Written 13th August 2011 - Day 13 of Roam India

Jodhpur, Pushkar, Udaipur, Jaipur….

Hello,

It seams like ages since I wrote anything in my blog! I have literally had no time to stop and think! Most of the past week has been spent flying around in a tuc tuc, walking around dodging cows and dogs, or sitting on the porcelain.

When we arrived in Jodhpur, we had a great afternoon chilling in the very nice hotel. In the evening we went on a jeep safari, otherwise known as taking the car for a run and charging tourists. We checked out some of the local farmers who demonstrated how they drink Opium, make pots, and weave a rug. The weaver did actually have a very impressive profile, his past clients and visitors include Prince Charles and Camilla etc, and he had numerous cut outs from magazines around the world. I do wonder though weather Prince Charles and Camilla saw the same little boy as we did running around naked and weeing on the very expensive rugs…. Anyway, it was good to see the countryside and get out into real India, even if it did mean being eaten by flies because of my gel! When we returned to the city I had what has to possibly be the worst meal I have ever had. The thing with India that I still can’t get my head around is that quite a lot of places are meat free and there are loads of veg restaurants! Thali, a traditional style of Indian meal is in a way similar to Tapas. You get loads of small portions accompanied by rice, naan bread, onion and a few other little things. I have to say I did find one sauce thing I liked to go with my boiled rice. However, that night I was hungry and pretty sure I went to bed dreaming of a BBQ at about 10pm on the decking at home! They day after was our main day in Jodhpur, after breakfast we headed to the city centre market to start us off. Now having learnt from previous places we went into the shops alone to avoid the commission charges. I ummed and arrrhed about a table cloth for the dining room table but then decided mum already has enough. I did however treat myself to a wall hanging with many bright colours on to go as a centre piece when I decorate my room in November. Nice little project for us dad! We then headed up to the fort right at the top of the hill, from which there was a great view of the blue city. In the fort I managed to find the music room and listened to 3 guys play some traditional music on a Sitar, Tabla and something else. After a great meal at a Mexican restaurant we got an early night before an early start and a bus to Udaipur.

We arrived in Udaipur and headed straight to the coffee shop across the road! A tikka sandwich, chocolate fudge cake and milkshake later we were ready to tackle our next Indian city. Yash, our tour leader, is originally from Udaipur so he had a little bit of local knowledge, knew the locals and really wanted to show us the city. We set off on our evening orientation walk and headed for the city centre. We stopped at an ATM next to the City Palace, were I decided I would walk through a few shops and wait at the entrance. This would have been great if we were actually going to the City Palace but we weren’t! I had got totally confused and was now lost in the middle of an Indian city not knowing where the hell I was! After about 10 mins I realised that the group wasn’t going to arrive at the ticket office, although now I had worked out I could use my student card , and went on the hunt for a group of 15 white people. This actually made it quite easy and after a few corners or so of wondering and asking people where the white group had gone I spotted the lake! s***!!!! I was meant to be on the boat that had just left the harbour! Opps! I shouted and whistled until I got their attention and luckily they turned around and picked me up… totally embarrassed I jumped aboard and enjoyed a sail around the lake looking back at dusk over Udaipur. The next day was our main day in Udaipur, can you see the pattern now? Arrive, an afternoon in the city followed by a full day and then an early start to travel to the next place. We started our tour of the city by going to a local art studio. Udaipur is famous for it’s intricate miniature paintings that are often painted on silk, camel bone, paper or skin. We watched a demonstration of how they do such small detailed paintings and then let them loose on our finger nails. Now I know your wondering how anyone could possibly fit a drawing onto my bitten finger nails. Well… I now have fully grown, strong, tidy, un-scared, and normal finger nails! The man first drew a tiger onto my 4th finger which I found amazing! He then decided it would be funny to do something a little bit more risky on my thumb nail. A Karma sutra scene with a twist then appeared out of nowhere on my nail! It is actually very impressive! We then took a break from the art and I eventually got my guided tour of the City Palace. I’m not gona lie… it was pretty boring. Even though it was beautiful in parts, most of it was tacky, old and as everything is, dirty. However, I then got to try my hand at painting! We went back to the shop for a master class in miniature painting where I decided to paint a Peacock, which I am very proud of. It took about 2 hours, had numerous steps and was very relaxing. When I had finished I walked into a nearby shop and asked to see the pictures of Peacocks they had for sale. After checking a few out at a price of about 4000RPS I pulled my creation out my bag and tried to sell it. I showed them how detailed I had done it, how much effort I had put in and even how similar the real deal and mine looked. The man didn’t look to impressed if I’m honest and offered me 5RPS. I didn’t accept as the sentimental value is much more than 7p but I had fun and the rain outside the shop had now stopped. As if our day couldn’t get anymore creative we then headed to a cooking lesson to prepare and eat our evening meal. We followed a number of different recipes and all had a go at making something. I was more than disappointed that all I got to do was boil some rice and then make a chapatti, which I burnt! However, it was a lot of fun and tasted great!

