HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that your new year's eve was fun and merry and that you are making [and consequently breaking] lots of new year's resolutions already! The last posting was written in Jodhpur, Rajasthan and was followed by a supermarathon travel session for me and my friend kasey. We left jodhpur on an overnight train to mumbai, arriving in mumbai at about 12 noon and went straight to my friend Misha's house. Kasey had never been to bombay so the idea was to do a whirlwind tour of some of the most fun stuff in the city and then grab an overnight bus (ugh) down to Goa for the night.
Of course, nothing goes as planned. We arrived in Mumbai sweaty and smelly and could not have been happier to be shown the way to a gorgeous shower (the best one ive had in india methinks) in mishas flat... ahhh! after refreshing and unpacking a bit, we drove down to town (colaba area), grabbed a snack at Leopold's cafe. By this point, I was getting a bit antsy to try to get bus tickets before it got tooo late and it s a good thing we left right away because we got to the bus stand at probably 4:13 only to find out that the latest bus possible was leaving at 6 pm and there were no sleepers (basically, we were going to be sitting in a chair on a shitty bus for an estimated 14 hours) AND all our stuff was at mishas... so we had to RUSH to mishas, grab our stuff, and hope to get back into town through rush hour by the time our bus leaves! we made it. after near heartattack and no time for grabbing dinner, we finally found the bus only to sit on it for an hour [wiht staring children and the most annoying of bombay's rich young men] before it left. fan-frickin-tastic!
needless to say, this bus ride did NOT take 14 hours... it took almost 18, stopped about 1.5 hours away from the destination when they forced us to get off the bus and get onto another one to take us the rest of way. when we got there (margao) at 12:40 pm, we found out that the ONLY bus per day that was going to our destination was leaving in 20 minutes! Yet another instance in India of slogging through the tough stuff to get a major reward after... but the rewards just kept coming!
We met some awesome folks on the fantastically gorgeous bus ride, arriving before sunset at about 5:15 to Gokarna after 4 nights of straight travel. This was when we were practically praying because we had no accomodation arranged in hopes that we could find a hut on the beach and sleep there... but there was a chance that all the huts would be occupied and we would be out of luck. once we hiked down to the beach and asked around at a few places, we found an unoccupied hut to rent (150 rupees for two people = $3.90) with a bed inside, rigged up mosquito net, a naked light bulb, bamboo walls, door that hardly closes and a sand floor... not to mention the funny hole-in-the-ground toilet and bucket shower. I would have thought that after marathon traveling one would look at such an abode with disgust but we embraced it quickly and wholeheartedly, hanging scarves to use at mini hammocks for our clothing and blasting some music on the iPod/speaker setup that I have.
In short, Gokarna ended up being absolutely amazing, a wonderful place to pass the new year! We moved after that first night into a hut that was located more centrally on the beach and was part of a hostel with a fantastic restaurant, running (cold) showers, and the best people around! Kasey and I mostly hung out with either a huge group of South Africans or a smaller little crew including us, an American guy (Coby), an Israeli guy (Chezi?), a British indian woman ('G'), and a French dude and his dad (Alex and Baba Andre)! The french father son combo are living in a little house made of cow shit in the woods about a 5 minute walk from the beach and just behind the Om Shree Ganesh guest house where we had a hut! We spent a large part of the new year back and forth between the 'well house' as its called because it has a massive well in the front and the beach...
The greatest thing about Gokarna and Om beach is that the beaches are about 30 minutes from each other and there are beautiful little hikes in between! most days we wold wake up, meet up with the little crew, eat some breakfast and then take a hike (or boat ride) to another beach for most of the day. some of these are more like walks and some are semi-strenuous rock climbing hikes but all superfun and mostly safe :o) and when you get to another beach, there are always shacks with food and drink and lots of people (sometimes nude) hanging around! Then we would head back to Om, catch the magnificent sunset from the sand and shower up for dinner and evening fun! sounds like a tough life, doesn't it? the toughest part was definitely leaving this morning... Besides the slow pace and picture-perfect scenery, it was amazing to feel like we had a little family there on Om beach. Not just friends, but the guys who worked at the restaurant knew me by name, loved my music (music can break all language barriers and so I was the designated iPod DJ for our stay there), took care of me and even offered me a job to stay! In going back to Bombay, I am also leaving Kasey to travel on her own. She has been a most amazing travel partner - so mellow and funny and easygoing - spending almost 24 hours a day with yours truly for almost 2 weeks!
Now I am in between and waiting for my overnight train back to Mumbai. It will be great to see some friends in bombay and have a few days at "home base" before facing the reality of real home! I hope that you had a happy and safe new year and perhaps see ya soon!
love
Friday, January 4, 2008
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Happy Christmas, Merry Chanukah, and a summary of recent events!
So I haven't updated in ages and here is a few of the most important travels, peoples, places, thoughts, etc from the past couple weeks! As many of you know, I will be arriving back to the USA on January 8th and am looking forward to seeing some friendly faces in Hamden/Htown/New Haven before I head to Haverford Jan 19th...If you do the math, you will realize that I have only a little under 2 weeks left to go, which is feeling really short and sad at the moment! I miss lots of folks from home but this country, the people, the eye-opening experiences everyday, the gorgeous (mostly) weather and much more will be incredibly hard to tear myself away from!
Picking up from where I left off last [real] post, I went from Haridwar to Delhi on an overnight train where I stayed overnight with some friends I made at the Navdanya farm up north. In Delhi, there is a huge government push to essentially do away with small businesses so any shop that is run out of a residence has to become one or the other (if this doesnt make sense, its maybe because I dont have a full understanding of the policy) and this is basically forcing any mom-and-pop-shops to flounder while the huge supermarkets flourish! Anyhow, this policy pushed an Indian man out of his office (which was in a residential building) and so when I arrived in Delhi, i found that my two friends (Kasey and Liz) were staying literally in an old office with two women who live there (Sibilla Italian and Karly American) and Sibillas friend Dario was there too... long story short we hung out all 6 of us in a tiny cold office with no windows! Despite the conditions, we tried to cook [failing miserably at making latkes] and had a grand old time. In the morning I went to the Delhi train station to try to find the tourist booking office and book the rest of my train tickets for my entire trip. This proved to be quite an experience... which i will preface by saying that there are even signs up around the New Delhi train station saying things like "IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE TOURIST BOOKING OFFICE, DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE WHO TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT IT HAS BURNED DOWN, IS CLOSED TODAY, IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION, HAS MOVED, OR NO LONGER EXISTS" [but in hilariously broken English]. So I went in, had a look around for the tourist office and then was pulled aside by a man who showed my his "train station license" proving that he worked there and took me by the arm (with ALL of my bags) to the tourist booking office. I GOT SCAMMED! he dragged me all the way down the road, me protesting the entire time that "i really think the booking office is INSIDE the train station" and him telling me "no no just a bit more"
Anyhow, we got to the booking office and I sat down at the desk [it looked quite legitimate] and the travel agent proceeds to receive a call on his mobile while smoking a cigarette and paying absolutely no attention to me! After finishing both mobile and cigarette, he turns to me, asks me rudely where I want to go and where from and when. I tell him my tentative plans (all based on whether i can get the trains or not) and he looks up on his computer and tells me time after time that there are no trains available for the dates or destinations that I want! Im beginning to get super frustrated, thinking that the remainder of my trip will be spent somewhere undesirable when he takes another phone call [and is on cigarette #5]... at this point, I kind of lost it and asked to speak with a different travel agent. I had then been there for about 1.5 hours! The next travel agent tells me to go next door to their "other office" where i talk to yet ANOTHER travel agent! This man quickly realizes that I know what i want to do and just want to book the tickets and tells me [honestly, for once!] that he only can book package tours and I should go to the tourist booking office in the train station!!!!! Im like "THATS WHERE I THOUGHT I WAS!" So a man standing next to me at this point is like "well Im going there and ill show you exactly where it is." finally ! We take a bicycle rickshaw (Rs. 15) back to the train station because he refuses to walk for 10 minutes and when we arrive at the train station gate, he tells me that the rickshaw is not allowed to enter the gate and the tourist booking office is "here only"... ANOTHER SCAM!!! I yelled at him that I was going into the train station and thank you very much goodbye and ran off. From there I went inside the train station, found the REAL tourist booking office, waited in the cue (now about 3 hours after I originally started out on this mission) and the people there were so unbelievably helpful that I was able to purchase almost ALL of the tickets i wanted for the entire rest of the trip and it all cost a little bit under 1000 Rupees (approx $25 USD)!!!
