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Published: August 6th 2007
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Wedding guests (Pushkar)
The groom is ahead sitting on a brightly decorated horse parading down the street Jodhpur
After leaving Jaisalmer we spent 3 nights in Jodhpur, a much larger, stinkier & less interesting city in the desert. The highlight was wandering around the old fort, which towers behind the blue city. Nearly every house in the entire city is painted a light shade of indigo (great because it keeps places cool & also acts as an insect repellant)
Some silly scams we came across...
a young girl begging with a baby in the market square. She comes from a well-off family, but her parents enjoy the extra beer & meat money. The poor baby is out in the sun all day to help draw in new tourists.
A father & son with a collection of money from all over the world...The son is sent down the street to ask tourists which country they're from...then he passes it on to his father who removes that countries currency & when the tourists come they show them the set & say: ".....but we're missing New Zealand dollars...do you have any so I can complete my set?".
The owner of the first guesthouse we stayed at told us that a french woman had been raped at a neighbouring guesthouse 3
days ago...by a rickshaw driver & the owners father. We found out later that it wasn't true, & the guesthouse we stayed at often spin up tall stories to try & stop their guests from switching guesthouses.
Janine's birthday
Janine turned 47th on the 3rd of May, in 47 degrees. How auspicious is that?
Free entertainment for the locals in Jodhpur
After being groped by a disgusting Indian man on our way up to the fort (he seemed nice enough when he first started talking to us) I spent hours hoping i'd run into him again. He had sprinted off down the hill. Then the next day we were waiting for our lunch on a rooftop restaurant & saw them below. We ended up providing a bit of a spectacle for the street!! Everyone was crowded outside their houses down the whole street watching 2 white women, 1 policeman & 10 locals sprinting down the road after 3 Indian men! I just wanted him to be shamed infront of his family & friends - he would have never done that to an Indian woman. Hopefully he won't go messing around with foreign women again, & i'm sure he'll think kiwi
Pushkar camel
Grumpier than he looks! women are crazy! Rightly so.
Hip hip hippies in Pushkar
The Lonely Planet does say that many people "grind to a satisfied halt experimenting with Spirituality, dried bhang leaves & facial hair" in Pushkar. I expected it to be more of an exaggeration, but after 5 minutes walking down the street I knew we'd have to get out of there in a few days! Every second shop owner yelled out "special bhang lassi?", more than 60%!o(MISSING)f the tourists had dreads & wandered around in barefeet. An old man dressed in weird clothes veered over the road & bumped into me muttering "holy city, must cover shoulders" in a robotic voice. I'm already roasting in my grandma-style shirt (sorry Evelyn), but maybe i'm still not dressed modestly enough. A few days later we saw that old western man again...dancing down the middle of the road in a long white skirt, pink top & white beret...carrying a boquet of flowers & holding a feminine style handbag. Just over the road from him there was another man playing a flute to a cow (standing right in front of its face with bent knees). And a few meters away from him there was
Monkey bars (Pushkar)
Maybe if they didn't swing from the powerlines all day there would be less powercuts in pushkar...(at least 5 a day while we were there!) another guy playing an imaginary musical instrument at a "techno lassi shop", which of course, also served bhang lassis. Everything in Pushkar seems to be holy, including money.
"Ayurvedic cow urine treatment"
Google it if you're interested. You can get it here.
Ways to get a criminal record
Consuming eggs or any other meat products is illegal here, along with drugs & alcohol. There are also signs highly advising you against showing public displays of affection & photographing pilgrims washing in the lake.
Some weird things we've come across:
*A monkey stealing a mango from the market & sitting next to a sign saying "spiritual walk this way".
*A 110 year old woman who still has some brain function..
*A Saddhu (holy man) man asking for money to take a picture of his deformed cow. Janine suggested I show him my funny toe & ask him to give me money instead. I declined.
Udaipur
Known as "the most romantic city in Rajasthan" Udaipur is famed for its Lake Palace. At a mere $3000 US per night you can enjoy a nights sleep in the same hotel Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie visited recently. "Octopussy",
Pichola Lake (Udaipur)
You can't see the lake palace in this pic..watch the James Bond movie if you're interested in it! one of the cheesiest James Bond movies was also filmed here. Nearly every restaurant in town offers free viewings of it & it has fast become "the thing" to do. We watched it with about 8 other tourists at a roof top resaurant with views over the palaces it was filmed in. 10 minutes from the end the power cut out - like it does about 6 times every day here - so we had to wait in anticipation to see whether Bond survived or not.
After Udaipur we took yet another train (i'm getting sick of all of the long journeys..more because of the men we have to put up with on the way than the boredom) to Jaipur (12 hours).
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Cheryl
non-member comment
The Bindi lasses
Great blog on your indian travels. here is New Zealand with our male shortage and you guys are chasing them away. I like your style:) From the picys though the city looks amazing. I can imagine life is somewhat different and at the moment a hell of a lot warmer. You may be wearing silk, but think of us in our polyprops. Kepp those blogs comeing and enjoy your next adventure. Cheryl, Sam and Jack