Tour in route to Udaipur (5 APR)

For our trip to Udaipur, we took a private car and toured some of the country side to visit local craftsmen, a small village and opium ceremony, and an amazingly ornate Jain Temple. Our first stop was at a potter's home/workshop. He demonstrated his skills at a pottery wheel where he whipped out several vases, banks and pots in a matter of minutes. It was quite impressive to watch, especially when I had some experience making less impressive products on a much nicer wheel. His wheel was a large stone that was balanced on a greased point so it could spin a few inches above the ground. To build up speed and momentum on the wheel to work, he hand cranked the wheel with a stick he inserted in a small divot on the outer edge of the wheel. This meant that each time he got the wheel spinning, or gave it an additional boast of speed, the whole thing would wobble in a slightly new rhythm, so he had to complete a piece before spinning it again... hard to explain but amazing to watch.

Next, we headed for the small village of round thatch roof homes where we participated in an opium ceremony. The ceremonies are common in the small villages as a social/religious ritual and the opium is ground, filtered into water, and drank from the palm. Usually, a guest drinks from his host hand and vice-versa. It was interesting to watch and several members of the group took part but did not notice any affects from the opium. However, the opium is said to be good for the digestive system and in that respect it appeared it may have worked, but I'll discuss this in the next blog.

From the village we travelled to a rug factory where I tried my hand weaving on a hand loom, along with my roommate, and then looked at some amazing final products. Our final stop was the Jain Temple, set in India's longest mountain range, that starts in Delhi at the steps of the President's Estate. The temple was an amazing display of marble sculpture work with at least 4 domes similar to the one pictured, and hundreds of ornate columns and Buddha like sculptors of Jain's prophets known as Jinas or Tirthankaras, as well as elephants, goddesses and other scenes and designs. The entire temple must have taken thousands of artisans years to complete, and is so filled with amazing details that you feel overwhelmed as you enter and try to soak it all in as a whole down to the minute details of each pillar and dome.

The rest of the trip was a high speed trek through the mountains narrowly missing suicidal cattle, monkeys and fellow vehicles on the curvy roads to Udaipur, 'the most romantic city in India.'

Johdpur (3/4 APR)

Our journey to Johdpur was an adventure. Our bus was a comfortable sleeper bus, with bunks up top and seats below. We were the first batch of customers aboard and the number ebbed and flowed along the way, but in general only seemed to grow. Whole families packed the sleeper bunks designed for two people and the isle filled quickly and the crowd only thinned at times. I had a single seat and wasn't approached with requests to share, but some or the members of our group found themselves sharing the armrest or half their chair with single passengers or parts of families along the way. Toward the end of the journey, we even had roof top passengers, who must have been clinging for dear life when our driver got into a high speed horn blasting, race with a competitor bus line along a curvy stretch of busy highway. Apparently, our driver wanted to pass the other bus in hopes of picking up additional passengers!?! Where, he was planning on stowing them, I haven't a clue. In the end he gave up chase; and shortly thereafter, we passed a gruesome motorcycle accident, which was sobering enough to keep the driver's speed down the rest of the trip.

We arrived in Johdpur in the evening, but were still able to catch the last of the setting sun as it silhouetted the city's forts, which rose from red stone cliffs and towered above our Haveli Hotel below. The city is known as the blue city because of the extensive number of properties painted blue, which once was a color reserved for houses of the upper Brahman caste, but is now used by any caste. In the morning, we toured the fort and palace, which was impressive for similar sandstone lattice work as we saw in Jaisalmer. However, unlike Jaisalmer's fancy exteriors and weathered/gutted interiors, the palace at Johdpur had impressive rooms, cannons, carriages, weapons and art on display. Some of the more gruesome parts of the fort's history was the story of a man that volunteered to be buried alive within the walls to abate a curse of poor water supply, which was wished on the kingdom by the hills first resident who was kicked off his land to make way for the fort/palace. The second, more recent was the trampling of devotees at the fort's temple during a religious festival in 2008. In a sad irony, around 150 died and 100 more were injured when the crowd surged and people slid down the steep walkway to the temple on the milk of coconuts, which were meant to be offerings to the goddess for good fortune. I visited the temple as preparations were being made for the same festival one year later and learned of the tragedy only after I had visited.