If you made it to the end of this incredibly long narrative of my train ticket-buying experience in Delhi, then I hope you have a better sense of what it can be like here. This is not to say that it is a scam around every corner everyday all the time, but it's always a learning experience, thats for sure! The other bit about this story that is a strong belief [and mostly true] all over India is that sometimes you just have to deal with a lot of crap in order to break through and find the gems, those people who are so helpful and sweet that it makes it all worth it! It is an exercise in patience that all of us can learn from.
So from Delhi, I left the train station and immediately got a bus to Agra, the city that's name is synonymous with the Taj Mahal! I arrived in Agra about 6 hours later and found a cheap hotel (the first hot shower from a tap i had had in almost a month!), woke up at the crack of dawn [or a bit before] and arrived at the Taj for sunrise! Seeing that world monument in real life was quite spectacular, but it is a mausoleum without any real spirit or soul. A gorgeous marble structure built for love and flanked by matching mosques, it is massive and impressive but not in the same way that a buddhist temple can really knock you over. I also did not get the most gorgeous day for viewing [not exactly clear blue sky] so I stuck around for a little while, took a bunch of photos (see the picasa web albums), met some awesome Norwegian tourists, and left!
After a quick lunch in Agra, I took a bus to Jaipur for about 7 hours and then an overnight train from Jaipur to Udaipur, where I was going to meet my friend Rebecca [whom I had met in Bombay at a Leprosy conference] and set up a home for a little while [a week]. I found Rebecca and some other AMAZING folks she had been hanging around with and Udaipur proved to be one of my favorite places in India thus far! There was just so much to do! Here's an overview of some of my activities:
-the amazing city palace is a massive structure built near the shore of the lake and set above with magnificent views of the lake and surrounding city ... it was really fun to explore and climb around
-I went horseback riding in the mountains/hills on the outskirts of the city for a few hours with a bunch of friends in Udaipur
-I took an AMAZING 5 hour cooking class with a bunch of folks in this amazing Indian woman's kitchen! She taught us everything! Chai, pakora, chutney (mango and coriander), veg curries, naan, garlic cheese and roast tomato nan, paratha, potato paratha, sweet paratha, and much more! Needless to say, we cooked for about 5 hours and then ate until we could hardly move... all the while listening to her speak about her life and story.
-I went pedal-boating on the lake with my Swiss-German friend. We were not allowed to go within 50 meters of the lake palace (also a hotel now) but we had a great time pedaling around and dipping our feet in, while hoping to avoid the crocs we heard sometimes surfaced in the lake!
-I hiked/walked up a mountain to the Monsoon Palace! This was a wonderful walk from my guest house all the way trhough the non-touristy part of the city and then into the gate of the park and all the way up this mountain. I rocked up there with my iPod plugged in (and flip-flops, feet forgive me) catching MANY stares because Indians don't walk places if they can avoid it and I was a crazy little bald white girl wearing Indian clothing and dancing down the street with headphones on, occasionally asking if I was going the right way! At the top i met these awesome French brothers and stayed with them to watch a magnificent sunset and then catch a ride in their rickshaw back down (apparently its not safe to walk at night as there are "big cats" that can attack)...
-I spent a day in Ranakpur (see picasa web albums) at this AMAZING Jain temple with Rebecca... wandering around, taking lots of photos, and soaking up the sun and enjoying the elaborate marble carvings everywhere!
Udaipur was fantastic, full of wonderful new folks, great walks and chats and palaces and temples and horses and cooking! what more could a girl ask for? On the 19th, I left my happy home that I had made in a dorm room in UDaipur and took an overnight bus to Jodhpur to meet up with Kasey (whom I had met at Navdanya farm and then stayed with in Delhi)! I was quite sick [yes, even I got the Delhi Belly or whatever you want to call it] so the overnight sleeper bus [think coffin shaped and sized box to try to sleep in while the bus driver tumbles over speed breakers, honks at everything, spits out the window, and swerves away from cows in the road] was miserable. But I arrived in Jodhpur at 4:30 am to the freezing cold and pitch dark and went straight to a hostal where I passed out/waited for Kasey to arrive!
When Kasey showed up, we spent the day resting [and shitting my brains out] in jodhpur, the blue city. It is named such because many MANY of the buildings are painted with an indigo paint as a marker of the brahmin caste... from above the city, it looks like its all blue! The next day we explored the amazing HUGE fort sitting above the city, ran into the fun french brothers I had met in Udaipur, and got ready to catch out overnight train to Jaisalmer and the Great Thar desert!
Arriving in Jaisalmer on the morning of the 22nd at 6 am, we were escorted to the Himilayan Guesthouse INSIDE of a magnificent but quite rundown fort! Unilke in Jodhpur, there are businesses, hotels, residential areas and all inside of the fort. This is posing a problem because the original water system in the fort was built for about one tenth of the amount of waste and water that it is currently handling... and the fort is slowly collapsing because of lack of upkeep. The new edition lonely planet guide book even recommends that people NOT stay in the fort (perhaps because of possible danger) but there are also signs up all around the fort entrance saying things like "Thanks to lonely planet we have lost our livelihood and our children are starving." Do we support the destruction of the people who depend on tourism in favor of the fort, or do we support the slow collapse of an important monument in favor of the residents? We stayed in the fort because we had a recommendation for the Himalayan guest house but ran into others who refused on ethical grounds to stay inside...
After one restful night, we awoke at 7 am to be joined by the french brothers and set out in a jeep to get 30 minutes away before we began our CAMEL TREK!!!! This deserves a blog post all to itself because it was a magical 3 days and 2 nights over xmas through the desert with spectacular company, the best guides around, delightful camel companions, and a LOT of christmas carols! Some of the highlights include:
-incredibly sore bum (obviously)
-running on camels through the desert (bumpy ride!)
