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September 16th 2005
Published: January 3rd 2006
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Taj MahalTaj MahalTaj Mahal

It looks like we're in Brighton but in fact we swear we are at the Taj Mahal.
September 14: We took care of a few things in London and then flew to Delhi, leaving about 10pm.

September 15: About noon or so we got to the Imperial Hotel. I've stayed here once before on business and think its one the nicest hotels anywhere. It was built in the early 30's in a bit of an art deco style with touches of Victorian and colonial architecture as well. We went to Connaught Circle, but the park in the center has been totally torn up as they build a new metro station there. It started to rain and the scene got really chaotic, so we just walked around and had a look around. After a little swim we went to a restaurant-bar called DV8 where the music went from Venga Boys style dance music to Eminem and then to no-name classic rock, but which had a very nice ambiance. On the way back, we saw a bat flying among the palm trees above the hotel which must have had a two-foot wingspan. It was flapping slowly around and basically looked like the Batman logo.

September 16: It was raining when we woke up and we waiting around hoping
Jaipur CowJaipur CowJaipur Cow

P and a member of a Jaipur street gang, er, herd.
that it was one of the Monsoon rains which supposedly are just a short burst and then it would dry out. However, it kept raining and raining so we gave up and just went out to see the sights. We went to the Mughal Red Fort and the Jama Masjid, which is the biggest Mosque in India, which were kind of underwhelming. Again, total chaos on the street, with every vehicle seemingly required by law to beep every 5 seconds. We found our way to a highly recommended pastisserie, but it was closed when we got there. So we got tired of authentic India and, soaking wet, went back to the lovely hotel. Apparently, the rickshaw ride between the hotel and Old Delhi costs anywhere between 20 and 120 rupees depending on... well, I guess it depends on how much the individual driver thinks you'll pay.

September 17: Left the Imperial to go to Agra. The road between Delhi and Agra takes you through some pretty awful poverty. Saw the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort, which was built and expanded by three generations of the Mughal Muslim emperors of India, the third of which was the one who
Royal Observatory, JaipurRoyal Observatory, JaipurRoyal Observatory, Jaipur

P climbing a medieval astronomical device.
built the Taj Mahal. Following Lonely Planet's advice instead of our driver's recommendation, we went to a tiny 4 table restaurant called Joney's Place (slogan: "Joney's Place, Yummy Yummy Food, Best Food in All India") where Joney is the chief waiter and chief cook. ("Chief" meaning "only".) We took Joney's advice and had some potatoes with a kind of curry and cheese and some biryani, which Joney cooked up about 5 feet away. Delicious, and the bill with drinks came to about a pound for the two of us. We read through his guest book, where 5 years of positive comment made us feel more confident despite the hole in the wall ambiance. Joney's sons provide air conditioning by means of aggressive swinging of wicker fans, dangerously near the head. It's now 11pm and we're still not sick.

September 18: Woke up and started out for Jaipur. On the way we stopped for a few hours at Fatehpur Sikri. This is a big palace built by the third mughal emperor, Akbar. It is still in pretty good shape because it was used for only 16 years and then abandoned. It's notable for being a combination of Central Asian, Hindu
Monkey businessMonkey businessMonkey business

A monkey and tucked underneath, a baby monkling.
and Christian architecture (Akbar had a wife of each religion). There was even a life sized pachisi board in the main countryard. The highway between Agra and Jaipur is in really bad shape for a lot of the way and all along the road there are roadside stalls with people selling sweets, petrol, tires, etc. We saw cows, goats, pigs, boars, monkeys, parrots and dogs. We finally got to Jaipur where we stayed at a hotel that used to be the townhouse of the nobleman of Samode, a nearby town. After a lot of searching we found a nice restaurant (though not the one we originally set out to find). There aren't really any street signs. The city is very colorful but there is a lot of garbage everywhere on the street, with the dogs, cows, pigs etc rooting through, and adding their respective poopoo to the landscape. For dinner we ate at a restaurant that we had trouble finding because, as it turns out, there was no sign! Thankfully, the local plush elephant toy vendor was willing to help out (for a small tip). After dinner we went to the biggest cinema in Rajasthan, where we saw a movie
Some guysSome guysSome guys

These are some Indian tourists who wanted to take a picture with us. So we did an exchange and got them to do a Brady bunch style group picture as well.
about Indians living in Melbourne. In the queue outside I talked to some local guys and P talked to a couple of English travellers. The plot was actually very easy to follow even though the movie was about 90% in Hindi. In classic Bollywood fashion, about 35 minutes into the movie, and every 30 minutes thereafter, the characters broke into all-singing all dancing coordinated dance routines with 40 extras, which is a bit surreal. On the way back, the rickshaw driver's pedal broke, and he stopped and fixed it with string scavenged form one of the ubiquitous piles of garbage.

