Days 2 and 3 (Rohat and the drive to Udaipur)

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November 3, 2008. The day before election. Actually, here in India it’s a day before the election but back in the U.S. of A., it’s still two days before. Follow that line of thinking if you can. We’re flying on an ATR - 500, a funny looking turboprop, soon to land in Jodhpur. Our group is jelling well. Vincent, our instructor, is being very, very nice. Someone must have spoken to him last night. Either that, or he heard someone (who I can’t imagine) refer to him as an asshole at dinner. Maybe he’s just relaxing with the group and, since he has now completed his mandatory ablutions designed to demonstrate how wonderful he is, there is no longer a compulsion to have everyone kiss his ass on a constant basis. Maybe he got laid last night and feels better about himself. For whatever reason he has been a different guy today.

The Indians wear some really cool outfits, especially the women. Those wrap around dresses, some of which are called saris, come in beautiful colors and patterns. The colors are bold and it causes the women to stand out of the background and draws attention. This is different I think from Western dress (no not Wyoming Western - Western Western), in that as nice as women’s clothing tends to be, the fashions appear to be pretty homogeneous, or at least the differences are generally subtle. But the b.o.!!! Wow! I’m sitting next to a quite attractive Indian couple in their 50s. They are very well dressed and groomed, but boy do they stink. Maybe it’s the sort of thing we would get used to. I’ll let you know. Fran has a cold. Lucky her.

They fed us on the plane. It’s lunch time. I passed. Surprised? Me too. Fran too. She wonders if I am coming down with a case of Delhi belly. I don’t think so. I just figure if Indian food is risky for us Westerners then eating airplane food is like betting on the Cubs to win a world series only without the possibility of a great payoff.

We arrived in Jodhpur, a city of 1 million, at around 2 PM. We landed at a combined military civilian airport, more military than civilian. It was hot, 95 degrees. Las Vegas hot. We immediately got in the bus and headed to the old city. It’s a “target rich environment for photographers, narrow alleys and dark warrens with most of the stone painted a bright blue. Blue is a tradition but it’s also because the color comes from indigo powder found locally and it’s very inexpensive. That contrasted with the brightly colored doorways, the natural stone color unpainted and the wonderful clothing on the people, it’s pretty spectacular. We began what would turn out to be a 3 hour walk.

But this was a prelude to what can be described in an understated way as a unique adventure. As we exited the tight alleyways and into the “streets” meaning only slightly wider than the alleyways, we were confronted with hundreds of thousands of people walking, riding bicycles and riding in the noisy three wheeled taxis toward points unknown. Lest you think that this resembles a stroll in Paris in the 1920s, there was no order, or at least no apparent order and all these folks were going as fast as they possibly could, all with horns constantly blazing. Paris it’s not. The taxis would blare their horn and then miss us by inches or even give us a little bump. Oh, and there were cows and donkeys and cow and donkey diarreah all within this mix of people and machines. The horns. The horns. They never, ever stopped. It’s the culture. It’s the way they communicated we think. But all the while there were these amazing people that loved to be photographed. They were poor but most not as destitute as in Delhi (with exceptions - I took a neat photo of an old woman beggar in the street with twin girls walking by).

We walked through a spice market, a place where they were making soap, making candy (I didn’t know which was which), a place where they were dying silk, making metal parts, hammering silver, mixing concrete, selling food, flowers, medicine, everything. And the horns never stopped. It was hard to stay together. Distractions abounded. If one got lost, who knows. There was no direction to the bus that we knew, no street signs, and some shady looking characters. I was worried about Fran. I tried to keep an eye on her and on the guide, sometimes 50 feet away. But as the day wore on, Fran began to bond with Vincent, the photography instructor. According to Fran, and to a lesser extent, me, he isn’t as much of an asshole as he appears. He took Fran under his wing, lent her a long lens, critiqued her work constantly, talked about theory and asked her challenging questions. She loved it. We were all burned out and then we had a 2 km walk to where the bus would meet us. It was a long 2 km since at least one of the group would stop every minute to take photos. Finally, thank God, the son went down. We couldn’t take any more photos. We had become fairly immune to the horns but the crowds still made me uncomfortable. Our guide knew a short cut. We walked through a dump with the smell - just imaging. They used a lot of biodegradable products. We know that because the dump was filled with cows eating the garbage and shit. No more milk in my cereal.