In the afternoon, we took a trip to the Umaid Bhawan Palace, which claims to be the largest in India, but so does the City Palace in Udaipur. At any rate, the palace is relatively young and was started in 1929 and took 3000 workers 15 years to complete. It was the Maharaja's 'philanthropic' way of creating jobs, similar to the Civil Conservation Corps project to employ people in the US during the same era. I must say, I enjoy the public park projects that the government funded in the states a little more, especially since the public is allowed to use the parks while most of the palace is restricted the the Maharajah's family or guests in the section that has been converted into a hotel.

During our last evening in Johdpur, my roommate and I went out with our guide, Raj, for a late night dinner with some of his local friends. It was a lot of fun hanging out and drinking with them, but my roommate and I were still quite full from our dinner earlier in the evening. We ended up stuffing ourselves, because the food and company was great, but wished we would have skipped dinner earlier that evening. The next morning, we were up early to take a tour of rural pottery and rug shops, as well as a opium ceremony on our way to Udaipur.

Jaisalmer (31MAR-3APR)

The journey to Jaisalmer was a long one, and we traveled from the semi-arid drought conditions of central India, into the heart of the Thar Desert. Despite the arid conditions of central India, the transition into the desert was not only noticeable, it also seemed quite drastic and abrupt. As we traveled, the farms struggled more and more against the parched earth, until finally one farm of short struggling greenery gave way to the next farm that was nothing more than plowed sand praying for rain. The plowed sand was quickly followed by sand dunes, and we were officially in the Thar Desert. The villages also transitioned from densely packed, colorful, block buildings, to small groups of round huts with whitewashed clay or stone walls and conical thatch roofs.

When we arrived in Jaisalmer there was a noticeable increase in the commitment of government funds for tourism, compared to most of the destinations in the south. The train station looked like it had just been refurbished with a stone wall facade, to make it a better welcoming platform to the fort and other impressive sandstone buildings in the city. The streets were lined with new light fixtures that looked like sandstone lanterns with lattice work that was similar to the city's fort palace and Havelis (mansions) in town. I had heard stories of the aggressive vendors and dirty streets of north India, but I was pleasantly surprised at how little hassle I received in Jaisalmer, and the streets seemed no worse than any other town I had visited. Actually, the vendors seemed to graduated to a new level here. Rather than chat you up and pull heartstrings in hopes that they are attached to your wallet, they were up front, but comical, with calls like, 'come see my shop, I won't rip you off much' or 'make me happy and your wallet lighter'

The fort is a living fort and about 25% of the towns population and commerce is still located within the forts walls, unlike most of the forts we visited, which were only filled with tourists and empty palaces. Our hotel was one of the businesses within the fort walls, and my room was inside one of the 99 Bastions around the fort. It had windows looking north and south along the fort wall and one to the west over the city and the parade grounds used for cricket, soccer, and part of the annual desert festival that has competitions like best turban tying and best moustached man.

The sandstone lattice work on the palace within the fort, and on many of the Havelis in town, was incredible and must have took a city of craftsmen to complete. In the pictures you can see an example of the lattice work, which is a photo of the front of the Patwon-ki Haveli, which was owned by a merchant banker and took 50 years to complete. The outside was incredible but the inside was depressingly run down and nearly gutted. All that remains in most of the complex is peeling paintings and wood work on the ceilings, which have been taken over by bats. Only a small section has been preserved as a museum to give you an idea of its past grandeur.

Another theme of our visit was wedding announcements, which were painted on walls throughout the city. All of them looked the same with a picture of Ganesh (the elephant headed god) and his mouse on a lotus flower and information about the couple and wedding. I was going to take a picture of an announcement with one of the many street cows standing in front of it, and two boys jumped in to be a part of the photo as well, making for a classic shot.

Our last night in Jaisalmer was actually spent outside the city on a Camel Safari. We departed the city just as a dust storm blew into town and we met our camels and camel drivers in the middle of nowhere as the dust was beginning to settle. We lazily wondered across the desert, with the authenticity of our safari only spoiled by the occasional cell phone call to one of our camel drivers or a car whizzing by on the road our trek paralleled. We sauntered into our camp as the sunset, and by evening, we had calm, cool, star filled skies and sand dunes as a back drop for our dinner and gypsy dancer entertainment. We joined in on the dancing briefly, but the girls within the group were quickly found at a distance again after a few of them got groped by the gypsy girls!? The group had been warned of problems past tourists had with men groping women, but none of us expected it from a female dancer. It was shocking, but brief and the evening was still a highlight in the journey.

