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Published: February 27th 2009
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We began our journey to Udaipur from Jaisalmer at the crack of dawn from our camel safari camp. We were sooooo tired, thinking that we would finally get a good night sleep in the desert away from all the blaring music and 5am calls to prayer we forgot about the whole stray dog issue and listened to dogs scrap over territory and bits of food all night. Needless to say the road to Udaipur was mainly spent sleeping in the back of a car! A few interesting highlights from the drive though 1. when we stopped for lunch at a local roadside cafe Ed directed himself to the toilets following the the Hindi / English directions - the long and the short of it was he ended up in the kitchen's washing area ie. a bowel of water, sponge and brick wall - he didnt recognize the washing area until mid-pee and rapidly finished up and sprang back to hurry me into the car! 2. We stopped for some chai (tea) and Katherine heard a crying dog and inquired to the manager where it was, he said it was their puppy out back, so obviously she had to go investigate and
At the roadside cafe
Explaining to the owner the importance of water for his puppy came across a puppy tied with 1/2 foot of chain in the sun with no water...being very distraught she consulted Ed and decided to buy a big thing of bottled water (that locals dont even drink bottled water) and asked to give the dog fresh water - there was no water dish to be found so they cleaned out a pot and a group watched in interest and she poured the water in the dog's make shift dish - the poor little thing rapidly gulped the water - hopefully they'll make the connection: hot day, crying dog = needs water!
When we finally arrived in town we went to the Jaiwana Haveli - a beautiful family run house with breathtaking views of Lake Pichola - we were inevidably led to our crap, double bed room and after a few inquiries were moved to a larger double bed room with better views for the same price! The views from our rooftop terrace were stunning - we soon developed a routine of being there for sunset, splitting a few tiger beers and reading our lastest books.
We had initally thought we would stay in Udaipur only a few days, but
couldnt be motivated to leave our newly found oasis so we pushed our flights to Goa by a few days and took on exploring and relaxing. We found our favorite rickshaw driver to date: 'Tiger' - who quickly sussed us out and plugged in his ipod (unheard of for rickshaw drivers) and started blasting Justin Timberlake, Beyonce etc....it was awesome, and very surreal zipping around the town, backstreets and alleyways with our own theme music.
We decided it was time for Ed to get a shave, again, so Tiger took us to a local shop when Ed was once again man handled by a local (full neck and head massages - which looked more like a light beatdown than a relaxing event...much to Katherine's amusement in the next chair) as you can see from the pictures this month Ed is sporting the french cut...
Katherine tracked down an animal hospital run by an American couple and soon had both her and Ed signed up for some volunteering...this was incredibly challenging and memorable - as much as I thought I was prepared for this after seeing so many street animals I dont think anyone can prepare for the conditions
of animal hospitals in developing countries - dogs whose skin was raw from mange, cows with broken swollen legs who could no longer walk, dogs with exposed bones from injuries from cars and other dogs - all animals covered in filth...the hospital was doing the best they could with limited resources, but the conditions were truly appaling...we had a quick tour and then were left to our own devices to play with the animals and walk them - we started with the puppies as it seemed less daunting then starting with the 3 legged mange ridden dog who looked like a killer...it was so touching to see these 2 little puppies we started with who barely get our of their cages, trepedaciously sniff around loosen their legs up a bit to within 20 minutes were running around, playing with each other and bouding through the wheat fields...Katherine esp fell in love with the little runt in the photo and is trying to convince Ed that we need to import him to England (seriously)...the rest of our time there consisted of petting and showing the animals affection, making sure they had water etc. Katherine decided to take it upon herself to
bathe some animals as they were all covered in crap - she was handed a paralyzed puppy to start and had a very wet and eventful time and after walking around with him in a towel in the sun realized the dog had diahread all down the front of her, lovely....the long and the short of this experience is that this hospital is a needed and solid resource for the animals and people of Udaipur - they implement an education program trying to teach people how to care for animals and are known to almost anyone who sees an animal in need and are available 24/7 - read more on their website: www.animalaidunlimited.com
We also fancied a cooking lesson, and (un?) luckily for us the ultimate owner of the guest house heard us enquring at reception about it and offered to give us one herself. Feeling v priviledged, at the appointed time we duly traipsed up to the kitchen (where the food we had been eating for the last few days had been prepared) and stood sweating (Ed being eyeball to eyeball with a cooked chicken left on a shelf) whilst she gave us a full demonstration of how
Animal sanctuary
Lucy, an English woman, who went there on holidays and has ended up staying there for over a year explaining to me how things were run to cook the food we had picked out from a recipe book (which incidentally was written by a guru/ divine woman whose mission was to spread love around the world by encouraging people to prepare traditional indian meals.....) We were then sent onto the terrace outside to eat our various dishes in the scorching sun whilst she looked on approvingly ( I hope!)
Ed dragged us one morning to a private yoga lesson soon after dawn. Kat was thoroughly unimpressed, both by the lame routine (we obviously looked like rank amateurs!) and the pair of man boobs our teacher was sporting. Ed thought he'd take a further step towards enlightenment and came back by himself the next morning. He secretly wished he'd stayed in bed, and hasn't done any yoga since (not even with the hippys saluting the dawn every morning on the beach in Goa)
Kat's note on the yoga - we showed up at 7am for our lesson and the 'guru' wasnt out of bed yet, so upon hearing our arrival put on his grossest, dirtest, ill fitting moob (man boob) exposing tank top he could find then took us up the delapitated steps to the
Animal sanctuary
yard where the animals were kept sweat pit which would be our yoga room. My biggest annoyance was the amount this man actually spoke at us vs teaching us yoga - he spent the first 20 minutes lecturing us on why other forms of yoga were crap compared to his! We did a few poses - I've done a little bit of yoga before and only one I recognized was the sun salutation - then he was lecturing us on how we should spend our days: "you wake up at 5, then you do the yoga, then you eat at 7 and spend time with your family, then from 8-1 you work, then you have lunch, then you leave work at 6, have dinner at 7 with your family and in bed by 10....once you have done this for a month you will be much happier in life" - I kept trying to catch Ed's eye like this guy is insane but Ed was eating this up!
All in all we loved Udaipur - it was a nice change in pace and the scenery was beautiful, hence so many sunset shots - next stop the beaches of Goa.....
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claire
non-member comment
I second Katherine's wish to bring the puppy home!