September 19: We spent this day in Jaipur. We saw the Tiger Fort, the Amber Fort, the City Palace and the observatory. It was a bit of castle overload. After dinner, we had a drink at the Rambaugh Palace, which is now a schmantzy hotel.

September 20: Today we went to Jodhpur. We were supposed to stay at a big fancy palace called the Umaid Bhawan palace, where the maharaja of Jodhpur still lives in one of the wings. However, when we got there it became clear that the maharaja had apparently sold the hotel part to the
Rooftops of JodhpurRooftops of JodhpurRooftops of Jodhpur

Jodhpur is called the blue city after the color of its buildings. It used to be only brahmins could paint their houses blue but now anyone can.
Taj group a few months before and almost the entire place (pool, restaurants, cafe, gardens) was under renovation, so we basically couldn't go anywhere or do anything and couldn't even really leave our rooms without someone from the hotel taking us under the ladders and scaffolding. So we gently complained to our travel agent, who sorted out a very nice room at another Taj-owned hotel in Jodhpur, which was lovely. All we managed to accomplish this day was moving to our new hotel, splashing about in the pool for an hour, and almost paying 120 pounds for a patchwork wall hanging at the hotel shop (we didn't buy). We were a bit frazzled so we ate at the hotel restaurant which is normally six times the price of eating outside, but still about half the price of lovely Battersea Tandoori back in London.

September 21: This day we went up to the Mehrangarh Fort, which is a very cool 15th century fortress overlooking Jodhpur. This place had the first western-style headphones audio guide we have seen anywhere in India, which we used in English and Italian, respectively. The audio guide mostly focused on how wonderful the current maharaja is
Us at Jodhpur fortUs at Jodhpur fortUs at Jodhpur fort

Here we are perched at the ramparts of the huge fort in Jodhpur.
and how swell of him it is that he lets people walk around the fort. The Jodhpur maharaja obviously doesn't have any special powers anymore but he is quite rich and rather well liked in the community. There are quite a few beautiful rooms in the fort, including lots of stained glass. There are also really nice views over Jodhpur, where many of the houses are painted a pale blue. After the fort, we went down to the Sardar market, where we bought the same wall hanging for 20 pounds, so we saved about 85%. However, this one still has lumps of dirt and probably a family of little desert fleas living on it, so we need to get it washed. After that we splashed around in the fancy pool some more and ate at the hotel Chinese restaurant, where the Chinese food tasted a lot like Indian food.

September 22: This day we drove to Jaisalmer, which is only about 120km from the Pakistan border and accordingly has Indian air force jets roaring around at all hours. After checking into the hotel, and shooing a cat out of our room, we went over to the Jaisalmer fortress. Unlike
P and the dunesP and the dunesP and the dunes

Relaxing after a camel ride at the Khuri dunes outside Jaisalmer.
the other forts we visited, Jaisalmer doesn't just contain a palace and military stuff inside, but also lots of ordinary houses, shops and temples, all made out of the same golden yellow sandstone as the fortress walls. Today, most of the houses and shops are tourist hotels and souvenir shops, a bit like New Orleans was. The streets are very small and twisty and there aren't any motor vehicles allowed inside, so it has a very interesting Ali Baba medieval feeling, at least until someone tries to sell you a pashmina for the 20th time in 5 minutes. As with the rest of India that we have seen so far, cows, pigs and dogs are EVERYWHERE, wandering around, rooting for something to eat. After hanging around for a while and having a lunch of Tibetan dumplings (my guess is these folks are actually ethnic Tibetan refugees from Kashmir, of which there are supposedly quite a few in Jaisalmer), we drove out to a village called Khuri, where they have some very big and impressive sand dunes. Without quite realising it, we had signed up to ride camels (surprise!) and rode these about 45 minutes up to the top of the dunes. These camels seemed a lot taller than the ones in Jordan, and have a more traditional saddle with stirrups rather than a Bedouin saddle, which is a bit uncomfortable unless you sit on it like a Bedouin (nobody showed us that trick until it was too late). The dunes were really tall and we had a great view over the desert. There were quite a few kids there selling various things or playing drums or otherwise trying to make a buck. One asked for a pen, which he presumably went off and showed his mates. When another one came over and also asked for a pen, I set off a feeding frenzy the second I opened my bag. About 10 kids descended on us out of nowhere and we basically had to go off and find another dune.