In the morning, my roommate awoke and found he had torn the seam of his shorts from front to back and had no recollection as to how or when he did it, which was an entertaining start to our day. We had a quick breakfast and then rode back toward civilization on our camels. It was an enjoyable ride back with a few gazelle, peacock and other wildlife sightings however we found we were all a little saddle sore from the day before, so we were ready to trade in the camels for jeeps to finish the journey back to Jaisalmer.

Back in Jaisalmer, I made a quick trip to a hill in town, with one of the ladies from our group, to take pictures of the fort's north face. We met several little kids along the way that were excited to see Westerners this deep in the village and excitedly showed us the way pointing out the homes of all their friends and relatives along the way. They got us up the hill and we were trying to take a good picture, but one home was in the way. The gracious owner was watching the whole scene unfold and kindly invited us up to his roof top terrace for a great view of the fort. He then gave us a tour of his humble home, which consisted of a single room with two small closets, a balcony that could fit two people and a small fenced yard. It was small but well cared for and in an amazing location for the view. We took pictures with him and some of his family, in addition to about 30 pictures of the kids who brought us, which were posing outside for 'one more picture' after another. As we left, we showed the kids a few of the pictures and they crowded around the small camera screen with gasps of amazement and amusement. The kids then wanted us to join them for a game of cricket, and I tried to explain that we didn't have the time and I really didn't know how to play. Neither argument seemed to hold much water with them, so it was a challenge to part ways. The whole experience made for a great capstone to the visit, and in the end we made it back with enough time to shower before catching our five hour bus to Johdpur.

Dehli (28-30MAR)

In Delhi we had our last day with our group leader from the Mumbai to Delhi leg of the journey and met our new leader and group members. It was nice having such a small group through central India, but we were also fortunate to gain some great new people and a veteran guide that knows north India and the tour leader trade very well.

In Delhi, we toured the Old Delhi spice markets, and back alleys, a Sikh temple, India Gate and The Gandhi Museum. Since we ended one tour and started another, we actually got to see several of the sites twice with the two different group leaders. It was interesting to see the spice markets on the two different days, because on the second day most of the spice market was closed, which made it feel like a ghost town compared to the chaos from the day before. We also wondered the city on our own for a few hours and got a better feel for how big the city is. We wanted to see some of the old city gates that were marked on the map and looked nearby. They turned out to be quite far away and we never could find the actual gates, but we did find another street spice market, which was quite interesting after seeing the main spice markets earlier. The main market was a series of open front markets on the ground floor of buildings with produce tables and bins pouring out onto the sidewalk and the street market was a collection of vendors with their goods spread out on sheets along a wide street with a backdrop of rickety shanty town shacks.

We visited another large mosque in Delhi, the Jama Masjid, which can hold up to 25,000 worshippers and is said to be the largest in India, which would make it the second largest in the world if the one in Bohpal is actually the third largest and the Jama Masjid is the largest in India... I can't confirm or deny either claim, but the mosque was big.

The India Gate was interesting because I didn't know it was a war memorial and had assumed it was similar to the Gate of India in Mumbai which was built to welcome the Queen of England on one of her visits. Beneath the gates arch is a memorial to fallen soldiers and a guard detail similar to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the US.

Two days was not enough time to properly explore Delhi, but we did get a taste and then we were off to our first stop in Rajastan, Jaisalmer, the golden city.

Orchha (25-27MAR)

Orchha was a very enjoyable stop with warm and welcoming locals, which were the highlight of my trip from Mumbai to Delhi. The town was small and had a laid back feel despite a busy main road that cut through town and religious festivals at the local temple that had the square outside the temple crowded with pilgrims and music. The town is set on the Betwa river and the main fort and palaces are located along its bank. When we visited, the bridge to the fort crossed over fields and ponds, but in the monsoon season the river rises and the fort grounds become an island and the river acts as a natural moat. Beyond the ruins of the fort, there are several other large temples, palaces and cenotaphs (tombs) that nearly take up more of the village than the portions still occupied.