-singing christmas carols around the campfire
-seeing the most amazing consecutive sunset, moonrise, stars, sunrise and moonset EVER!
-running and rolling in sand dunes
-sleeping on the sand
-smelling like a camel (foul!)
-wearing the same clothes for 3 days
-riding only 30 km from the PAKISTANI border!!!
...and much much more!
After we got back from the camel trek, we returned to find that our stinky selves could only manage to get hot water in a bucket so it was three days of camel stink that had to be scrubbed off with cold water from the tap and hot water from a bucket! Ahh India! [to be fair, me and Kasey were together paying 50 rupees for the night = $1.25 USD] The next day we spent wandering around the fort and Jaisalmer city with the french brothers, trying to mail a package [requires getting it sewn into a pillowcase, the seams sealed with wax, before taking it to the post office], having a delicious last dinner with the frenchies!
That brings me up to date. From leaving jaisalmer we begin a marathon of trains and buses to get down south for new year on the beach! A train overnight from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur (8 hours), next night from Jodhpur to Bombay (20 hours), next night bus from bombay to Goa (16 hours), and then hopefully a bus from Goa to Gokarna (8 hrs?), where we will make a full stop at a hut on the beach and park there for a beachy bonfire chilled out new year's eve!
If you made it all the way through this post, I congratulate you! Sorry for the inconsistent [and much too long] posting and hope to see you soon! Email me and hope you had a MERRY XMAS, HAPPY CHANUKAH, AND BEST WISHES FOR A SUPERB NEW YEAR!
all my love.
Picking up from where I left off last [real] post, I went from Haridwar to Delhi on an overnight train where I stayed overnight with some friends I made at the Navdanya farm up north. In Delhi, there is a huge government push to essentially do away with small businesses so any shop that is run out of a residence has to become one or the other (if this doesnt make sense, its maybe because I dont have a full understanding of the policy) and this is basically forcing any mom-and-pop-shops to flounder while the huge supermarkets flourish! Anyhow, this policy pushed an Indian man out of his office (which was in a residential building) and so when I arrived in Delhi, i found that my two friends (Kasey and Liz) were staying literally in an old office with two women who live there (Sibilla Italian and Karly American) and Sibillas friend Dario was there too... long story short we hung out all 6 of us in a tiny cold office with no windows! Despite the conditions, we tried to cook [failing miserably at making latkes] and had a grand old time. In the morning I went to the Delhi train station to try to find the tourist booking office and book the rest of my train tickets for my entire trip. This proved to be quite an experience... which i will preface by saying that there are even signs up around the New Delhi train station saying things like "IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE TOURIST BOOKING OFFICE, DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE WHO TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT IT HAS BURNED DOWN, IS CLOSED TODAY, IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION, HAS MOVED, OR NO LONGER EXISTS" [but in hilariously broken English]. So I went in, had a look around for the tourist office and then was pulled aside by a man who showed my his "train station license" proving that he worked there and took me by the arm (with ALL of my bags) to the tourist booking office. I GOT SCAMMED! he dragged me all the way down the road, me protesting the entire time that "i really think the booking office is INSIDE the train station" and him telling me "no no just a bit more"
Anyhow, we got to the booking office and I sat down at the desk [it looked quite legitimate] and the travel agent proceeds to receive a call on his mobile while smoking a cigarette and paying absolutely no attention to me! After finishing both mobile and cigarette, he turns to me, asks me rudely where I want to go and where from and when. I tell him my tentative plans (all based on whether i can get the trains or not) and he looks up on his computer and tells me time after time that there are no trains available for the dates or destinations that I want! Im beginning to get super frustrated, thinking that the remainder of my trip will be spent somewhere undesirable when he takes another phone call [and is on cigarette #5]... at this point, I kind of lost it and asked to speak with a different travel agent. I had then been there for about 1.5 hours! The next travel agent tells me to go next door to their "other office" where i talk to yet ANOTHER travel agent! This man quickly realizes that I know what i want to do and just want to book the tickets and tells me [honestly, for once!] that he only can book package tours and I should go to the tourist booking office in the train station!!!!! Im like "THATS WHERE I THOUGHT I WAS!" So a man standing next to me at this point is like "well Im going there and ill show you exactly where it is." finally ! We take a bicycle rickshaw (Rs. 15) back to the train station because he refuses to walk for 10 minutes and when we arrive at the train station gate, he tells me that the rickshaw is not allowed to enter the gate and the tourist booking office is "here only"... ANOTHER SCAM!!! I yelled at him that I was going into the train station and thank you very much goodbye and ran off. From there I went inside the train station, found the REAL tourist booking office, waited in the cue (now about 3 hours after I originally started out on this mission) and the people there were so unbelievably helpful that I was able to purchase almost ALL of the tickets i wanted for the entire rest of the trip and it all cost a little bit under 1000 Rupees (approx $25 USD)!!!
If you made it to the end of this incredibly long narrative of my train ticket-buying experience in Delhi, then I hope you have a better sense of what it can be like here. This is not to say that it is a scam around every corner everyday all the time, but it's always a learning experience, thats for sure! The other bit about this story that is a strong belief [and mostly true] all over India is that sometimes you just have to deal with a lot of crap in order to break through and find the gems, those people who are so helpful and sweet that it makes it all worth it! It is an exercise in patience that all of us can learn from.
So from Delhi, I left the train station and immediately got a bus to Agra, the city that's name is synonymous with the Taj Mahal! I arrived in Agra about 6 hours later and found a cheap hotel (the first hot shower from a tap i had had in almost a month!), woke up at the crack of dawn [or a bit before] and arrived at the Taj for sunrise! Seeing that world monument in real life was quite spectacular, but it is a mausoleum without any real spirit or soul. A gorgeous marble structure built for love and flanked by matching mosques, it is massive and impressive but not in the same way that a buddhist temple can really knock you over. I also did not get the most gorgeous day for viewing [not exactly clear blue sky] so I stuck around for a little while, took a bunch of photos (see the picasa web albums), met some awesome Norwegian tourists, and left!
After a quick lunch in Agra, I took a bus to Jaipur for about 7 hours and then an overnight train from Jaipur to Udaipur, where I was going to meet my friend Rebecca [whom I had met in Bombay at a Leprosy conference] and set up a home for a little while [a week]. I found Rebecca and some other AMAZING folks she had been hanging around with and Udaipur proved to be one of my favorite places in India thus far! There was just so much to do! Here's an overview of some of my activities:
-the amazing city palace is a massive structure built near the shore of the lake and set above with magnificent views of the lake and surrounding city ... it was really fun to explore and climb around
-I went horseback riding in the mountains/hills on the outskirts of the city for a few hours with a bunch of friends in Udaipur
-I took an AMAZING 5 hour cooking class with a bunch of folks in this amazing Indian woman's kitchen! She taught us everything! Chai, pakora, chutney (mango and coriander), veg curries, naan, garlic cheese and roast tomato nan, paratha, potato paratha, sweet paratha, and much more! Needless to say, we cooked for about 5 hours and then ate until we could hardly move... all the while listening to her speak about her life and story.