September 23: This day we went around Jaisalmer with a guide named Sathi. In the morning he took us around the fort and pointed out various points of interest in history and architecture. He focused a lot on the carved balconies that all the houses have, which apparently show the status of the person inside. We visited a couple of Jain temples (Jainism being a religion that is similar to Hinduism and Buddhism), where there were hundreds of nearly identical statutes of a person sitting cross-legged (which looked like a skinnier Buddha but we think was clearly someone else). Sathi showed us his house, which is also in the fort, toward the back where tourist infrastructure hasn't quite reached. It was about three stories, with a pretty carved balcony and a roof terrace where he apparently sleeps most of the time to avoid the heat. After that he took us to some fancy townhouses (called havelis) which had a similar carved stone design. At this point we had actual fatigue and temple fatigue from all the heat and temples so we took a break and went back to the hotel for a nap. We then met up with Sathi and the driver to go see the cemetery of the Jaisalmer maharajas, which is apparently a good place to see the sun set. The cemetery is now surrounded by a wind farm, so there are some really interesting sights of the cenotaphs with the huge windmill turbines turning in the background. Sathi didn't come in with us because people from his
The oldest doorThe oldest doorThe oldest door

This is the oldest door in Jaisalmer.
caste aren't supposed to go into cemeteries on the day someone has been cremated. When we got to the back of the second cemetery, we saw there was a corrugated metal pavilion with a pile of ashes (still glowing red on the inside) about two meters long, a meter wide and about half a meter high, which was the person who had been cremated that morning. At that point, a violent thunderstorm seemed about to start so we ran back to the town to wrestle with the internet and trying to use the payphones. That night, we had dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Jaisalmer, and I got really sick, though I didn't start hurling until about 6am.

September 24: Today I woke up still feeling really rotten. We got about an hour from Jaislamer on the way to Rohet when I asked to stop the car. The driver (who's really a great guy) followed me out into the desert about 10 meters where I was planned to hurl again, and gave me a really violent back massage which seemed to make me feel better (or maybe my shoulders hurt enough that I forgot about my stomach). As I
Cenotaphs and wind farmCenotaphs and wind farmCenotaphs and wind farm

Outside Jaisalmer there is a cemetary where the ashes of the maharajas of Jaisalmer have been kept for about the last 600 years. There is also a wind farm around it that supplies all the power for the surrounding area. The new and the old.
started back to the car, he grabbed me again and lifted me into the air, leaning backwards to stretch my spine out. Boy, that did the trick! I ran back to the car and didn't complain again. Right before we got to Rohet, a massive downpour started, which has now ended but which has made the weather much cooler and nicer. Also, I'm now feeling well enough to have a few bites of a grilled cheese sandwich. Hurrah! This hotel was a little palace where the local nobleman lived (and still live, though he's just an ordinary rich guy now, with a sense of noblesse oblige). It's kind of like the hotel in Jaipur, but with more outdoor activities normally available such as horse stables, birdwatching, etc, since we're really out in the sticks now, halfway between Jodhpur and Udaipur.

September 25: This morning we continued on from Rohet to Udaipur. We didn't do much but look out of the window of our room at Lake Pichola and sat on the terrace and looked at Lake Pichola. Udaipur is sometimes called the Venice of the East due to all the palaces and other edifices built along the lake. Unfortunately,
Laxman the driverLaxman the driverLaxman the driver

Laxman poses for the camera. In a pinch he doubles as a massage therapist.
for most of the last ten years, until about two or three weeks before we got there, the lake was dry due to a string of crummy monsoons. But now it's lovely again. There were lots of kids swimming around in the lake and ladies washing clothes on the bank.

September 26: Today we decided to do a little bit of sightseeing and went to the city palace complex, where we poked around in a museum of old swords and then went on a boat ride past the Lake Palace, which is now a hotel. Apparently Octopussy was shot partially in Udaipur, so every tourist restaurant plays it at 7.30, much the same way that restaurants around Petra play Indiana Jones III. Udaipur was far and away the cleanest and most tourist friendly place we stayed in India, with the smallest amount of rubbish around and the lowest population of stray cows and dogs. We went to a couple of nice and inexpensive restaurants and went for a swim at a different hotel, where we rescued a frog who had jumped and couldn't get out. We wished we could have spent more time here.

September 27: So this
UdaipurUdaipurUdaipur

P contemplates the Venice of the East, now with water in it.
day we went to the Devi Garh, which is a fort on top of a hill about an hour outside of Udaipur. We really liked Udaipur, so we hoped that Devi Garh would be really something, which it is. It's basically a fortified 18th century palace which has been turned into a really chi-chi hotel. For no apparent reason we also got upgraded to a super fancy room with a great view over the nearby hills. The hills around look kind of like Scotland, actually, but are crisscrossed by low stone walls and have Indian villagers working in them instead of sheep. When we got to our room, there was a little note from the management explaining that they were shooting a Bollywood (i.e. Indian market) movie there, so please excuse the noise, etc. The place was crawling with gaffers and best boys and key grips and assistants to Mr So and So and other such people. When we got down to the pool to have a look around, P whispered "that's the guy from Salaam Namaste (the movie we saw in Jaipur)". His name is something-starting-with-an-S Khan. I didn't really believe it so we took another nonchalant walk past
Our hotel--UdaipurOur hotel--UdaipurOur hotel--Udaipur

As seen from the boat ride... (I can see my house from here!)
but, and indeed it was him. He is the only Indian actor either of us could pick out a lineup, but he is everywhere--on TV, on bags of Lay's potato chips, etc. He was down at the pool with his kids. How about that! We didn't do much this day except sit by the pool and relax. P had an Ayurvedic massage which was nice but she still prefers the Swedish approach more common in Europe.

