Last Stop ... Mumbai

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So this is the last full day of exploring in India. You might ask, well what are we doing on the internet in that case - well it is monsoon and one place the monsoon is a true monsoon is Mumbai. Pouring, flooding rain from morning to night, so a small interlude in an internet cafe is not such a bad thing.

We left off in Jaipur with stomach ailments ...

From there we headed to Jodhpur - the "blue city." Neither one of us were all too excited about Jodhpur. Well we were unable to book a train trip out and I got in a couple of "discussions" with the man who owned our guesthouse. So Jodhpur was interesting because most of the buildings within the old city walls are painted a bright blue. Looks quite interesting on the backdrop of red dirt desert. Starting in Jodhpur we also noticed a much stronger presence than elsewhere of Jainism. This is a religion that is a stem from Hinduism and the followers are strict vegetarians (no eggs), they kill no leaving creatures, including mosquitoes and they meditate in the nude. The priests even go so far as to wear a face mask so as not to inhale a bug and refrain from walking at night to avoid accidental murder of a bug, but they still manage to think it is okay to throw all litter into the streets for others to clean up. The Jain people build beautiful white marble temples adorned with hideously bright, in contrast, figures of animals and a lot of birds.

So on from Jodhpur, by way of local bus, we headed to Jaislamer - the "Gold City." The bus was the nicest we have ridden so far this trip and was not too expensive. Took only 6 hours to get to Jaisalmer. Wow. What a beautiful place. The guide books say it is like a golden sand castle in the Thar desert and this is really what it looks like. So gorgeous. All the homes, shops, old fort and palace are built with yellow sandstone and there is a definite mystical desert feel about this city. The streets were rather clean and the people friendly. Pretty amazing. We found excrutiatingly cheap lodging in a very nice room and immediately booked a camel safari into the Thar Desert. We opted for the non-touristic variety - which included a jeep trip off into the desert where we met our camels (Johnny, Charlie, Rocket and the nameless baby), our camel drivers (Daniel and Ali), and then we headed off into the desert for 3 days and 2 nights. It was my favorite experience this whole trip. Being in the middle of nowhere on the back of a camel with nothing but nothingness surrounding is pretty surreal. Our guides were great and cooked a decent meal as well. Daniel (his western name) gave me a lesson on making chapati. We slept on the roof of an abandonded farm house amongst the scattered ruins of an ancient former settlement. And just a quick note about the camels - I rode Johnny, he was a good camel, a bit stupid and a former racing camel, therefore having to be led at all times by someone for fear of him taking me off to Pakistan, but a good camel - Andrew's camel was Charlie, boy was he a bad camel, his face was deformed from birth and he caused a lot of trouble trying to eat every passing leaf and drink at every puddle, yeah he was a bad camel.

After the great Safari we stayed and explored Jaisalmer, such a charming city, for another day before heading on to Udaipur.

Udaipur is famous for it's white marble lake palace. Well when we arrived the lake was bone dry. Udaipur was a nice stopping point along the trip and was a nice little city. We spent the days just walking and exploring. There was a beautiful Jain temple and the City Palace was quite impressive. Overall, however there were a lot of tourists and we were ready after two days to head on to the next destination.

Mt. Abu, a destination popular as an Indian honeymoon destination and also because of its proximity and accessibilty to the neighboring dry state of Gujarat. Mt. Abu is a tropically forested mountain area at about 1700 M elevation right in the middle of the desert. It was quite cool and breezy there and made a nice break from the suffocating heat that is India. We had planned on doing a combination of long hikes in the mountains and relaxing. On our first attempt at a hike we were stopped at a crossroad and told by an official that we could not continue - "tourists get murdered" - that was the reason. So we went a different way, wondering how much was exagerrated for sale of an expensive local guide (locals don't get murdered), but also a little concerned about being the statistic that is warned against proceeding and gets killed after not listening. So we questioned around town and as it turns out apparently even the locals will not travel into the hills in small groups. The danger is a combination of apparent man-eating bears with a huge population in the mountains and frequent attacks and the people who drink too much, go into the mountains and mug and kill "rich" tourists. We were still able to go on long walks, but stayed on major paths and roads. We were able to access some really interesting temples. The first was built into the rock face of a mountain and you had to literally crawl in between the cracks to access the main shrine. The second was a series of Jain temples, known as Delwara temples. All I can say is holy breathtaking, intricately carved, ornately exquisite beauty in the form of a white marble temple. The artisans who did the relief work between 1000 - 1300 CE (that's AD for old-fashioned people) were paid by the amount of dust they collected. THis explains the very detailed designs. Not sure there are any other words to describe it, but utterly amazing.

So we were blessed by the sight of the temples and then cursed with the bus ride from hell later that day to reach the train station 20 Km away. Yeah local bus, and thanks to me we waited half an hour for the cheaper bus. On the way down the steep corkscrew road our bus driver actually managed to squeal the tires around every one of the 1000+ curves and also managed to pass the bus about 8 km down the road that left half an hour before us. Somehow, someway we arrived to the train station a bit frazzled, but alive.

Night train to Mumbai. Arrived early the next afternoon. Found a cheap hostel. Welcomed by the buckets of water falling from the sky. Mumbai is a very modern city. Such a bizarre place to end a trip to India. This city could be any major metropolis in the world and feels nothing like the India we have experienced up until this point. There are beautiful official buildings, we walked along the boardwalk of the Arabian Sea in yesterday's downpour and watched the newest Bollywood hit "Jaane Tu ..." in a local cinema. Today we are going to head a bit North of the center to the local market scene and check out Chowpatty Beach (sadly too toxic for a dip). Then tomorrow morning we board the train for a 30 hour ride to Kolkata. We will have the afternoon there to wander the slums and leave with the India we remember as our last image and then fly to Bangkok the next morning.

So this is the end to this place called India. Leaving is so bittersweet. While there are cravings for so many comforts, the struggles are what make this place truly unique. You see everything here. The history, the prejudice, the poverty, the wealth, the religion ... everything in your face as if on display. This place had been truly amazing.

Going to attempt to upload some photos now. Enjoy.

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Comments

[Dad (or Dave)]

Alyssa and Andrew, thanks for the wonderful stories and great pictures. It was the next best thing to being there with you. Looking forward to seeing you soon.. Dad