-I went pedal-boating on the lake with my Swiss-German friend. We were not allowed to go within 50 meters of the lake palace (also a hotel now) but we had a great time pedaling around and dipping our feet in, while hoping to avoid the crocs we heard sometimes surfaced in the lake!
-I hiked/walked up a mountain to the Monsoon Palace! This was a wonderful walk from my guest house all the way trhough the non-touristy part of the city and then into the gate of the park and all the way up this mountain. I rocked up there with my iPod plugged in (and flip-flops, feet forgive me) catching MANY stares because Indians don't walk places if they can avoid it and I was a crazy little bald white girl wearing Indian clothing and dancing down the street with headphones on, occasionally asking if I was going the right way! At the top i met these awesome French brothers and stayed with them to watch a magnificent sunset and then catch a ride in their rickshaw back down (apparently its not safe to walk at night as there are "big cats" that can attack)...
-I spent a day in Ranakpur (see picasa web albums) at this AMAZING Jain temple with Rebecca... wandering around, taking lots of photos, and soaking up the sun and enjoying the elaborate marble carvings everywhere!
Udaipur was fantastic, full of wonderful new folks, great walks and chats and palaces and temples and horses and cooking! what more could a girl ask for? On the 19th, I left my happy home that I had made in a dorm room in UDaipur and took an overnight bus to Jodhpur to meet up with Kasey (whom I had met at Navdanya farm and then stayed with in Delhi)! I was quite sick [yes, even I got the Delhi Belly or whatever you want to call it] so the overnight sleeper bus [think coffin shaped and sized box to try to sleep in while the bus driver tumbles over speed breakers, honks at everything, spits out the window, and swerves away from cows in the road] was miserable. But I arrived in Jodhpur at 4:30 am to the freezing cold and pitch dark and went straight to a hostal where I passed out/waited for Kasey to arrive!
When Kasey showed up, we spent the day resting [and shitting my brains out] in jodhpur, the blue city. It is named such because many MANY of the buildings are painted with an indigo paint as a marker of the brahmin caste... from above the city, it looks like its all blue! The next day we explored the amazing HUGE fort sitting above the city, ran into the fun french brothers I had met in Udaipur, and got ready to catch out overnight train to Jaisalmer and the Great Thar desert!
Arriving in Jaisalmer on the morning of the 22nd at 6 am, we were escorted to the Himilayan Guesthouse INSIDE of a magnificent but quite rundown fort! Unilke in Jodhpur, there are businesses, hotels, residential areas and all inside of the fort. This is posing a problem because the original water system in the fort was built for about one tenth of the amount of waste and water that it is currently handling... and the fort is slowly collapsing because of lack of upkeep. The new edition lonely planet guide book even recommends that people NOT stay in the fort (perhaps because of possible danger) but there are also signs up all around the fort entrance saying things like "Thanks to lonely planet we have lost our livelihood and our children are starving." Do we support the destruction of the people who depend on tourism in favor of the fort, or do we support the slow collapse of an important monument in favor of the residents? We stayed in the fort because we had a recommendation for the Himalayan guest house but ran into others who refused on ethical grounds to stay inside...
After one restful night, we awoke at 7 am to be joined by the french brothers and set out in a jeep to get 30 minutes away before we began our CAMEL TREK!!!! This deserves a blog post all to itself because it was a magical 3 days and 2 nights over xmas through the desert with spectacular company, the best guides around, delightful camel companions, and a LOT of christmas carols! Some of the highlights include:
-incredibly sore bum (obviously)
-running on camels through the desert (bumpy ride!)
-singing christmas carols around the campfire
-seeing the most amazing consecutive sunset, moonrise, stars, sunrise and moonset EVER!
-running and rolling in sand dunes
-sleeping on the sand
-smelling like a camel (foul!)
-wearing the same clothes for 3 days
-riding only 30 km from the PAKISTANI border!!!
...and much much more!
After we got back from the camel trek, we returned to find that our stinky selves could only manage to get hot water in a bucket so it was three days of camel stink that had to be scrubbed off with cold water from the tap and hot water from a bucket! Ahh India! [to be fair, me and Kasey were together paying 50 rupees for the night = $1.25 USD] The next day we spent wandering around the fort and Jaisalmer city with the french brothers, trying to mail a package [requires getting it sewn into a pillowcase, the seams sealed with wax, before taking it to the post office], having a delicious last dinner with the frenchies!
That brings me up to date. From leaving jaisalmer we begin a marathon of trains and buses to get down south for new year on the beach! A train overnight from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur (8 hours), next night from Jodhpur to Bombay (20 hours), next night bus from bombay to Goa (16 hours), and then hopefully a bus from Goa to Gokarna (8 hrs?), where we will make a full stop at a hut on the beach and park there for a beachy bonfire chilled out new year's eve!
If you made it all the way through this post, I congratulate you! Sorry for the inconsistent [and much too long] posting and hope to see you soon! Email me and hope you had a MERRY XMAS, HAPPY CHANUKAH, AND BEST WISHES FOR A SUPERB NEW YEAR!
all my love.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Photo Link
Some new photos are up now from the Taj Mahal, the amazing lake palace in Udaipur, and the elaborate Jain temple in Ranakpur!
I will blog more later about all the craziness of the past week.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/erbergman/TajMahalLakePalaceRanakpur
I will blog more later about all the craziness of the past week.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/erbergman/TajMahalLakePalaceRanakpur
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Rockin' Rishikesh and Holy Haridwar...
On Thursday, the last day of lecture, I left the farm early and in good company [one Brazilian guy, one American guy, one British guy and one British girl] to head out to Rishikesh... a small city located on the Ganges river quite close to the source!
One of our party had already been there for quite a while about a month before so we had bookings to stay at the Swiss Cottage (very Indian) when we arrived. We got in at night and woke up to a gorgeous view looking down on the Ganga with a background of Himilayan foothills! I spent all of the next day getting lost with Anna, the British girl. We walked across the Ganges on the footbridge, went down to the water and put our feet in, washed our faces, and relaxed on the sacred river for a while. Then we walked for EVER, got REALLY lost, got stuck in the middle of a dog fight [really scary], and then returned finally to our hotel and went for our ayurvedic massages at Baba massage center! That night we found some Israelis and had a spiffy little Chanukah celebration! [menorah made out of candles stuck onto a metal plate]
The next morning we awoke at the crack of dawn to grab breakfast and head out to the bus stand to catch a bus to Haridwar = another city on the Ganga but a bit further down... every 12 years there is a MASSIVE pilgrimage to haridwar and it is considered one of the holiest cities in India! It was quite different than rishikesh because it was not touristy at all... in fact, we hardly saw any other white faces! We spent the whole day wandering around by the river, taking a cable car up a mountain to a temple, relaxing until sundown. Then we planned to go down to the river and participate in the Aarthi (sp?) ritual in which you buy these amazing little boats made of betel leaves and filled with flowers and camphor candles and light them and float them down the river! Imagine hundreds if not thousands of people praying and floating their candle boats every night! We were super excited to join in [and i even brought some of my hair to put into my little boat because i was told to put it in the ganga]... but this peaceful moment was not to be. We were harassed endlessly by people claiming to be Brahmin who wanted to say a prayer for us, women trying to attack us by splotching big red bhindis onto our faces, kids asking for money, little boys handing us cups of white liquid to put into the river, and many more! It was so stressful that we were practically beating people away from us and had to settle for a crazed little ceremony. Bummer... but still lovely.