September 28: In the morning we borrowed some slightly crummy bicycles from the hotel and went for a ride. The hotel gave us a map showing a route on the roads around the fort but I started to get stressed out by having to share a narrow 2 lane road with trucks, cows, scooters, cars, goats and other bicycles, so we took a suggestion from a guy standing on the side of the road to go down a dirt path instead. After about 500 meters, we were clearly entering Rural India. People started to smile and point as we went by like we were dancing bears. We had to carry the bikes over a couple of streams which crossed and recrossed the path
View from Devi GarhView from Devi GarhView from Devi Garh

The view of the hills surrounding the chi chi resort of Devi Garh.
in a lot of places and I would bet have been dry for 5 years. We gathered from talking to a couple of the local people that the villagers are really chuffed about having such a good monsoon after such a long period of drought, so I don't think they mind. At one point we passed the school and got the dancing bear treatment from the 25 kids who decided to leave the building on an impromptu field trip to see us. Just past the school, the road path ended, so we stopped there for a while and kind of talked to the kids. Apparently, in Indian state schools, the kids don't start learning English until 6th or 7th grade (even though its one of the official languages of the country!), so for the first and only time in India, we spoke more Hindi than our interlocutors spoke English. After a while we said goodbye and rode back. At the pool, we talked to a Spanish/Italian couple who had a little more dirt on the movie stars staying at the hotel. Apparently, Mr Khan was the youngest of the three main stars there, and very personable, patient with autograph and
View from Shiva templeView from Shiva templeView from Shiva temple

The view of the hills from the Shiva temple on a hill outside of Devi Garh.
photo seekers, etc. One of the others, a guy named Bachchan (or Big B) is considered by some to be the biggest star in India. He was staying in a wing to himself with an army of heavily armed bodyguards and his own pool and we never saw him, except on TV and billboards where he features in commercials for cell phones and suits. Then we went on a little hike up to the top of a nearby hill where there is a small temple to Shiva with a full time priest. Apparently, a security guard hikes up there in the evening and comes down again in the morning, as well. When we got back, some people told us that Big B was throwing a wrap party that evening and we should come. We never say no to free drinks and food so we turned up. Big B didn't make his own party due to a family emergency but Mr Khan did. We got accosted at various points by a gaffer (seriously) and the personal assistant to Big B. The closed the bar after 11 but I ran upstairs and raided the minibar. We mostly hung out with the Spanish/Italians
Big Indian Move StarBig Indian Move StarBig Indian Move Star

Here is my paparazzi shot of Mr Khan, a big and famous movie star, well spotted by P.
and another English/American couple, who had some interesting stories to tell. All 6 of us drank the white wine because we hadn't had wine in weeks due to the outrageous tariffs India imposes on it and we polished off all the bottles they had. Eventually the army/police showed up and told the hotel to turn the music off so the villagers could sleep. Even Mr Khan couldn't change their minds. So reluctantly we went to bed.

September 29: Nothing much happened this day. We went to the airport and flew to Delhi, and from there to Singapore. I had a surreal experience leaving Delhi where I was told that I had too many batteries in my hand luggage (I'm carrying a 10 pack each of AA and AAA.) So after a ten minute argument that went nowhere, we had to go through a quintessentially Indian procedure involving writing my name in a little book and filling out a form and then, at some point later, bringing a guy from Singapore Airlines over to take custody of the batteries and fill out some more forms and write some more pointless stuff in the little book and then take them on the plane. I got them back in Bangkok. Good use of everyone's time, I say.



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17th September 2005

Fun
After having read the Historian I'd keep an eye on the bats. Sounds like the plans are working out, and if not, ya'll seem to easily adjust! Keep the info coming; this is fun.
25th September 2005

Gee!
The large sand dunes sound really pretty. Hope you're feeling better and take care.
2nd October 2005

Spine Stretching?
As a cure for don't-drink-the-water type gastrointestinal badness, spine stretching is a new one on me, but I'll be sure to try it when the time comes! Sounds like you're having a blast, I'm jealous and hope to see you stateside soon!

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