We spent our first two hours in India fighting off giant, vicious mosquitoes at the Mumbai Airport. We were waiting for Ian's brother, Eric, to arrive from Singapore.
Eric joined us for our first week of travels in India. We packed a lot in so he could make the most of his time. Ian really enjoyed traveling with his brother.
From Mumbai, we flew to the city of Jodphur in the state of Rajasthan (Northwest India). We spent two nights in an exotic converted family residence at the base of the fort. The fort tour was fantastic - a great audio tour was included in the price of admission. We also enjoyed the blue houses, colorful saris, rooftop dining, and shopping for saffron. The only downsides of Jodphur were the horribly smoky air and the ogling men.
One night, Eric and I heard music and ran outside in time to catch a wedding procession winding its way up the street. The procession was led by a marching band in full regalia and illuminated by tiered electric lights connected to one another and attached to a generator on a rickshaw. The groom was seated on a horse and veiled by strands of flowers. The people in the procession waved at us and shouted happily. It looked like great fun.
From Jodphur, we hired a car and driver to take us to Jaisalmer. Jaisalmer is another fort city, carved out of sandstone and known for its camel safaris. We stayed again in a converted residence, this time inside the fort itself and therefore carved out of the same golden sandstone. It was built in the 1500s and still operated by descendants of the original owners. Our room was enormous, lined with rows of scalloped arches. Jaisalmer was smaller and more relaxed than Jodphur, with narrow lanes, picturesque rooftop restauarnts, and lots of shopping. We spent a good amount of time shopping and also took a short camel ride into the desert (see "Camel Safari" post).
I turned 30 in Jaisalmer with little fanfare. I suppose many people would love to celebrate their birthday in an exotic foreign city, but to me, it felt like just another day of traveling. We didn't do anything particularly special and when I checked my email, I was disappointed to find that many of my closest friends had not remembered my birthday (though some remembered later). Of course my wonderful parents called and sent money, and my little bro emailed. Eric gave me a gift and Ian wrote me a sweet card, but it was still disappointing overall. I think I would have preferred to celebrate in the midst of friends and family back home.
But the next morning, I got a phone call from my friend Tenny which helped cheer me up. And before we left India, I was able to talk to Tenny again, Rhonda, Judy, and Karen - almost my entire small group from church. I felt very loved and supported by them.
After Jaisalmer it was on to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and Eric's final destination. Our guesthouse tour operator led us astray by telling us to take a train to Delhi and then hire a car for the "one hour" drive to Agra. The train ride was overnight and then the car ride turned out to be closer to 5 hours. We met a neat couple in the train, though. Greg is a freelance photojournalist who does projects on refugees, minority people groups, and similar social justice issues. Jenn works for Hyatt, setting up spas. So both of their jobs matched my interests! Greg had formerly been in the music industry, so Eric asked him to listen to his songs. He was very impressed and urged Eric to send his music to record labels.
Fortunately we were only in Delhi for a couple of hours. I think New Delhi might win the prize for the worst and craziest traffic in the world. But that distinction is hotly contested. So many of the cities we've visited have been close contenders. After awhile it becomes challenging to measure the degree of insanity. I wonder if someone has researched this. Probably.
Finally, finally we arrived in Agra, after 27 hours of traveling. We had booked a luxury hotel (the first one of our entire trip!) and decided to relish it as much as possible in the brief time we had. I took a bubble bath, complete with scented oils. This was my first bath of the whole trip!! We wore robes and slippers, ordered room service, and slept on a very comfy canopied bed. Ahhh...
The next day, we spent a few hours at the Taj Mahal. The marble and semi-precious stone inlay were striking. I also enjoyed people-watching all the Indian tourists. I just love the saris.
After that, it was time to part ways. The driver took Eric back to the Delhi airport and Ian and I hopped onto a local bus to our next destination, a bird sanctuary near the town of Bharatpur.
Our guide for the bird sanctuary, Mr. Rana, was fabulous. I've become wary of hiring guides because I find they can becoming irritating if their English is poor, or if they talk too much or tell coarse jokes (see our blogs on SE Asia guides). In India, we were discovering that many people were not trustworthy or had another agenda (they were always trying to sell us something more). But Mr. Rana was a good find. Softspoken and very knowledgeable about the birds. He also knew the location of a python! The only strike against Mr. Rana was that about an hour into our day, he left us to go buy lunch and then couldn't find us again! I was worried because we were wandering around in the heat with a dwindling water supply. But he finally managed to locate us and the rest of the day was great though tiring. The highlights were getting a close-up view of a graceful pair of Sarus cranes and seeing a coot get pulled under the water and presumably swallowed upby a giant turtle (didn't see the turtle, unfortunately).