Anna went back to Rishikesh and I waited in the train station for about 5 hours for my train to Delhi where I took the metro [AMAZING and like the london underground] to meet up with some friends I had met on the Navdanya farm and stay overnight with their friends who live in Delhi!
One of our party had already been there for quite a while about a month before so we had bookings to stay at the Swiss Cottage (very Indian) when we arrived. We got in at night and woke up to a gorgeous view looking down on the Ganga with a background of Himilayan foothills! I spent all of the next day getting lost with Anna, the British girl. We walked across the Ganges on the footbridge, went down to the water and put our feet in, washed our faces, and relaxed on the sacred river for a while. Then we walked for EVER, got REALLY lost, got stuck in the middle of a dog fight [really scary], and then returned finally to our hotel and went for our ayurvedic massages at Baba massage center! That night we found some Israelis and had a spiffy little Chanukah celebration! [menorah made out of candles stuck onto a metal plate]
The next morning we awoke at the crack of dawn to grab breakfast and head out to the bus stand to catch a bus to Haridwar = another city on the Ganga but a bit further down... every 12 years there is a MASSIVE pilgrimage to haridwar and it is considered one of the holiest cities in India! It was quite different than rishikesh because it was not touristy at all... in fact, we hardly saw any other white faces! We spent the whole day wandering around by the river, taking a cable car up a mountain to a temple, relaxing until sundown. Then we planned to go down to the river and participate in the Aarthi (sp?) ritual in which you buy these amazing little boats made of betel leaves and filled with flowers and camphor candles and light them and float them down the river! Imagine hundreds if not thousands of people praying and floating their candle boats every night! We were super excited to join in [and i even brought some of my hair to put into my little boat because i was told to put it in the ganga]... but this peaceful moment was not to be. We were harassed endlessly by people claiming to be Brahmin who wanted to say a prayer for us, women trying to attack us by splotching big red bhindis onto our faces, kids asking for money, little boys handing us cups of white liquid to put into the river, and many more! It was so stressful that we were practically beating people away from us and had to settle for a crazed little ceremony. Bummer... but still lovely.
Anna went back to Rishikesh and I waited in the train station for about 5 hours for my train to Delhi where I took the metro [AMAZING and like the london underground] to meet up with some friends I had met on the Navdanya farm and stay overnight with their friends who live in Delhi!
Navdanya Wrap-up
So the last time that I posted, I was smack in the middle of the two weeks spent on the Bija Vidyapeeth/Navdanya organic farm... and the second half was just as amazing as the first! When Satish Kumar left us, we were joined by Samdhong Rimpoche (some people who couldnt pronounce his name referred to him as Samsung Ricochet... ahh irony)! He arrived in his long flowing Buddhist robes and his lectures were wonderful but quite slow as his English is not perfect. He had a lot of wonderful thoughts and, unlike many people who are trying to speak a 'foreign' language, he was able to express them incredibly eloquently and was really a joy to listen to! It was a bit of a shock after Satish who spoke perfect English and lectured in a very different style!
We were also joined by Dr. Vandana Shiva herself, the founder of Navdanya and one of the most active and amazing figures of the environmental and seed-saving movement in India! She is a passionately aggressive, all-about-business kind of woman who really knows how to motivate and move the masses... which is great because she is constantly organizing Satyagrahas (Gandhian nonviolent resistance) all over the country against big agribusiness, the government, and really anyone who gets in her way of saving farmers, land, water, and seeds! Her lectures were fluid and information-packed and she really knows her facts. She made me want to stay on at Navdanya and join her cause (i havent given that idea up yet...) or at the very least to become more involved in the environmental politics at home. Some of the anecdotes that she used to illustrate her points were so relevant and astonishing, making me (and others) realize what was going on behind the scenes that we just weren't getting the full story on. She is a huge defender of biodiversity and has set up an amazing seed bank on the Navdanya farm where they now have collected over 400 indigenous varieties of rice, and many more of wheats, pulses, etc. They distribute these seeds to local farmers (and nonlocals through rural outreach programs) and teach them about not using pesticides and resisting the takeover by Monsanto and other genetically modified seed salesmen. This program was essentially begun after the mass farmer suicides in the 90s - Monsanto was coming to farms all over India and showing the farmers information about how their seeds had incredibly high yields [this data was mostly taken from a laboratory setup where the air temperature, water fall, etc. is all carefully controlled] and then offering to replace all of the farmers seeds for FREE with their own. For the first year, the new seeds were very fruitful and the farmers were thrilled! Little did they know that the crop would begin to deplete the soil, need fertilizer and chemical pesticides [unforeseen expenses], and the yield would drop dramatically after the first year. The worst part of this whole plot, however, is that the new seeds are hybrids = genetically modified seeds that Monsanto made so that they do not regenerate! Basically the natural life cycle of the seeds is completely messed up and they do not provide the farmer with anything to sow for the next crop! This is where Monsanto comes in a SELLS the new seeds again, year after year, to the impoverished farmers and this was the root of the farmer suicides. Needless to say, this is only part of the story but Vandana got to work immediately and organized against this massive agricultural plot.
A few other highlights of the second week of Navdanya were:
1. I learned how to crochet from a friend on the farm and made a hat for my recently bald head! Now im making hats [or tuks (sp?) in Canadian] on all my train and bus rides which makes for great conversations with interested Indians.
2. We took a half day trip to a Tibetan enclave near the farm outside of Dehradun. We walked around and saw a HUGE Buddha statue all in gold that was hundreds of feet tall! All around the garden were tons of prayer wheels and beautiful landscaping. It was super peaceful... and then we went into the temple. I have never felt such an energy in a spiritual structure! walking into this temple [complete silence required], it was almost overpowering how charged the atmosphere was in there. The massive Buddha statue sat in the middle and the walls were ornately decorated with painted murals [they seemed to be different stories from Buddhist teachings...]
The last few days, everyone was leaving in dribs and drabs and the lectures finished on thursday the 6th. We got to cook with Premji the cook and make dinner altogether and enjoy our last peaceful night sitting out by the fire!
