Rajasthan

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Rajasthan was the one of the two places in India (the other being Varanasi) that have seemed to meet my expectations pretty clearly. The image i had was of a lot of small towns, rural surroundings, hot weather, desert sands and big forts. These were all there, but despite it's predictability, I still really enjoyed my time here and managed to pack five destinations into twelve days.

Pushkar

We had arranged for the first stop to be Jaipur, but as we found out that an old school teacher was leading some people through India and was planning to be in Jaipur on the 9th, we decided to kick on to Pushkar first and then go back to Japur then, so it was onward to Pushkar.

Our first impressions of Pushkar were snapshots of a tiny town around a tiny lake, which were exactly what we were craving following the bustle of Delhi. It had a feel very similar to Rishikesh, clearly a tourist town with a faily spriritual religious vibe. It was extremely walkable, with a road circling the lake covered in shops simlar to those on Paharganj in Delhi. The hotel we had selected was the 'lakeview' guest house, situated on top of one of the ghats on the lake. We walked up the narrow stairs to be treated to our first propper view of the lake. It was amazing, still morning, the sun was beaming up onto the walls of the ghats and highlighting the relativley few people on the waters edge. The hotel itself was great. It had the old blue-clay walls which looked soft but felt hard and a great expanse of space just in front of our room in which we could lounge in the sun with a book and a banana. After spending about an hour chilling on at the rooftop restaraunt, we went to do the town properly.

Here, on the first day, we ran into our friend Hannah (for the third time this trip!) doing the same thing as us. She had been there for a day already and was eager to treat us to the delights of the Shiva Juice shop down from our hotel- for fifteen rupees you won't find better pinapple juice, thats a guarentee. We headed back to the place she had eaten at the night before and indulged in culinary delights- they did at least, i was conveniently feeling sick (again) and decided that food was not my friend at the moment.

This decision was backed up by bowel movments around eight hours later (4am), and for the second time, sam was sick. I spent the rest of the day lounging around making aquantences with mr bucket and mrs toilet (i was quite medicated at this time) while the others did more stuff around the town. Overall i was a fairly good place to be sick and even the others spent most of the day sleeping and lazing in the sun on our rooftop.

The next day was assigned to climbing the mountain that overlooks the lake and the town, on which an old temple sits and whatches over. The walk was quick but surprisingly hard, i managed to use the excuse of photography to earn some breaks and rest time. The view from the top was worth it, we had a group photo taken and headed to the backside of the mountain where we sliced up a pinapple that we had bought from shiva (the juice place that is, not the god it was named after).

That night we had a quiet dinner at a new place that we had learned about called enigma, basically purpose built for tourists like us and the veritable community of expat hippies and drifters that call Pushkar a semi-permanent home. This was definitely the most touristy of the places i had seen in India so far. It was run by an english lady and only included Indians in the kitchen staff, basically it took me out of india for the time i ate my apple pie and played a few rounds of big two. The others loved this, and so did i to a degree, but i couldn't help but get a feeling of uncomfortability in being so radically shocked when i walked back out to the smell of cow poo and litter everywhere. I'm not the type of tourist that pretends to disassociate myself with anything Western (because that's a load of crap) but i think the level at this place was a little much for me.

That was also the night i discovered a program called skype, through which you can talk for free over the internet. Lets just say i made the most of this, and spent a good three and a half hours speaking to Amanda back home. A very good medicine for a sick boy.

If (when) i come back to India, i would like to see Pushkar again, but i'm not sure if i'd put it above opther destinations I've been to. I found it an easy place to spend time but i could quite easily get sick of the vibe. Next stop, the pink city of Jaipur

Jaipur

We plainly hated Jaipur. It was big and dirty, and we never felt that we were really orientated. It was in truth the first place that we really thought this way about, and i don't think i would return if i had the chance. The funny thing about travelling however, is that even in my confidence in this statement, i can think of a good few memories that i cherrish from Jaipur, and in fact I had a fairly good time there.

