Young girl in a village near Bundi, Rajasthan, India
With a big smile, the receptionist of our hotel brought to our attention the existence of pre-historic site art near Bundi. Alerted we did find a small entry in our travel guide. Before we could wreck our brains as how we could possibly find those – help was offered. Again by our receptionist.
His father Kukki had personally discovered paintings that are 5.000 years old and if we wanted, he would take us there. Another careful look into the Lonely Planet revealed that Kukki had found his way into the “Bible”. The price for Kukki’s services? Give as you like! Which – by the way – we heard again and again during this trip, from TukTuk drivers, tour guides… which increased our state of despair when it came to estimating what a decent price was.
The pre-historic site was on the Chittorgarh Road, so off we went one early morning in a rented car that would also take us further on to Chittorgarh, where we would catch the train to Pushkar.
On the way, we learned a lot from Kukki. For instance, the Gujars, the caste of the milk sellers, are particular show offs in the Bundi area. Shiny brass pot they use for transporting the milk, not the bland metal ones like in the rest of India. They are indeed quite a sight with three or fours glittery jars tied to a scooter. He also had a strong opinion on Kanjars, a gypsy community we passed. Guess what? They steal, sell fake gold coins and drink a lot…
Next Kukki started raving about corruption in India. His solution was hard to stomach. India needs a strong man, a Hitler like Germany had. When we asked what good he had achieved, Kukki could not really come up with an answer. We provided a bit of information as how the episode of the “strong man” ended for Europe and closed the subject.
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