We were also joined by Dr. Vandana Shiva herself, the founder of Navdanya and one of the most active and amazing figures of the environmental and seed-saving movement in India! She is a passionately aggressive, all-about-business kind of woman who really knows how to motivate and move the masses... which is great because she is constantly organizing Satyagrahas (Gandhian nonviolent resistance) all over the country against big agribusiness, the government, and really anyone who gets in her way of saving farmers, land, water, and seeds! Her lectures were fluid and information-packed and she really knows her facts. She made me want to stay on at Navdanya and join her cause (i havent given that idea up yet...) or at the very least to become more involved in the environmental politics at home. Some of the anecdotes that she used to illustrate her points were so relevant and astonishing, making me (and others) realize what was going on behind the scenes that we just weren't getting the full story on. She is a huge defender of biodiversity and has set up an amazing seed bank on the Navdanya farm where they now have collected over 400 indigenous varieties of rice, and many more of wheats, pulses, etc. They distribute these seeds to local farmers (and nonlocals through rural outreach programs) and teach them about not using pesticides and resisting the takeover by Monsanto and other genetically modified seed salesmen. This program was essentially begun after the mass farmer suicides in the 90s - Monsanto was coming to farms all over India and showing the farmers information about how their seeds had incredibly high yields [this data was mostly taken from a laboratory setup where the air temperature, water fall, etc. is all carefully controlled] and then offering to replace all of the farmers seeds for FREE with their own. For the first year, the new seeds were very fruitful and the farmers were thrilled! Little did they know that the crop would begin to deplete the soil, need fertilizer and chemical pesticides [unforeseen expenses], and the yield would drop dramatically after the first year. The worst part of this whole plot, however, is that the new seeds are hybrids = genetically modified seeds that Monsanto made so that they do not regenerate! Basically the natural life cycle of the seeds is completely messed up and they do not provide the farmer with anything to sow for the next crop! This is where Monsanto comes in a SELLS the new seeds again, year after year, to the impoverished farmers and this was the root of the farmer suicides. Needless to say, this is only part of the story but Vandana got to work immediately and organized against this massive agricultural plot.
A few other highlights of the second week of Navdanya were:
1. I learned how to crochet from a friend on the farm and made a hat for my recently bald head! Now im making hats [or tuks (sp?) in Canadian] on all my train and bus rides which makes for great conversations with interested Indians.
2. We took a half day trip to a Tibetan enclave near the farm outside of Dehradun. We walked around and saw a HUGE Buddha statue all in gold that was hundreds of feet tall! All around the garden were tons of prayer wheels and beautiful landscaping. It was super peaceful... and then we went into the temple. I have never felt such an energy in a spiritual structure! walking into this temple [complete silence required], it was almost overpowering how charged the atmosphere was in there. The massive Buddha statue sat in the middle and the walls were ornately decorated with painted murals [they seemed to be different stories from Buddhist teachings...]
The last few days, everyone was leaving in dribs and drabs and the lectures finished on thursday the 6th. We got to cook with Premji the cook and make dinner altogether and enjoy our last peaceful night sitting out by the fire!
Friday, November 30, 2007
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih
After not checking the internet for more than a week, there is more to update than I can even begin to type (especially on this keyboard. ugh) As planned, for the past week I have been living on the Bija Vidyapeeth/Navdanya organic farm [check it out! www.navdanya.org] and sitting for a class entitled Gandhi and Globalization. This experience has been so far one of the richest and most educational weeks i have spent in my life, hands down!
I will begin with the daily schedule:
7:00 am Tea
7:15-8:15 Yoga in the outdoor circular gazebo-esque structure
8;15-8:30 Circle meeting where one of the members of the group shares a poem, song, reading, quotation, etc and we discuss the days events
8:30-9 Breakfast - most of the food that we eat is grown here on the farm... and if not then it is all local, nonGMO, organic and COMPLETELY VEGAN [not to mention delicious!]
9-10 Shramdaan - this means the "gift of work" and we spend one hour with our group [the group names are compassion, beauty, love, and truth] working on the campus. we are either assigned to clean the dining room area or bathroom area or work in the kitchen or the field. The funniest part of this is that the group jobs are announced at circle meeting and sound something like "today we weill have compassion in the kitchen, truth in the fields, beauty in the toilets, and love in the dining room." haha. sometimes field work means that you get to take a huge bamboo stick and beat dried plants so that the lentils (9 different colors) come out of their pods! this is super fun!
10-11 rest time and time for bathing. this means taking a "splash" with a bucket and some solar-heated warm water. hair was impractical and annoying. i shaved my head!
11-1:30 class on the grass! more about class after the schedule
1;30-2:30 lunch... yummo!
2:30-3;30 chill out
3:30-5 walk or relax
5-5:30 tea time (its a high time for some CHAI TIME!)
5:30-7 class again
7-8 dinner and sit around a fire. where i am right now is quite far north and gets super dee duper cold at night> i am not prepared for this at all... i have no close toed shoes, only grey fleece as warmth but we huddle around fire and drink tea and eat spicy food and keep each other warm
8-? evening session --> this may be a documentary about ghandi or biodynamic farming or soya in brasil, it may be other folks talking about their travels or gardens (there is an english couple here who have recently retired and are probably in their mid sixties and have traveled here OVER LAND from england! their story is amazing! the other night we had a MASSIVE bonfire and all sang and drummed and told jokes and stories for hours in the cold starry night. wow
...and then we go to bed early! the sun goes down, it gets cold, and we are all tired and ready for sleep.
so that is the daily schedule with some changes along the way. it seems quite rigid but in reality is very flexible. anything u dont want to go to or do you dont have to! the campus is gorgeous! there is farm of about 20 acres and a ginormous mango orchard (unfortunately the mangoes are not in season...) the rooms are dorm-style and very simple, the meals are held in a big semi-enclosed dining room, the toilets are sometimes european, sometimes squat, and i walk around with no shoes all the time! my feet are so happy in contact with the earth. Since coming here i have had some bad luck with health but im okay. i got some bites that i was REALLY allergic to all ovre my legs and arms... we think that they were either fleas from the dogs or bedbugs but they made these gross huge red welts all over my body that were unbearably itchy. now about a million milligrams of clarinex and lots of cortisone cream later that has thankfully gone! also the climate change gave me a racking chest cold but im using some ayurvedic medicine and trying to get rid of that too!
I am here with about 30 other participants of all ages (im one of the youngest) from all parts of the world! its an amazing group with great energy, a TON of knowledge, lots of love and stories to share, and much more. I could not have hoped for a more fun and diverse group of interests and fields of wisdom. I am learning so much about organic farming, biodiversity, gandhi, nonviolence, history, green movements all over the world and more that i can hardly encapsulate it in a blog post!
probably the most important part of this experience so far has been the absolutely amazing teacher we have had for the first week. His name is satish kumar and he is truly indescribable. He is the most wise, caring, giving, warm, person i have ever met. his presence alone inspires you to be a better person. he has taught me so much about myself and life and more. he spent one evening session telling us the story of his journey when he was walking for peace (as a peace pilgrim when lord bertrand russell was imprisoned). he went with another jain monk friend on a pilgrimage to the nuclear cities (moscow, paris, london, washington) WALKING and starting in India. They walked the entire way (except for boat passage from london to new york) with no luggage, one change of clothes, and NO MONEY AT ALL. they relied on the hospitality of people along the way for food, shelter, warm clothing, footwear, etc. even in warring and hostile countries. it took them 2.5 years. he has taught us about trusting others, nonviolent lifestyle, gandhian principle, feeding the soil, taking care of the earth, making changes, love, and his lessons are so eloquent that its hard to believe that he is speaking without notes or outlines or anything but his own mind as the source. i absolutely cannot do justice to this man with just this paragraph but I will come back with some cD and maybe dvd recordings of his lectures that i would love to share with anyone who is interested!