We arrived on a morning bus from Pushkar and spent the morning searching for a place to fill the banana pancake shaped holes in our stomachs. After walking along the main road outside our hotel for a good forty minutes, we had no luck on the pancake front. The only thing we found was burried away place called 'India coffee house', we connected the dots between western beverages to western food and found a menu full of the delights we craved (with the exeption of the banana pancake). This place was awesome, it was tiny and dark, with dilapidated paint all around the walls that could not possibly be recreated by anyone else. The one waiter wore an old diners uniform -all white with a little sailos cap- and was amazed when we orderd yet more coffee and jam toast. I could have spent a great deal of time in that place, it seemed to have the ambience of a place where a great novel ws written or a historical moment took place.

We went from here into the city palace, the main quatars of India's most prolific Maharashtra, where we were treated to a few average poscard snapshots and the most token of indian colonial museums (first you see the old guns and knifes, then the old dresses and tapestries, then the paintings of the old leaders). We took a rickshaw to where we thought was an internet place but ended up being carted to another jewellry commission shop on the other end of the city. He had one dial up computer in the corner and convinced us that because we had been taken there mistakedly by his own commision driver, use of the computer was 'no problem'. When we didn't buy anything, he chose to charge us 100 rupees for 5 minutes. It was actually really fun to yell at him, it made us feel really good afterwards- clearly we're bastards.

From this place we headed to the main tourist sight of Jaipur, the old building Hawa Mahal, basically an old bee hive looking place in the old town from which the ladies of the old palace could watch city life. It was also completely overrated, we had to make sure that it was really the place and it was covered in street vendors and beggers. Not bad, but not good.

That night Tristan got a random sms from a friend of his saying that she was in Jaipur herself, so we hopped in a rick and went out to this sheesha place on a rooftop somewhere. The were accompanied by some locals that they had met that day, they were really funny and ended up taking us out to dinner at their shop, where we watched an a-grade bollywood movie with our curries.

On the second day we met our friends and planned to take a trip out to the main fort/palace thing behind the mountain. This was actually really nice, we were treated to a whole lot of elephants walking around and on the way home i took one of my favourite photos from the trip so far, of an elephant walking in the lane of a freeway. Gold. We enjoyed getting lost in the palace itself, there were so many little allyways and places being renovated and we probably were'nt supposed to go in most of them.

The highlight of Jaipur however when we walked up the stairs to tiger fort which overlooks the entire town. We had planned to go for sunset but we ended up getting there late and only caught a little bit of light. It was still amazing to watch over the town, a healthy blanket of smog resting over it. The best thing about it, that chris pointed out, was the pure sound of people. There weren't many cars in the part of town we were over, so the people sounds were much clearer. You could literally be blown away at the level of this noise. three million people just living.

It's funny how i stil think that Jaipur was a dump, but I've listed here a whole lot of memories that I love, typical. After only two full days in the pink city (that reminds me, it's not even pink, only the buildings in the old town have this apricot colouring, i feel quite jibbed by that) we jumped on the conveniently timed 2.35am train to Jodhpur.

Jodhpur

I think that Jodhpur was perhaps my favourite place that i've visited in all of india. We pulled in at 6am and jumped into an auto straight to our place, cosi guest house. As we were walking from one platform to another over the bridge, we were given our first real view of Meherengarh, the biggest fort in the country and the main attraction of the city. Cosi guest house was really good. It had a great view of the fort from the rooftop restaraunt and was run by this really friendly guy (josi) who was really accomodating to us. We settled into our room and watched the morning sky illuminate the amazing fort.

It was here that we first ran into an old friend of mine Bec (sister of Nick who i was travelling with at the start), and we caught up over breakfast. We started our time in Jodhpur with a walk to the clock tower in the centre of the markets. It was really nice here, the noisiest place in a very peaceful town (when i say town by the way, I mean it only had a bit over a million people). After a treck to find a good place for lunch, we settled in a dosa place and ate away. We spent the rest of the day at a tomb on the other side of the Fort, said to be the Rajasthani Taj Mahal, which despite the slight overstatement, was absolutly brilliant. It was a simple simple building viewing the major expanse of city. I spent about 20 minutes taking photos directly into the blue houses of the entire city, and we just kicked back with a view and talked for about an hour.

