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Published: October 30th 2006
So after over two months in India and Nepal, it's time to move on. I feel a bit sad to be honest - it's been a fascinating experience out here - one that I've enjoyed enormously. All those places and all those people - great memories that will long live with me.
After leaving Jodphur I met up with some Belgian girls, Petra and Sylvie, on the bus to Udaipur, along with a Scottish girl, Lorraine. The bus ride was a bumpy five hours long, but despite all the potholes in the road, I only banged my head 5 times!
Udaipur was a lovely spot. The four of us mananged to get into the Kumbha Palace (run by a Dutch/Indian couple) after our first choice was booked up. The auto-rickshaw driver so how contrived to squeeze all of us into his vehicle for the 10 minute journey from one hostel to another - the 3 girls in the back and me in the front. Any sudden left turns resulted in me getting a rickshaw hadle bar right in the nether-regions though!
Udaipur is where they filmed certain parts of the film Octopussy, and nearly every restaurant or bar
shows the movie at least once a night. It's very picturesque down by the lake though. One day the four of us went out on a peddle boat on the lake - it was a bit cramped with long legs in there but we managed to work out a system that avoided anyone else getting hit in the shins by stray peddle! We peddled out to the luxury Lake Palace Hotel in the middle of the lake (where Octopussy had her secret HQ I believe in the movie) to have a nosey, but the hotel security guards weren't happy. They came out to greet us in a speed boat and warned us we were trespassing on private property. "Why...are Brad and Angelina staying there?" asked Lorrraine, but they didn't answer! Rather bizarrely (and romantically I suppose) they had two tables for two people floating on two seperate pontoons around 30 metres from the hotel. Talk about a private table. Your food is brought out to you by boat. I just thought it would be funny if you ordered a bottle of Bollinger '73 only for the waiter to row off and then row back 15 minutes later to say it
was out of stock! Could be a long night!
We had a couple of great nights out in Udaipur too. Our first night there involved going to a local "traditional dance" show. Another Belgian girl we met there (called Sara) wanted to go there again after her camera ran out of batteries half through yesterday's performance.
"It just got to the bit where a fat lady dances around with 10 pots on her head whilst walking over broken glass" Sara said.
We all made sure we had fully charged batteries in our cameras and made our way to the venue led by Sara.
"The rest of the show is a bit crap but it's worth it for the fat lady" she informed us as we made our way through the winding alleys.
I must admit after my last cultural evening (the stick dance in Chitwan if anyone can remember that), I was not totally convinced about this show, but we were all suprised to find we actually enjoyed it. There was some sort of Indian "square dance" which was good (they could have been dancing to Billy Ray Cyrus), and then two women dancing with
flaming braziers on their heads. The fat lady didn't disappoint, dancing with one, then four, then seven and then ten pots on her head, at the same time performing various stunts (removing a napkin from a pot of artificial flowers with her teeth; walking on broken glass in bare feet; and putting both feet into a brass pot and hopping around the stage). It was all great fun. I took far too many pictures of the fat lady with various amounts of pots on her head, but it came in useful over dinner afterwards as Petra was convinced she only had nine pots on her head. I had photographic proof of ten pots!
Lorraine and I also had a fun day horse-riding in the countryside surrounding Udaipur. It was great to ride a horse again after a few years, and the landscape (all hills and rocky desert) made you feel like someone in one of those spaghetti westerns. We also visited some local villages who were very pleased to see us! It's fascinating visiting the peoples houses to see how they live. A huge family of six or seven would share one room for sleeping and eating in a
two room house. The other room would be used for cooking. You have to get all your water from the local pump, and most places have no electricity.
Another place we visited in Udaipur was the Animal Aid Society (AAS). Animals get a raw deal in India. I've never seen so many scaby, mal-nourished, forlorn looking dogs just roaming the streets as I have in India. There are hundreds in each city I've visited. I've mentioned the cows as well, which are of course, sacred in India. But the cows out here just roam the streets eating rubbish and scavenging for food. They really behave like foxes with big horns and udders. If you put these cows in a field full of grass they'll be heading for the gate looking for the nearest rubbish bin. The cows end up eating a lot of plastic, cardboard, and other stuff that just clogs up their insides until they end up suffering a drawn out and painful death.
