We departed Pushkar, a small camel trading town in the centre of Rajastan, at around 9am yesterday morning with a 7 hour drive to Udiapur to look forward to. Raj, our driver, is possibly one of the slowest in India and we regularly get overtaken by full buses and small scooters. However, we don't complain because whilst driving amongst the cows, dogs, goats, children and other obstacles, "slowly slowly" is certainly the safest policy. Anyhow, the 7 hours flew by yet again with the help of the amazing Indian scenery and a few little sleeps.
About 10 minutes outside of Udiapur we were heading through a small village where the roads were in a terrible condition. They had pot holes literally the size of children's paddling pools. Raj was steadily weaving us safely across the treacherous terrain when all of a sudden a large jeep rammed into the back of us. At first Rory and I were unaware we had been hit at all. We just thought we had fallen in a pot hole a little too fast. But, Raj soon jumped out of the car and a verbal battle pursued in Hindi dialect through the window of the jeep behind and we realised what had happened. The jeep driver tried to drive away and run Raj over but our man managed to grab the keys from the ignition just in time to halt the jeeps efforts. A crowd soon started to gather and before long we were fully surrounded by locals of all ages who were enjoying the colourful, heated exchange. After 20 minutes a plain clothed "policeman" turned up, removed the jeep driver from his vehicle and gave him a good old fashioned beating. "The policeman" held the driver by the scruff of the neck and with a series of backhand slaps, followed by forehand punches, hurt and humiliated the driver. This added further excitement to the crowd who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the evenings entertainment.
Ill admit I was a little scared. 2 white men locked in a car in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a heckling, violence-loving crowd. Luckily for us the presence of "the policeman" was enough to cool the situation. For his work "the policeman" demanded 2000 Rupees (£30) from Raj as "tax" and we were allowed to continue on our way. Danger averted.