The best thing about the city is its ability to be walked. It's just the right size to be easily traversed and has the perfect indian ambience of anarchy/tranquility. I found that i could spend hours just walking through the streets, taking photos and talking to people. The roads are very old and windy, there are allyways all over and it has the appeal of walking around venice (although i've never been), seemingly defining the term picturesque.

The fort itself, unlike the vast majoriy of them so far, certainly lived up to expectations and was breathtaking. It is built on a massive mountain, so it takes a while to get up, although at the base we found that we could get special audio tour headphones and be taken around from sight to sight. A friend pointed out that this was one of the few exemples of when Indians had actually made a tourist attraction better- usually they destroy them by re-doing all the old stone work. It was perfectly preserved and the audio tour was great. It explained everything we wanted to know about the little things we could see. At the top we spent a while staring down at the blue city, it was from here that we got the best views of the old blue town.

On our last day there, we headed to the world famous Omlette Shop, just a little stall thing outside the clock tower with an old guy whipping up any kind of egg you'd care to name. I don'tusually eat eggs very often, but three cheese omlettes later i was hooked. I loved the father and son that worked there too. The son, in his thirties perhaps, was the spruker waiter, he made us all write messages in his little signature book. The Dad was in his sixties and never once turned around. He wore this Dr Evil style grey coulta and was insanely focussed on his work. It was been an institution in Jodhpur for thirty years and apparently goes through a thousand eggs a day. By the turn over we witnessed i wouldn't be surprised. Around the corner on the last day I spent a good few hour in the internet cafe, talking to parents/girlfriend on skype. The highlight of this was when all of our friends in Melbourne were at the one house party and jumped on msn at the same time. I got the camera going and they saw the progress of two months without a shave. I was called 'the guy from castaway' (the Tom Hanks movie) by a few people, others questioned my ability to clear immigration at Melbourne airport.

The rest of the day was allocated to walking and photography, and i got some gems. Like i said, Jodhpurs appeal is in the way you can just keep walking and walking, the true Indian experience. The atttitude of the locals was also notably warmer and more accomodating. When we were at the station getting train tickets, we got to talking with some policemen (Actually soldiers) who were extremely easy to talk to and openly discussed their opinions of their nation and ours. One of them for instance really didn't like Gandhi. Both silence and noise were easily acccesible in a short walk. I really loved Jodhpur. As chris left a day earlier to Udaipur, Trix and I jumped on the train to the desert fort town of Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer has a similar appeal to Jodhpur, the massive fort and an incredible ambience which is easy to just take in on a stroll. We went to the fort on the first day and honestly (after Jodhpur) weren't incredibly impressed. It was a lot different to most of the ones we'd seen in India so far, yet the 'i'm sick of forts' bug decided to bite. It was nice inside though, unlike most others there was stilla flourishing community of people living in the fort, and it was possible to stay there as well. We decided aganst this as we thought we'd enjoy the fort more if we could actually see the whole thing. That afternoon, feeling a little bit deflated at not loving the town, we walked around the streets back to our hotel.

We got completely lost (geographically embarrased), although having the fort constantly in sight was good for orientation. Our route took us around all the backstreets and provided a window into Jaisalmer life. It was brilliant, very similar to my affection with Bodhgaya and Jodhpur, you could just see people living their lives. There were kids all over the place, grandfathers playing cards, and a good few games of cricket. I filled up an entire memory card in one afternoon, and we both started to feel a lot better about being in Jaisalmer.

Of course, since my body had a habit of restricting my happyness, i got sick again. Thankfully it wasn't so bad and i was over it by the late afternoon, still frustrating, especially since it restricted us from doing the famed camel safari for which Jaisalmer is known. I spent the rest of the day kicking around on the rooftop and reading, I was treated to an absolute gem of a sunset over the fort, truly beautiful. On the rooftop i also had a moment like the one from tiger fort in Jaipur. I could just sit and listen, take in the town at it breathed.

