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Published: February 2nd 2007
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The bus trip from Jodhpur to Udaiper was probably the best one we have had yet. It wasn't filled to the roof with people, it stopped for bathroom breaks and was ONLY 2 hours late!! Not bad! After we arrived in Udaiper we checked in to a hotel call Hotel Anjani my friend recommended. It was a huge beautiful room that I was happy to settle down in for a few days.
Udaiper is known as one of the most romantic cities in India so there are lots of nice parks, restaurants and places to hang out. The city itself is set around the lake and is surrounded by mountains. In the middle of the lake there are 2 different islands that contain hotels that the movie Octopussy with James Bond was filmed at. Every hotel and restaurant plays the movie every night but we still havent got around to watching it...guess we will have to wait untl we go home.
The first day in Udaiper we went on a tour around the city by rickshaw. We went to see an area where all the royal families tombs are located. There were about 400 different tombs. it was cool
to see them all and read the history of the people because It all dated back to very early times. We then continued on to go to a museum of fine art. Usually I am not the type of person to enjoy a museum but this one was awesome. It was filled with different types of paintings, masks, puppets and lifesize models that were used for performances. There was also a rajastani puppet show that took place. After we went to a few different parks, gardens and lookout spots. I love just going to the parks here because they are so beautiful and a great way to escape the hectic cities. Our final stop was to this crafts village. It was an area that had a bunch of mud huts as museums and shops. There was also about 20 different dance groups that will perform for you whenever you walk by. Even though it was pretty touristy place it was cool to see all the different styles of art and dance.
The next day was spent going to the City Palace. It is a beautiful palace that is half museum and half restored palace. It is always so much
fun to just walk through all the different corriders and look through all the rooms and imagine what it would have been like to live there. After the city palace we struggled again to arrange our travel plans for the south of India. We are thinking we might have to change our flight back to thailand instead of seeing what we wanted to in the south. Alot of the trains that we need to get on have waitlists of 450 people. Sometimes with smaller waitlists you will get on...but 450!!?? And we are not willing to take 20 hour bus rides because the buses in India are never good. Soo we are thinking head back to thailand then do Burma, Singapore and Malaysia. Now we just need to hope that we can change our flight unless we are stuck in 3 cities for 3 weeks..blah.
The last day in Udaiper we took an Indian cooking course. We have now done one in every country we have been to. It is always so much fun. We learned how to make about 5 different things so again we can make friends and family culture dinners! After our course we went and
bought some spices that we need that are fairly expensive at home and now we are set to do some indian cooking.
One day that we were in Udaiper there was a Muslim festival. I am not sure what it is called but apparently it is like their holiest day of the year or something. There are these huge statues things that they run up the street with and each one gets bigger and bigger. They had to cut all the power lines and cable lines for the day in order to bring them through. After they finished running through the streets with them they just through these beautiful things into the lake! The traditions out here are quite strange. Every Indian person we talked to would tell us to stay in our hotel or at a rooftop restaurant because it wasn't safe for us. We had no idea why? during the day it was a really cool vibe around the city with all the women and children in one area and all the men in one area. Segregation is huge in india and you will never see men and women together. Then we went for dinner and when
we came out it was all men and pure madness. We had no way to get back to our hotel without going through the men. This is when it became scary. I was the only girl out there and they all were laughing that i was out there ...Even the cops with the sticks were laughing at me.Everyone was screaming and pushing and running. There were cows running around while the streets were already packed enough with people. It was soo scary because it didnt even seem like a festive environment it more felt aggresive.
When we got back to our hotel we were watching on the news about the festival in all the different cities and countries. We were so happy we were in a smaller town because alot of the places were pure violence and beating and killing. Thank god we didnt have to experience that. Anywas not much else to write the next few days are travel days! Will update soon!
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Sherise
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TTombs and Elephants and Bodies... oh my!
Hey Jazz, It's been so intriguing reading your travel blog. Please keep writing! I love the picture you took of the tombs. It must be so amazing to see the things you describe... Especially street elephants and dead body parades... life truly doesnt' get any sweeter, does it? Can't wait to see you again when you get home!