lifted the red to reveal a smile that stretched from ear to ear.
Before we knew it, we had travelled 60 km (37 miles) in four hours, not bad, for Indian time (IST stands for Indian Stretchable Time, our guide liked to say). We had arrived at our next hotel.
It was yellow and a bit faded, easy to see the decadence it once exuded. Owned by Karauli’s local royal family, it’s a sprawling estate of 50 acres with 50 expansive rooms. It was the family’s castle away from the castle (city palace), which the family had left eerily empty three generations ago. The palace still stands in the center of town, and the family gladly took us on a tour of its beautiful, haunted halls.
The newer residence, now turned into a heritage hotel, made for a very interesting place to stay. Beautiful grounds, wonderful food, and comfortable rooms oozing with history and portraits of the once ruling men make for a delightful foray into the world of Rajasthan’s maharajahs.
I’m very glad to experience this side of India’s history. The descendants of Karauli’s royal family, who still live on the grounds, are fiercely protective and proud of their heritage and history and actively engage with their guests to share their stories.
But I couldn’t wait to get back on my bicycle and get back into the India on the streets—the real live pulsing heart of this subcontinent. Real life was out there. It was walking to the nearest well, shiny silver vessel on head. It was pulling the majestic camel, full of hay. It was sitting in a yellow sari outside a house, laughing open-mouthed, head back, with neighbors. And it was at the nearby goddess temple, hands together in thankfulness, for all of life’s blessings.
It was this India I saw on my bicycle, and this India that I’ll dream about when I dream about coming back.
Learn more about India on Bicycle and their tours here. See all of our India tours here.