For the next week, we have two other teachers... the prime minister of tibet (in exile) Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche and Dr. Vandana Shiva, the founder of this incredible organization! I am really excited for the week to come
Besides the logistics and day to day, the energy here is totally different than anywhere I have been before. it is a community of acceptance and learning and just such a powerful feeling of love... even between people who hardly know each other. it will be hard to leave but i am so fortunate to have this as part of my adventure and i STRONGLY recommend to ANYONE that you should come here to understand and experience it for yourself!
My internet time is out but i love you all and miss you tons and enjoy ur emails sooo much! keep writing!
I will begin with the daily schedule:
7:00 am Tea
7:15-8:15 Yoga in the outdoor circular gazebo-esque structure
8;15-8:30 Circle meeting where one of the members of the group shares a poem, song, reading, quotation, etc and we discuss the days events
8:30-9 Breakfast - most of the food that we eat is grown here on the farm... and if not then it is all local, nonGMO, organic and COMPLETELY VEGAN [not to mention delicious!]
9-10 Shramdaan - this means the "gift of work" and we spend one hour with our group [the group names are compassion, beauty, love, and truth] working on the campus. we are either assigned to clean the dining room area or bathroom area or work in the kitchen or the field. The funniest part of this is that the group jobs are announced at circle meeting and sound something like "today we weill have compassion in the kitchen, truth in the fields, beauty in the toilets, and love in the dining room." haha. sometimes field work means that you get to take a huge bamboo stick and beat dried plants so that the lentils (9 different colors) come out of their pods! this is super fun!
10-11 rest time and time for bathing. this means taking a "splash" with a bucket and some solar-heated warm water. hair was impractical and annoying. i shaved my head!
11-1:30 class on the grass! more about class after the schedule
1;30-2:30 lunch... yummo!
2:30-3;30 chill out
3:30-5 walk or relax
5-5:30 tea time (its a high time for some CHAI TIME!)
5:30-7 class again
7-8 dinner and sit around a fire. where i am right now is quite far north and gets super dee duper cold at night> i am not prepared for this at all... i have no close toed shoes, only grey fleece as warmth but we huddle around fire and drink tea and eat spicy food and keep each other warm
8-? evening session --> this may be a documentary about ghandi or biodynamic farming or soya in brasil, it may be other folks talking about their travels or gardens (there is an english couple here who have recently retired and are probably in their mid sixties and have traveled here OVER LAND from england! their story is amazing! the other night we had a MASSIVE bonfire and all sang and drummed and told jokes and stories for hours in the cold starry night. wow
...and then we go to bed early! the sun goes down, it gets cold, and we are all tired and ready for sleep.
so that is the daily schedule with some changes along the way. it seems quite rigid but in reality is very flexible. anything u dont want to go to or do you dont have to! the campus is gorgeous! there is farm of about 20 acres and a ginormous mango orchard (unfortunately the mangoes are not in season...) the rooms are dorm-style and very simple, the meals are held in a big semi-enclosed dining room, the toilets are sometimes european, sometimes squat, and i walk around with no shoes all the time! my feet are so happy in contact with the earth. Since coming here i have had some bad luck with health but im okay. i got some bites that i was REALLY allergic to all ovre my legs and arms... we think that they were either fleas from the dogs or bedbugs but they made these gross huge red welts all over my body that were unbearably itchy. now about a million milligrams of clarinex and lots of cortisone cream later that has thankfully gone! also the climate change gave me a racking chest cold but im using some ayurvedic medicine and trying to get rid of that too!
I am here with about 30 other participants of all ages (im one of the youngest) from all parts of the world! its an amazing group with great energy, a TON of knowledge, lots of love and stories to share, and much more. I could not have hoped for a more fun and diverse group of interests and fields of wisdom. I am learning so much about organic farming, biodiversity, gandhi, nonviolence, history, green movements all over the world and more that i can hardly encapsulate it in a blog post!
probably the most important part of this experience so far has been the absolutely amazing teacher we have had for the first week. His name is satish kumar and he is truly indescribable. He is the most wise, caring, giving, warm, person i have ever met. his presence alone inspires you to be a better person. he has taught me so much about myself and life and more. he spent one evening session telling us the story of his journey when he was walking for peace (as a peace pilgrim when lord bertrand russell was imprisoned). he went with another jain monk friend on a pilgrimage to the nuclear cities (moscow, paris, london, washington) WALKING and starting in India. They walked the entire way (except for boat passage from london to new york) with no luggage, one change of clothes, and NO MONEY AT ALL. they relied on the hospitality of people along the way for food, shelter, warm clothing, footwear, etc. even in warring and hostile countries. it took them 2.5 years. he has taught us about trusting others, nonviolent lifestyle, gandhian principle, feeding the soil, taking care of the earth, making changes, love, and his lessons are so eloquent that its hard to believe that he is speaking without notes or outlines or anything but his own mind as the source. i absolutely cannot do justice to this man with just this paragraph but I will come back with some cD and maybe dvd recordings of his lectures that i would love to share with anyone who is interested!
For the next week, we have two other teachers... the prime minister of tibet (in exile) Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche and Dr. Vandana Shiva, the founder of this incredible organization! I am really excited for the week to come
Besides the logistics and day to day, the energy here is totally different than anywhere I have been before. it is a community of acceptance and learning and just such a powerful feeling of love... even between people who hardly know each other. it will be hard to leave but i am so fortunate to have this as part of my adventure and i STRONGLY recommend to ANYONE that you should come here to understand and experience it for yourself!
My internet time is out but i love you all and miss you tons and enjoy ur emails sooo much! keep writing!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
some of the best yet!
the past couple days have been some of the best and this keyboard is one of the worst! figures. so sorry for typing errors and lack of punctuation.
After leaving goa and taking a miserable 15 hour bus next to a sweaty fat man, I arrived safe and smelly to Mumbai. The plan was that I would swing by Prajakti's house, drop my bag, and head to the main train station to book tickets for Udaipur for that night. However, plans are always changing so instead I took a shower and headed to the train station a bit later to book a train ticket for the next night and to Jaipur (Udaipur is closer but has no direct train and Jaipur gets me closer to Delhi... my next destination)
I book a sleeper ticket (this is lowest class train ride.. an 18 hour overnight costs about $9USD) with no A/C from Mumbai to Jaipur for the following night at 1850, meet up with some friends in Mumbai and have a great night at the city I feel like im at home in! After one of the best nights of sleep I have had in a long time at Prajakti's house, I wake up for a day of laundry and repacking and coffee/lunch with Rebecca and Thatcher... before hopping on my 1850 train to Rajasthan.
In my compartment, i meet two awesome spaniards who are traveling together and going to Jaipur as well! We spend a freezing cold night on the train sleeper beds and wake up at 5 am to find that the scenery has changed a lot and its MUCH colder [kind of refreshing because I forgot what it was like to be cold...] We arrived in Jaipur at about 1330 and then me and my two spanish buddies decided to hike it with our packs to the hotel of choice. A sweaty 2.5 km later, we arrive on the doorstep of our chosen hotel to find out that it is no longer the same as it was in the book, and the price is wildly different! luckily, we quickly find a different hotel that will accommodate us but they only have one room so we decide to triple up and pay only Rs. 300 total [about $7.50 per night for all 3 of us]. i then spent the afternoon wandering around this beautiful city, hiking up to the top of a minaret for some gorgeous views (see picasa web albums), checking out the old city [all walled in by amzing red walls], and tiring myself out!