Like so many of the places I visited on this leg of my journey, this town was once the capital of an empire from 1500 until the late 1700s. Now it is just a sleepy town filled with amazing old palaces and temples, some of which have now been converted into homes, stables and grain silos. This is probably one of the things that surprises me most in India. The Hindu people build amazing structures for their gods that command the respect of faithful and tourists alike, but when the temple becomes inactive the faithful treat it like any other abandoned building, while tourists like me, still wonder through in awe. For instance one of the temple ruins we wondered through had a courtyard filled with wheat that was being harvested. Inside the temple, there was evidence of impressive paintings, but the ceiling and walls had been blackened by soot from fires that had been set for cooking or warmth on winter nights, which destroyed any paintings that had graced the walls and ceiling. Some of the palaces were conserved quite well and parts have been converted into high class hotels, however others are crumbling and used as homes for the poor or even as stalls for livestock.

Unlike the many other busy tourist towns with aggressive vendors pushing trinkets and took tooks, the stops along my central journey were much more laid back and the majority of the vendors were friendly and much less pushy about the sell and more interested in you and how you are enjoying their town and country. Although most vendors do start with this small talk, it is usually only to get you to slow down, so they can talk you into their shops. Here, they simply want you to slow down, chat and enjoy the day at the same sleepy pace the rest of the town is operating on.

One of the vendors we met, Cosila, had a collection of tobaccos, snacks and a pan, fire and cups for chai spread out under a shade tree between the ghats on the river and the Cenotaphs built for the past maharajahs. Also under the tree with her collection of goods for sale, was a little baby named Ramu. The woman was a widow, and had adopted the child after it had been abandoned outside the Ram Raja Temple. To support herself and Ramu she depends on the proceeds from her make shift shop, donations from locals, and the help of the Intrepid guides that have also adopted her and Ramu. We stopped for chai with our guide and left a little extra for her and Ramu as well.

After our chai, we wondered back up to the main fort grounds and were going to look for a place to take photos of sunset. Instead, we ended up on a tour with the local security guard that was keen on showing us the fort grounds. He had us climbing in, around and through many of the ruined buildings surrounding the main palaces until the sun had long set and we had to part ways before it grew too dark. Despite his enthusiasm, he spoke limited English and if he did not understand the question the answer was always 'yes.' At one point, he had shown as an old Hanuman (monkey god) statue, which was tucked in a ravine with a steady flow of ants marching to and from their nest. We wondered down to look at the statue, and when we turned around, our guide was taking off his shoes. We assumed ants had crawled in his shoes and asked if that was the case and his reply was 'yes.' He then left his shoes and walked past us, we went over to retrieve his shoes noting that he shouldn't leave them in the ants trail because he'd only end up with more ants in his shoes. We then realized that he had actually removed his shoes to show respect for the monkey god, which he was saying a quick prayer to before moving on.

On our last day in town, we took a walk out to the outer wall of the old capital and walked along the wall to take pictures and look for birds. At one point we past a local Sadhu (Holyman) who also had limited English, but wanted to tell us about a monkey god temple nearby. To convey his point, he posed like the god, standing on one foot with one hand above his head and the other over his stomach saying 'Hanuman, Hanuman.' We understood he was talking about the monkey god but couldn't figure out where he was directing us to see the temple or statue. A little bit further down the wall, we ran into some local kids who chatted with us and then wanted to bring us into their village. We were planning on going back in that direction and obliged them. As we walked toward the village more and more of the kids came out to meet us, and by the time we made it into town, I think the whole town had been alerted to the western curiosities that had been found wondering outside the village. The locals pulled out beds for us to sit on and quickly began to offer us chai as the kids pointed out where they lived in the village. Concerned for our weak western stomachs, we declined their offers of food and and decided to take only pictures, which were a big hit with the kids. One of the local men and a few of the children then accompanied us out of the village giving us a tour in limited English noting the local wheat harvests and other crops and stopping to show as an old ruin, which apparently now serves as a school. The whole experience was quite enjoyable but was tainted a little at the end when the man suggested we give the kids 10-20 rupees each before parting ways.

The few days in town were great and it was a shame to leave the warm welcoming people of the small towns for the impersonal crowds, traffic and noise of Delhi.