From Bharatpur, we took a short train ride to Ranthambhore National Park. Ranthambhore is home to about 25 tigers, and we hoped and prayed that we would be able to see at least one of them.
On the first afternoon, we hired a jeep with another couple and set out in search of the mighty cat. Fortunately, the tigers like to walk along the roads because the surface is softer on their paws, so our guide was able to find and follow fresh tracks. It was quite suspenseful, as the guide would yell at the driver to step on it and we'd rush here and there in hot pursuit. Finally, the tracking led us to the tiger, walking right alongside the road! She didn't seem to mind our presence at all; she just kept strolling and sniffing for territorial scent marks. Ian got some great pictures, but within a minute or so she meandered off into the brush and disappeared from sight. Such a magnificent animal! We went out the following day and didn't see one, and met several people who had failed to see one. So we praised God for the gift of this sighting! It was a good reminder to me that even when our prayers don't seem that important, God still likes to answer them and give us good gifts.
We stayed in tented camps similar to the ones on our African safari at a place called Ranthambhore Bagh. On our last night there, we sat around talking with the couple who runs the place and a tiger enthusiast from the UK. It was great to have the opportunity to get to know local people a bit, and they gave us some good recommendations for our next destination. Very friendly and funny people.
Our final destination was the lake city of Udaipur. All the other travellers we had met raved about Udaipur, so we decided to spend six nights there. It was nice to stay in one place for awhile, though in fact we ended up in four different hotel rooms! One of the hotels had an in-room jacuzzi bath for two plus a delectable rooftop pool. The other hotels had great views of the lake. So we took it easy, enjoying our views and lying by the pool. Because most of the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur, several guesthouses show the movie nightly. We managed to catch one of these, which was a lot of fun. Nearly every night, fireworks erupted over the water. I found this wonderfully romantic. But our favorite spectacle of Udaipur was probably the dhobi wallahs: the women who wash clothes along the edges of the lake. They wield large wooden paddles which they use to pound the clothes into submission. Throughout the day, loud "WHACKS!" reverberated throughout the lakeside. After witnessing this, I decided to wash the majority of our clothes by hand. The few items that we subjected to this treatment came back to us smelling quite foul, which was very understandable given the filthiness of the lake water.
In general, India was very dirty. Cows and dogs wandered the streets, eating garbage and leaving dung everywhere. We often witnessed people urinating out in the open, especially alongside walls, roads, and train tracks. Spitting was also popular. One of the drivers we hired would open the car door to spit as he was driving.
Another negative was the incessant touting. As we walked down a street, all the merchants stood in their doorways and tried to get us to come into their shops. As in Africa, they liked to ask us where we were from or guess Ian's nationality by yelling out "Korea?" or greetings in Japanese. A few thought I was French for some reason. Some were quite creative, such as one man in Udaipur who told us we were missing something. We looked around in confusion, thinking we had dropped something. "What are we missing?" I asked. "My art school!" was his reply. Then there was the "Do you want fries with that?" mentality, which insisted on trying to sell us additional goods or services once we had bought something. We found it difficult to trust anyone, always suspecting they had some scheme up their sleeve for getting us to part with more of our money. We grew weary of the constant and aggressive sales tactics.
On the positive side, the weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time. Probably the best weather we've had the whole trip, with the possible tie of Australia. It was also fun to stay in more exotic and upscale accomodations than in previous countries, and to appreciate the chaotic vibrancy of Indian culture. Yet at the end of the day, we were ready to leave.
I think one of the biggest downsides of doing a long trip like this is the impossibility of maintaining high levels of energy and enthusiasm about each new destination. It becomes increasingly difficult to give every new place the attitude of openness, excitement, and appreciation that it deserves. India would have been easier and more enjoyable if we had done it as a stand-alone trip. But we have reached a stage in our travels where comfort is king and exoticism is less fascinating and more wearisome. Ian daydreams about supermarkets.
-Kim