After dinner together, we chill out and listen to some music before crashing early only to wake up early for a FULL day!!!
Yesterday was one of the best days that i have had in India. Waking up at 8 am for a FREEZING cold shower in the morning chill was followed by a delicious omelette on the street. (contrary to popular american belief, eggs do not need to be refrigerated and can actually sit in the sun for hours or until used up... yum) We feasted on our tomato onion masala omelettes and chai before trying to find a bus to Pushkar. Turns out we had to go to Ajmer and then get another bus to Pushkar.. all in all taking about 4 hours! We get on the first bus [uneventful] for about 3 hours, riding on bumpy roads with our knees banging the seat in front of us and are dropped at a bus depot in ajmer where people are screaming out different destinations. After asking about a million people, we find a bus to Pushkar and hop on, sitting three to a bench seat while the aisles are filled. This bus ride was an amazing slice of India for me because I sat down next to a woman with child, her friend with a child, and another little family in front of me. By the end of the ride I was cradling one child, cooing at another, and we had figured out the only word that we could from Hindi to Enlish "sister." This translation took about 45 minutes because generally the women would speak to me in Hindi (or another language?) and I would raise my hands to say "I dont understand a word of what youre saying" and then they would laugh. At any rate, it was a moment of connection to discover the word for sister and have it applied to me and the indian baby i was holding!wow
so we finaly got to pushkar and had only to walk for about 4 minutes before we began to see camels galore! there is no good way for me to describe the camel fair except that there were people, vendors, camels, tourists, cotton candy, ferris wheels, garbage, other animals, dirty/dusty roads, more camels, camel necklaces, camel accessories of all kinds! I even got to ride one around for about 10 minutes for free [tough bargaining skills] and they are HIGH up off the ground! the camel gets down on its knees to let you get on and then when it stnads up, I felt like i was on a bucking bronco that lifted me wayyyy high up in the air! [its knees also buckle to let you down... this process is equally precarious]
After getting our fill of camels, we headed out to the other side of Pushkar to shop a bit, eat some AMAZING street food veg sandwiches and check out the ghats (lake). This is a sacred bit of water with the marble steps leading down from palaces all around. All in all there are 52 gates around the lake. Everyone washes their clothes, themselves, throws flower petals, prays, takes forbidden photos, and marvels at the beauty of this lake. PLEASE check out the photos of this one!
A full day behind us, we took two more buses and more arguing to get back to Jaipur at about 2130! Today I am off to Delhi and straight on to dehradun. I dont know if I will have internet access while there but please email anyhow and ILl get back to you when I can!
I love you all and miss you tons. Hope you had a spectacular turkey/tofurkey day!
Emma
After leaving goa and taking a miserable 15 hour bus next to a sweaty fat man, I arrived safe and smelly to Mumbai. The plan was that I would swing by Prajakti's house, drop my bag, and head to the main train station to book tickets for Udaipur for that night. However, plans are always changing so instead I took a shower and headed to the train station a bit later to book a train ticket for the next night and to Jaipur (Udaipur is closer but has no direct train and Jaipur gets me closer to Delhi... my next destination)
I book a sleeper ticket (this is lowest class train ride.. an 18 hour overnight costs about $9USD) with no A/C from Mumbai to Jaipur for the following night at 1850, meet up with some friends in Mumbai and have a great night at the city I feel like im at home in! After one of the best nights of sleep I have had in a long time at Prajakti's house, I wake up for a day of laundry and repacking and coffee/lunch with Rebecca and Thatcher... before hopping on my 1850 train to Rajasthan.
In my compartment, i meet two awesome spaniards who are traveling together and going to Jaipur as well! We spend a freezing cold night on the train sleeper beds and wake up at 5 am to find that the scenery has changed a lot and its MUCH colder [kind of refreshing because I forgot what it was like to be cold...] We arrived in Jaipur at about 1330 and then me and my two spanish buddies decided to hike it with our packs to the hotel of choice. A sweaty 2.5 km later, we arrive on the doorstep of our chosen hotel to find out that it is no longer the same as it was in the book, and the price is wildly different! luckily, we quickly find a different hotel that will accommodate us but they only have one room so we decide to triple up and pay only Rs. 300 total [about $7.50 per night for all 3 of us]. i then spent the afternoon wandering around this beautiful city, hiking up to the top of a minaret for some gorgeous views (see picasa web albums), checking out the old city [all walled in by amzing red walls], and tiring myself out!
After dinner together, we chill out and listen to some music before crashing early only to wake up early for a FULL day!!!
Yesterday was one of the best days that i have had in India. Waking up at 8 am for a FREEZING cold shower in the morning chill was followed by a delicious omelette on the street. (contrary to popular american belief, eggs do not need to be refrigerated and can actually sit in the sun for hours or until used up... yum) We feasted on our tomato onion masala omelettes and chai before trying to find a bus to Pushkar. Turns out we had to go to Ajmer and then get another bus to Pushkar.. all in all taking about 4 hours! We get on the first bus [uneventful] for about 3 hours, riding on bumpy roads with our knees banging the seat in front of us and are dropped at a bus depot in ajmer where people are screaming out different destinations. After asking about a million people, we find a bus to Pushkar and hop on, sitting three to a bench seat while the aisles are filled. This bus ride was an amazing slice of India for me because I sat down next to a woman with child, her friend with a child, and another little family in front of me. By the end of the ride I was cradling one child, cooing at another, and we had figured out the only word that we could from Hindi to Enlish "sister." This translation took about 45 minutes because generally the women would speak to me in Hindi (or another language?) and I would raise my hands to say "I dont understand a word of what youre saying" and then they would laugh. At any rate, it was a moment of connection to discover the word for sister and have it applied to me and the indian baby i was holding!wow
so we finaly got to pushkar and had only to walk for about 4 minutes before we began to see camels galore! there is no good way for me to describe the camel fair except that there were people, vendors, camels, tourists, cotton candy, ferris wheels, garbage, other animals, dirty/dusty roads, more camels, camel necklaces, camel accessories of all kinds! I even got to ride one around for about 10 minutes for free [tough bargaining skills] and they are HIGH up off the ground! the camel gets down on its knees to let you get on and then when it stnads up, I felt like i was on a bucking bronco that lifted me wayyyy high up in the air! [its knees also buckle to let you down... this process is equally precarious]
After getting our fill of camels, we headed out to the other side of Pushkar to shop a bit, eat some AMAZING street food veg sandwiches and check out the ghats (lake). This is a sacred bit of water with the marble steps leading down from palaces all around. All in all there are 52 gates around the lake. Everyone washes their clothes, themselves, throws flower petals, prays, takes forbidden photos, and marvels at the beauty of this lake. PLEASE check out the photos of this one!
A full day behind us, we took two more buses and more arguing to get back to Jaipur at about 2130! Today I am off to Delhi and straight on to dehradun. I dont know if I will have internet access while there but please email anyhow and ILl get back to you when I can!
I love you all and miss you tons. Hope you had a spectacular turkey/tofurkey day!
Emma
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