A Rainbow of Cities.

Day 8-9, Monday/Tuesday 27-28/10/08, Pushkar

Having gone to bed at 7.30am the night (morning?) before, and then checking out of the hotel at 12, with laundry, money changing and shower fitted in between, its pretty fair to say that I wasn't the most stimulating companion on the bus to Pushkar. Indeed, I would be more accurately described as the companion who refused to take her sunglasses off, communicated only in hoarse grunts, and fell asleep with her mouth open as soon as we got on the bus. Attractive. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by the bus - certainly more comfortable than English National Express, though a tad hotter, and having been asleep with the window open one wakes to find a lovely layer of grit coating the inside of one's mouth and throat. Spent the rest of the day coughing in hilarious Zoolander 'black lung' style.

Pushkar though, recovered my spirits. Its a really little town, not like the cities I'd been in so far, and its a genuine oasis in the middle of the desert. Beautiful lake surrounded by blue buildings and lots of temples, mountains all around. Incredibly chilled out too, which was lovely after Delhi and Jaipur. Pushkar is a Hindu place of pilgrimage, so its an alcohol, meat, public affection and often shoe-free zone. My tour leader is basically a member of one of the Goan Brahmin families and owns massive tracks of land though, so he laughs in the face of alcohol free zones. The first evening we went for a walk as a group down to the lake, and watched the devotees bathing themselves at the ghats (steps leading down to the water), and Papi got the priest he knows to perform a puja for us. This is a Hindu ceremony to discard all your bad karma and invite peace, prosperity and luck to your family, and involves chanting to Brahma, the 'creator' god, and scattering flowers, rice and spices into the lake. It was quite an experience. Then we had dinner at the Sunset Cafe, this restaurant with an open-air terrace overlooking the lake (the sunsets here are amazing), and with some veeery nice food. Needless to say we spent a considerable amount of time there over the next few days.

The next morning I set off to climb up a nearby mountain which has a temple on the top and unbelievable views of Pushkar. It was a hell of a climb in the heat of the day, but I was adequately rewarded at the top with a small cafe which kept their soft drinks in the freezer especially. Bliss. I'm actually gonna have to try and cut down on the amount of fizz I drink - I carry chlorine-purified water around me, but there is nothing like a cold coke or limca (like fanta lemon but more lime-based).... my poor teeth. After spending an hour or so enjoying the vistas and watching the monkeys debate over whose tree belonged to whom, I climbed back down the mountain (much easier!) and wondered round the town soaking up the atmosphere. Definitely one of my favourite places so far. It livened up a lot in the evening however, as it was the last night of Divali/Dwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which meant a *lot* of fireworks. Most people can't afford the big fireworks as we think of them, instead everyone is obsessed with these little bomb type things that you stick in the sand, run like hell from, and which explode with a horrendous bang 5 seconds later and shoot some flames across the road. We had heard a lot of these whilst eating dinner, but from a distance, and the first one that exploded a few metres away from us as we were walking back scared the bejesus out of us. I almost hit the ground and assumed combat position! There is no age restriction on buying these things in India - watching these 8 years olds lighting these 'fireworks', screaming at us to run, then seeing who would dare to get closest to these exploding bombs was quite an experience....

After Jaipur four members of the group (as a matter of fact all the Brits, sadly) finished their tour and headed back to Delhi, so there are five travellers now and our tour leader. This means things are quieter, but more chilled out now - Jaipur was awesome fun, but I'm not sure I could have stood that pace forever! Our evenings are mainly spent in rooftop restaurants; drinking, chilling, playing poi and talking, as its only the really big cities that have bars and nightclubs. Nonetheless, Papi can usually get what he wants!

Day 10, Wednesday 29/10/08, Udaipur

We set off from Pushkar in an air-conditioned seven-seater car to Udaipur. Talk about plush. Papi is obsessed with reggae and Bob Marley and all his kin (I think he self-identifies as Jamaican), so we had a very enjoyable journey cross country listening to his USB and driving through the mountains. The distances between places here is huge, so all our journeys are like 6 hours long, but its such nice scenery that its all part of the experience. The drive to Udaipur was very much like driving through Greece - lots of windy mountain roads and little villages. Udaipur is known as the most romantic city in India, and its situated on a number of lakes, though they tend to dry up in the hot season. It was lovely when we got there - cooler than its been before and since, and we were staying in a beautiful old haveli (a grand house) on the water's edge. We arrived there at lunchtime and were leaving the next morning, so we spent the afternoon wandering around the old town and visiting the City Palace, which had some lovely mosaics, but which was a total maze full of Indian tour groups. Around 5.30pm we all went on an hour long boat-trip across the lake, designed to catch the sunset - totally gorgeous and a complete de-stresser. There are two islands in the lake - one is one of the 5 most expensive places to stay in the world, the second is where Octopussy was filmed, for you Bond fanatics....