We were really lucky that i was over it because that was the night that we jumped on a train to Jodhpur and then a bus that morning to Udaipur. Buses are not fun when your sick. Thankfully I had got over it by this stage and I infact sleeped really well on the train. We had a bit of a circus getting from the station to the bus in the morning that we arrived at Jodhpur station. The owner and runner of the Jodhpur guest house (Joshi) had given us cincrete and as usual reliable instructions about how to get from the station to where the bus leaves. He had said that once we left the front we had to go out and right. Having done this and not found anywhere, we debated about what to do and ended up getting in a richshaw to one of the addresses listed on the ticket. Thankfully it was the right one and we upgraded our ticket from chair to sleeper cabin so we could gain a bit of shut eye. No probs at all.

Udaipur

Udaipur was absolutely beautiful. It has the feel of pushkar, a town based around a large lake with a sacred feel to it. Unlike Pushkar however, the town was more than just a tourist hangout, with a decent population of it's own, there was plenty to do and we didn't feel that the three days we had here were really enough.

The first bus we took (apart from the minor saga getting on) was actually fine and we both got a bit of sleep. On arrival however, we were the victims of a minor scam. we got off the bus at a random location and thought it was faily strange that we were'nt dropped at the bus terminal, where we could get a prepaid auto to our hotel. We asked an auto driver how much it would be to our guest house (dream heaven- aiming for a bit with that name) and he gave the very approximite estimate of 53 rupees. When we asked why this figure was so accurate, he said that it was the rate of the prepaid stand. Catching the fair wiff of a scam, we asked him to take us to the prepaid stand and we'd get the righ fair. He said "ok, i take you there then you get ticket, ok?", we said fine. He took us down some random streets for a few minutes and eventually stopped for an oil change. At this stage he chose to let us know that the trip from the bus to the bus stand prepaid booth was 10 rupees. Reluctantly, knowing that he had played us a bit, we said ok, and he rolled the rickshaw the exact same way back to where we had been dropped off and about 30 metres down the road to the bus stand. Basically, he had'nt told us he would charge to the stand, and hadn't told us that it was a one minute walk down the road. This poor driver didn't realize that when i'm scammed, I turn into a deadly plotting monster called travel sam (in a similar fashion to Bruce Banner turning into the Incredible Hulk)... and travel Sam had an idea.

We paid him his ten rupees, then went to the prepaid stand and got our ticket for 33 rupees (surprise surprise). Thinking that we were going to give him the ticket to take us there (worth 33 rupees for him) we said that preferred to get into another rickshaw. He pleaded and pleaded for us to take back the 10 rupees and give him the 33, we politely said no, and drove off. A childish part of us really enjoyed watching him squirm (travelling makes bastards out of good people).

We got to Dream Heaven in a good mood, expecting quite a bit from a hotel of such a name. We got in and found a room for 150 rupees (very cheap) and sat around for a bit in the rooftop cafe. The first thing we noticed was that it was almost full of asian tourists, which we would later find out was true of the entire town (i don't know why). After downing a banana pancake, we went for our first wander around the town. We walked over the bridge and to the side with the main town on it, and sure enough, we ran into someone else we knew. We was from a far away place called 'East Kew' and was educated at a place called 'Xavier'. We had met him (Daniel) in Pushkar and we jumped into a Rickshaw to see the Monsoon Palace on the top of one of the hills. He had been in Udaipur for a few days and this was the last thing left for him to do. On the way up he told us of a full body massage that redefined the term 'full body', many laughs were shared. The palace was great, it gave us a full view of the city and it's surroundings, always good for orrientation when you first get to a place. We took some photos of the sunset and headed back to our hotel. Later Daniel joined us for dinner at a nearby hotel that was screening Octupussy, a Bond movie that was filmed in Udaipur.

90 minutes of Roger Moore sent us well to bed and we headed back to Dream Heaven. The next day we wandered out of bed and to Breakfast, followed by a quick email check down the road. It was then, from memory right in the middle of reading an email from bec saying that we were supposed to meet her at a different hotel, that I remembered that we were supposed to meet Bec at a different hotel.