We got back to the bus. We all had one thing on our mind; peeing. Unlike the Indians, we all for some reason decided not to pee in the street. We had a five minute ride to our next stop, a shop that sold high quality fabrics; beautiful fabrics that were made into shawls, duvet covers, pillows, etc. And there was a bathroom. I broke my old personal record - 4 minutes nonstop. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it made me feel proud of my prostate. They had their spiel down pat and actually the fabrics, throws and duvet covers were beautiful and extremely well-made. Prices were unbelieveable. I don’t know this stuff, but for $200 they were selling stuff that would be thousands at Neiman Marcus or Armani Casa. But by now we were tired and hungry - just power bars for lunch for those of us that didn’t eat the airplane food. And the sales pitch went on and on. Finally! Over! I was too cranky to buy anything, but we were in the minority. We hopped back on the bus for a one hour drive to our hotel in Rohat. It was 9:30 when we arrived, unfed. It’s a beautiful place in the country and our room was fantastic. We lighted there for 2 minutes then headed to the dining room and had a big buffet of you guessed it, yellow stuff and brown stuff, lamb, chicken, chick peas and some red wine that Richard liked, which Jan thought resembled Mogen David. It mattered not. Midnight, we were sleeping.

8:15 this morning; after a breakfast of toast and potatoes, we headed off into waiting Jeeps to go to villages. Another adventure. We crossed pasture land and saw goatherds, cattle, wild black buck (a local antelope) and a lot of sand. We came to a village of huts made of clay and cow dung and photographed the villagers. These are very simple people, farmers that live in these huts with no furniture but for a cot for sleeping. It was spotless. There were children, parents and grandchildren and we got some great shots. Fun. Then we traveled another ten minutes in the jeep to a Braman village. The Bramans are the highest class, followed by the Warriors, the Merchants and the Untouchables. But high class did not mean wealthy. All of the houses in this village of stone and mud were attached and we photographed for a while. Then we completed the visit with participation in an opium ceremony where some of us drank a mixture of opium and cane sugar, melted and filtered. It had no effect on me as you can tell because, ummmmm, i’mmmmm writtttting this blogggg to you today and seem to be in perfect spirits. Actually my tummy which was getting iffy, seeeeeems to be currreddd. Cool. Never did that before.

We then drove 2 hours to a hotel for lunch (2:30 lunch). It was the same as all the other lunches, but it was a nice setting in the middle of nowhere. After lunch visited a 15th century Hindu Temple. It's from a sect called the "Jane Religion." An extreme form of Hinduism, it believes that one should do no harm to animals. To visit, we had to remove all items of clothing made from animals; shoes, belts, wallets, my blackberry case, etc. It was beautiful, made of marble, and famous for its 1144 columns and no rooms. I took a photo of the priest which I'll include. Then 3 more hours of driving to Udaipur. We are staying at a hotel on a big lake. We've got a big suite which we are sharing with Dan and Jan. We had dinner in our living room. It was great. We're pooped. Tomorrow we are all getting up early to watch the election returns. Our group is about 60/40 for Obama. Richard is the most vocal McCain guy. No more on politics. By now, it is what it is. Hope you enjoy our stories.

Love, David and Fran

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Comments

[Theo Folz]

days 2 and 3
First one has to go back to each day to see comments. Mine was there. You are doing a great job of making me feel that I am right there with you. Frankly, I think I am close enough. While you are doing this, I am emailing with Gaia Gaja this morning--29 years old--and organize next years white truffle and wine trip. When do you leave India? I think you should stop in Paris for three days of cleansing. Don't get up too early--polls will stay open very light and all you will get is predictions based upon exit interviews. Come home soon.