The AAS is doing a sterling job bringing neglected animals back to health, sterilising steet dogs to stop the problem with strays escalating further, and educating the locals on animal welfare and the
"The fat lady with ten pots" in action
Sorry if the photo is a bit fuzzy - my hands were shaking with excitmentdispoal of plastic waste. I was pretty moved by my visit there, with so many animals in dire need of a bit of TLC. They just operated on a baby monkey called Charlie who had lost part of his arm and was badly burnt after being electracuted whlie swinging from a power cable. I'll shut up before I sound too much like Rolf Harris - but if you're interested in finding out more about the hospital you can go to www.animalaidsociety.org
The trip to Mumbai was a first for me - an overnight sleeper bus ride! A double bunk for myself and a fully charged ipod made for a fairly comfortable journey, despite the bus assistant who woke up everyone on the whole bus at 3.30am because one person needed to get off at a stop but he couldn't remember which one!
Mumbai was a surprise in that I only gave myself two days there because I had heard so many bad things about it - and really liked it. It's by far the best of the larger Indian cities I've visited, Delhi and Kolkata. There is something about cities by the sea with me - I love
Sydney and I love New York - and Mumbai falls into that bracket too. Chowpatty beach (called Cow Patty beach by one wag that I met) was a brilliant place to chill as the sun was setting, a real hive of activity. Petra, Syvlie and I went on an whistlestop tour, including the house where Mohindra Gandhi instigated his "Stop India" campaign that led to Independence in 1947 (now it's a museum). We also went to the Parsee "Tower of Silence" - the Parsee religion doesn't believe in cremating or burying bodies. Instead they are left on top of tall towers for vultures to pick at the flesh until only the bones remain. Apparently the lack of vultures in Mumbai is leading the Parsees to use electric heaters to speed up the decomposing process!!!!
I also got my "restaurant owned by an Indian cricketer" fix when I visited "Tendulkars" in central Mumbai. Lots of memorabilia there including the shirt he wore during his record breaking 35 test hundred! The menu was funny as certain dishes were highlighted as "Sachin's Favourite", including the bombay duck using his mum's secret recipe!
The three of us also got approached to be
extras in a bollywood movie! I was quite chuffed until Sylvie told me that her and Petra had been approached twice already. This wind-swept bloke turned up on a motorbike and offered us all 500 rupees for a days work. I told him I fly off tomorrow and the girls don't get out of bed for less than 10,000 rupees!
It was a very sad last evening when I had my last meal with Petra and Sylvie. They are two brilliant girls and we had a great week or so together. They deserve a medal for putting up with a crazy Englishman for so long! They both live and work in Leuven, which for all you beer drinkers out there is also the home of Stella Artois - so I've promised them a visit and a tour of the brewery in autumn 2007!!
The 4.30am flight to Bangkok wiped me out a bit - I've never had to be woken up after sleeping throughout a whole plane journey before - but I went out for a little explore when I arrived. First impression - it's weird seeing bare legs and arms again after two and a half months
View of Udaipur Lake as the sun began to set
Lots of roof top bars in Udaipur to take this sort of picture! in countries where you are normally covered up! I'm also overwhelmed by the amount of tourists here. There are all night bars and clubs everywhere you turn, and seeing places like Burger King, 7Eleven and Starbucks again is a strange feeling. Not sure if I like it yet - I was getting used to vegetable thalis, mango flavour lassis, and cows roaming the streets - this ultra-commercialism is all a bit of a shock to the system.
Finally the top five things I'll miss about India...
1. The people (I just loved talking to the locals whereever I went)
2. The food (garlic nan, galob jalum and any flavour lassi in particular)
3. The contrast in landscape (from snow-capped mountains, to dense jungles, to arid deserts)
4. The fellow travellers (I met some amazing people from all walks of life while I've been here)
5. The culture (from the art, to bollywood movies, to the various religions, to the sport - India is amazing)
So...I'm off to Laos tomorrow to visit something called The Gibbon Experience in a place called Huang Xai for 3 days (all will be revealed!) then onto a place called Luang Prabang. Don't
worry - I can't pronounce half the names of these places either...and I'm going there!
I've also arranged a 10 day tour package for Terry and Jill when they arrive in just under two weeks including some serious island hopping and a full moon party on Ko Tao!! I'm offering very low commission if anyone else is interested!!
Okay...bye for now!!!!
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Chrissie Wilson
non-member comment
Change of Culture - and a sausage too!
Hi Sean, Thanks for your hotmail email this weeK and I will try to reply to you now. But just in case you do not receive OK - thanks for all your news and I will print a copy of your latest Travelblog for your Mum - so she can see your photos OK. Can understand what you say about missing India - the people are magic - it is an amazing country! Bonne Chance in Thailand! Sounds like you enjoyed your sausage breakfast - BRAVO! Love Chrissie W