The answer was to quickly reply and go to the main touist attraction of the city in order to find her. In Udaipur's case, this was the city palace, a great big building of the rajput era lasting over 700 years. Sure enough, after wandering the main parts of it, we saw her reading in a green shady court yard. We appoligized for forgetting the arrangments and she courtiously accepted (didn't you Bec). We spent the next half hour wandering around and bagging people who mispronounced indian cities (ie, Mumbai which is actually moom-bye as mum- bai, and Jaipur as Jaiper- idiots) and made our way down to the lake. We had lunch and decided to take a cruise around the river- highly recomended by the Bible (Lonely Planet guide).

This was purely beautiful. It was a perfect day for it, and the sun off the lake illuminated all of the white buildings around it. We took more than enough photos and kicked back for an hour in the sun- a great way to spend the afternoon. We had dinner with Bec again that night and kicked back for an early one. The next day was taken up by Skype and bus tickets. We had hoped to take a bus to Ahmedabad in Gujarat an then train the rest of the way to Mumbai (pronounced Moom- (rhymes with book) -bye), as we were eager to avoid the the sleeper bus again (chris' had hit a buffalo three days before). We weren't able to do this, so 18 hours in a coffin it was. I rememer that as i was sitting on the internet and elephant walked by in the street next to the cafe- I love it when that happens. We kicked around for a bit longer and got on the bus around 4ish. It did the token arrive an hour late at a different place, then go for ten minutes and stop for another hour while the driver and conductor went to look at the front right tire- very predictable after two months. I looked on the brightside and took some photos of street kids that came out to wave at the bus- they turned out really well.

The bus was again crap, and I hardly got a wink of sleep Oh well. Next stop was Mumbai (you should know how to pronounce it by now). So that was Rajasthan. To an extent what I had expected, to an extent a pleasant surprise. I'd have to say that the order in my books goes Jodhpur-Udaipur-Pushkar-Jaisalmer-Sleeper Bus-Jaipur, (sorry Jaipur). I'd love to come back and see Bundi and Mt Abu, which we missed this trip. The trip was now starting to come to a close. The psychialogical aspect of working my way down the coast does make it seem like I'm working my way home, and to be honest I like this. I wouldn't say that I'm homesick, because I would still rather be here that at home, but I can't wait to see the poeple I left there.

Until next time it would be good to see the anciant art of commenting on my blog revived, if there is someone out there who loves me (I'll accept them from those who don't as well).

Lot of Indian love (same as the normal kind but with more diahrrea an car acidents)

Sam

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Photos

Mandatory sunset shot
This one is in Jaisalmer

Pushkar lake
Just a peak through the temples

Indian Highway
For those of you who are unfamiliar, meet India

Hawa Mahal
Not as good as the postcards would have you know

Meherengarh
The mighty fort of Jodhpur was by far the best in India so far

Sea of Blue
The maze of blue Jodhpur houses

In the Fort
Care for a stroll?

Jaisalmer houses
The labarynth is endless

Jaisalmer Fort
Danm good at sunset

City Palace
The centrepiece of Udaipur

Meet Udaipur
Lake palace at noon

Udaipur lake
The view from our hotel (dream heaven)

Comments

[Arnab]

very good trip
Nice trip buddy! even I had a similar trip...but due to time constraints i was not able to Visit Jodhpur,Udaipur and Puskar ... [:(]... i might go there again...during the "Puskar Mela"... the grand occassion that takes place in October November

[Dad]

Yikes! Great blog Sam
Hi Sam, greetings from Shanghai (again!) what an amazing effort this blog is - on behalf of your Dedicated Band of Readers, thanks from all of us. I do detect a slight edge of sarcasm (or is it more sarcasm?) creeping in, but not surprising after such a big trip. Those photos are just incredible - where are you buying them?? I think Old Major is your best so far, snapped in a moment, but a life wonderfully captured. Meanwhile on my side of the world, I'm heading home tomorrow if I can fight my way through the airport gridlock just before Chinese New Year.

[James]

Hey Sammy and Tristan
Just been reading your blog, its super cool. Hey did you go to the leopold cafe in mumbai? it features heavily in my fav book shantaram. xoxo