In the evening Papi took us to see traditional dancing in a nearby haveli, like what I had see in Delhi, but specifically confined to Rajasthani dancing. Some pretty weird stuff guys. The highlight was this woman carrying (I think it was) 13 big-ass pots on her head and then dancing on broken glass. No joke. Apparently they've evolved out of traditional village ceremonies where families chose their son's wife by means of these dances. You want a wife who can walk to the nearest well (hours away) and carry back lots of water you see, even barefoot over sharp rocks. Likewise, one of the earlier dances involved two women dancing with these urns full of fire on their heads. Got to withstand the heat of the son, savvy? I think I'd rather just remain single....

Days 11-12, Thursday and Friday 30-31/10/08, Jodhpur

We left Udaipur at about 10 in the morning, but I was up early and decided to upload some of my photos at an internet cafe in the old town. Whilst I was waiting for it to open this young guy on a motorbike started chatting to me. (In India, as an aside note, people love to come up and question you. Every time you meet an Indian person on the street it goes a little something like this:
Indian: "Which country you from, Madam?"
Me: "England"
"Aah, England! Very nice place. Where in England you from?"
"I'm from Bristol."
"Aah, Bristol! [Pause] Is that near London?"
Me (resignedly): "Yes, its near London"
"London! Very nice place..... how long you been in India?"
"Two weeks"
"Welcome to India! How long you here for?".... and so on and so on, through which city you've come from, where you are going next, how you are travelling, your occupation and your marital status. You begin to learn the answers by rote - its like freshers week where every 5 seconds you got asked your home town, college and subject.)
ANYWAY, this guy was no different, but whilst we were chatting I mentioned that I liked his motorbike (everyone in India drives motorbikes, even rickshaws are basically motorbikes but with a roof and seats attached). He immediately offered to give me a ride. Now, this is the sort of thing you hesitate about. Is he gonna ride me off into the middle of nowhere and rape me? Is he going to turn around and charge me a load of money? Am I going to have an accident and break my neck cause I'm not wearing a helmet? But you know what, he seemed nice, I had no pressing engagements, and despite loving motorbikes, I'd never ridden one. Plus, I thought he was literally going to drive me to the end of the road and back again. Instead, he assured me that he wasn't going to charge me or ride off with me, and took me over the bridge and round to the other side of the lake so I could see the sun rising behind the city palace. Beautiful. And one of my first personal experiences of the warmth that people always talk about in connection with Indian people. He even told me where to find him and offered to take me on a longer trip if I ever cane back through Udaipur. Made my day.

We set off from Udaipur to Jodhpur via the same car as yesterday, but the highway in this direction was not yet constructed, so we didn't get to Jodhpur until about 6.30pm. Needless to say, this car journey was a little more uncomfortable. We broke the day up at this amazing Jain temple complex called Ranakpur though, which was discovered in the 1920s having been buried in sand for decades. Unbelievable white marble carving. Quite spectacular. Plus, Jain temples, as part of their 'respect-for-all-life-and-all-religions' philosophy, offer a kind of all-you-can-eat lunch or dinner for only 20INR (20p). It wasn't half bad too.

When we reached Jodhpur we chucked our stuff in our rooms, had dinner, and then settled down for our usual chilling out with a couple of beers on the terrace. That is, everyone except for me, who laid down on the bed for two mins at 9pm before intending to join the others, completely passed out fully clothed, and got woken up at 2am by my roommate Carolyn who was coming to bed. I clearly needed it though, as I slept through until 9am the following morning too. Friday we all took a trip to Jodhpur fort, the Meranghana, which perches on the mountain overlooking the city like Edinburgh castle, but much bigger. Rajasthan was once made up of lots of kingdoms ruled by the Rajputs, warrior clans who profited from the spice and silk route leading from Persia to China, and hence many of these cities have huge sandstone forts. The audio guide was excellent, the carving and architecture quite extraordinary, and the views magnificent, especially over Jodhpurs old city, known as the 'Blue City', as so many of the building are painted the Brahmin Indigo colour. In the afternoon I wandered around the Sadar Market in the Old City, shopping for a head scarf in preparation for the camel safari in Jaisalmer, and the train the following morning, which I was told would be unpleasant!

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Part of trip: Backpacking around India and Nepal

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