Jodhpur and Delhi

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We finally caught our first festival in Jodhpur a few days ago. It was a Eunich festival. Yep. The cheif Eunich is passing the batton to his next in line. Changing of the Eunich gaurd. The square was packed. I videotaped it. Thats the only way I caught the close up shots of the Eunichs. For some bizare reason I was expecting then to look like some Yul Brinner type from one of the 1950's Hollywood ancient Egypt movies. But nooo. Out come 6 "girls" dancing to disco on stage. It's like watching a float at Gay Pride in San Fransisco. What a riot. Well, the crowd was about to riot. I think they got pissed that the cops were trying to shut down the festival and the hoodloms wanted to keep partying. Luckily Vinod told us to start heading out cause the crowd was getting bad. I had no clue. I just heard gobeldy gook on the loudspeaker. So we went out of the square. My family with Vinod, Nishia and their little kids. Got out just in time. As soon as we rounded a corner we heard all this noise and the hoodlooms were running down the street. Holly shit, a riot. We backed up against a wall. Poor Nishia was pretty stressed cause she had her little kids. But the yelling guys just ran past us. So off I go in the street prepared to walk back and I get nudged, and nudged, and nudged really hard. What the hell!! I turn around to confront who ever it was and was face to face with a cow moving me out of it's way. Mom and Claudia were cracking up.

Survived our coldest train ride ever last night.
I went out and got a few wool blankets with Vinod for our trip thinking that would do the trip.
But man, that overnight journey lasted forever. I think Claudia was the only one with a decent night sleep since she has her cute little down jacket. Rest of us were fetal positioned.
But, I got some zzzz's and survived, no big deal.

Train didn't go to New Delhi like I thought but old Delhi. So I hearded the family into the waiting room at the train station and took Ian to negotiate the Taxi Wallahs with me.
I resisted every attempt of theirs to extract hotel info from me an just told them New Delhi rail station please. Managed to lower the rate down to 200 from 400 for all of us. Plus the guy took us staight to our hotel.
Right now I'm at Ajays guest house which is where we're staying. Vinod called from Jodphur and arranged it for us. Decent place for backpacker standards. It's right in the center of where the typical backpacker hotels are. Bed, western bathroom, clean enough. Cheap rates. Only problem is that is kinda smells like smoke. I think that's because of all the Europeans here. I still can't figure out why the French and Germans smoke sooo much. We're obviously in backpacker land because of all the bongs, pipes, hookahs for sale.
So we toured Delhi a little. Saw the big Mosque, forgot the name but it's build by Shah Jihan (sp?) the same Mogul emporer who build the Taj. Pretty impressive. Climbed to the top of the mineret also. First mosque I've ever been in.
Also went downtown New Delhi. This city isn't nearly as dirty as I thought it would be. It's actually relatively clean and a lot of fun to walk around in. Unlike Agra, yuk!! I did see the freak highlight of the trip though. Some guy was in the middle of the street with no pants on and what's insane is that his nuts were the size of a basketball. I kid you not. Poor guy. Guess that's how it goes here. Raw humanity hits you in the face. No pretention.
I certainly feel like I'm used to India at this point. Haggling - no prob. Shit on my shoes, no prob. Smiles from everybody - no problem.
Ate at Karims across from the mosque. Rough Guide recommended that. Score. Awesome mutton curry. Too bad mom and Claudia had sore guts. But I set my palate on fire there. OMG. Too good.
Had to find dinner. We ate in this area we're staying called the Main Bazaar. Book says food here is mediocre. But family is tired. So we go to the Hare Krishna hotel's rooftop restaurant. Order the Tom Yum soup. Good stuff. I ordered a Mousaka. It tasted like some funky version of Chilli. The other orders were just as bizaar. Maybe that's why this place is called the Main Bazaar, har har.
I'm definitely wiped out now. Pushed myself all day with very little sleep.
Tommorrow is my last day here. Will probably just chill in the National Museum. Maybe see the Red Fort. We're gonna eat breakfast at the Imperial hotel. I heard they have a phenominal buffet for Rs. 1000 each. Guess that's $25 a head. I think tomorrow will be splurge day.
It's kind of bitter sweet leaving here tommorrow. I am homesick. Dying to have a pint of good beer and pizza and most of all a nice green salad. Clean streets, being able to have soap and paper towels in restrooms, less noise. My own bed. But I will certainly miss the people, culture, food, and history here. I've found that Indians across the country are very open, friendly, and easy to get along with. All you have to do is smile and try to get out a few words in their language and boom, instant conversation. It really helps if you try to learn the local dialect when appropriate, like Tamil in Tamil Nadu, Malayalam in Kerala, or Maritha in Maharishtha(sp?). I really enjoyed not being on the tourist track and hanging out with the locals like Sachin's cousin Ganesh in Aurangabad and Rama and Balajis family in Chennai. Being able to meet these kind of people and hang out with them are what has made this trip special for me. This also extends to the homestays we had the pleasure of visiting like Kaits in Kerala and Heaven in Jodhpur. It's the friendly hosts and the culture that really do it for me. One word of warning though. In any paid establishment, it might be best not to mention that you want to shop or buy anything. Do this and you might be taken for a joy ride by someones smooth talking brother who is juggling conversations with you along with both of his cell phones while making his sales pitch about the wares he's selling. But even that proved interesting enough.
Much more fun then just checking off the tourist attractions on the map. Even though we did that too. I'm pretty sure that I can't classify what we did as a vacation. But it certainly was an adventure. That hit home everytime we changed destinations and had to hope everything would work out. One things for sure is that you have to be always on your game in this country. No sleepwalking allowed. I'm not sure I'm really going to absorb what has happened until after I get home. I do feel pretty confident navigating my way around now. I think that appeal to the adrenaline junky in me. Walking across a busy intersection about to get run over by rickshaws, bicycles, motercycles, buses, cars, cows, or camel carts - no problem. It's the India shuffle.
What's great is the underlying beat in this country. There's music everywhere. I've got to say the best music is in Tamil Nadu. They've got some incredable drum and bass deep house trance kind of stuff going on. Funny thing is that lot's of it is sound scores from movies. But you hear it everywhere down there. And it kind of goes to the beat of the railway cars just like the blues did it for America. Seems like I don't hear as much music here in the North. Oh well.
This is probably the last blog entry until I get home. I'm ready to go. Ready to get to work at my new job. Hell, I think I'm ready to kiss the ground when I get off the plane back home. Funny, I come to India and find the American dream is alive and well out here. Pretty much everyone wants to come here. This goes beyond politics. The common thing I hear from the average Joe out here is "USA, number one country, very good country, why your president Bush so bad?" Interesting......
Guess I spoke too soon about the music. They just started blaring it on the speakers in the tiny cafe. Problem is that it's not that good this time. That's my que to run. C ya

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