We woke up early the next morning for our train to Pushkar, around 8 hours. After 1 hour the rock hard bench was killing my bum, the empty carriage had filled up to be cram packed and the sun had risen! A sweaty, uncomfortable mess! We arrived in Pushkar again at around lunch time and after our orientation walk trough the busy market street we visited another temple. Now, if I had just looked at it I would say it was just another temple but no… this is a special temple as it is the only one of its kind in India. As a result Pushkar is the holiest city in India and people travel for miles to visit the town and bathe in the Ghat, a big lake in the middle of the city. The lake was full of people of all ages, playing, washing, praying and everything elseing in it. It was fascinating to watch as people arrived and just stripped off to bathe in the water. This place was also covered in pigeons and I had great fun just running at them to make them fly off! Really childish, really dangerous (bird poo) but most of all great fun! In the evening we had our meal while watching a Bollywood movie! It was called ‘3 Idiots’ and was similar to the Hangover. Bollywood films are crazy, they have everything from, dancing, singing, fighting, killing, suicide, oh and comedy… etc. It was basically all different genres of film mashed into one 2 hour 30 min long entertainer. The following day, again our full day in Pushkar we had a leisurely start to the day and rose at around lunch time, we all needed a good lie-in I think! After lunch I decided a massage was needed to both enjoy and ease my every increasing back pain. I arrived at the place recommended by the hotel, and Lonely Planet (by the way, everything in India is apparently in Lonely Planet!) and realised as soon as he started it was not a massage. Reflexology is not a massage; it is a pain inflicting, waste of time, slightly weird method of healing the body. I have no idea how crucifying my feet with a wooden stick helped in anyway to ease my back pain. Then came the whale! Read my description… plugged in, electric, vibrating, whale shaped with an attachment on the end! I’m really not sure what it was but this vibrating monstrosity ‘worked’ on my back for about 10 mins. It actually wasn’t that bad but after this experience I quickly said I was 100% healed, gave him my money and escaped! What a load of tosh!!

In the afternoon a few of us decided to go wild and hire mopeds. Sorry Mum, but I’m still alive and it was great, I also remember you doing this in Greece! Anyway, armed with my pink moped we set off to explore. We travelled down a few random roads to nowhere before we headed for the hills and a road I have now named snake path. From the top of ‘Snake path’ we got a great view of rolling hills and the city, it was well worth the risk and being splatted by a million flies. We returned to the city where we explored some more, finding an empty river/sewer/Italian job style thing, which we rode up and down. I then braved a drive through the market, luckily I didn’t hit anyone or anything, before I did another trip back up snake path to use up all my petrol I put it and to show off the view to Trisha, someone in our group. All in all I did 28 miles in the afternoon and hit a top speed of 34mph. Do you think I could moped around Australia with my backpack????

The next day we again had a 4 hour journey by private bus this time to Jaipur, one of India’s largest cities. After our orientation walk we spent the afternoon in a shopping mall where I went to India’s equivalent of ‘Happy feet’ for a fish foot massage. We then had a great meal off BBQ Chicken followed by a disco/pool party. Now this wasn’t just any disco/pool party! We got dressed up and were picked up by 4 friends of our tour leader. They took us to a sports bar where we spent the night playing pool, table football and golf putting. It was really good to socialise and we bumped into another gap adventures group with some, ‘nice people’ in ;-) After we had all had a few to many we all decided to head back to the other groups hotel for a pool party. When we arrived we set up some music, raided the bar (legally), stripped off and got in the pool! Good job I had my good boxers on! Only Sammo decided he was too drunk to go to the other hotel so he was dropped off back at home to go to bed…. Or so he planned to go to bed! We had a really good time in the pool and at the other hotel before we all got dry, went commando and got a lift home. I walked up to my floor in the dark with a few others and immediately was hit by a horrid smell! Eventually we found the light switch and walked around the corner! Sammo was getting up, having presumably been out for the count on the floor for 3 hours, and was covered in all 3 bodily fluids that you really would not like to be covered in! It was minging! The poor guy had somehow between getting his key from reception managed to black out, and consequently struggle to open the door and enter our room. This left him stranded and the rest followed, all over him, the corridor and the walls! We got him into the shower, I moved all my stuff out of our room, before our trained paramedic from Canada, Reece, and Sophie, medical trainee, took over and cleaned up! It was one of the worst, funniest and tragic things I have ever seen! We all eventually got to bed at about 4.30am, I was now sharing with Andrea who luckily had a spare bed in her room!  What a night!

I have just returned from our full day out in Jaipur which started as a very early one considering we only had 3 and a half hours sleep. We set off at 9.30 in our tuc tucs for the day and first went to the Amber Fort. This was fantastic! It is on top of a massive hill and surrounded by massive walls. We walked right up to the top, dodging elephants on the way, where we decided that because of our delicate, may I add I was perfectly fine, group situation we would not have a tour and just take some pictures and take it in. We did just that before walking back down to the bottom to our tuc tucs. On the way down I was approached by a man selling a wooden souvenir I quite liked. I asked how much it was and he said 550RPS. No way I was paying that! I said no, but still looked interested, and carried on walking. Every bend another 50RPS came off! Eventually I got to the bottom, still being followed, and bought it for 100RPS. That’s more like it  We hopped on our tuc tuc and off for lunch, a great pizza to go easy on the stomach! After this we went to the Sea temple, a temple in the sea, and then to Monkey temple. You got it… a temple with a lot of monkeys. At Monkey temple we walked up this steep hill dodging monkeys all the way, rabies now would not be good! At the top there was a fantastic 270 degree view! It was amazing and a jumping picture had to be taken!

I have just been writing this as we had a few hours spare before our evening meal tonight. Tomorrow we are heading to Agra on another 5/6 hour train. Another 5am start will be great!

Tonight is the start of the new football season! I hope to tune in online to at least watch the second half and cheer the whites on from abroad! I am just about the have a shower after uploading this and then I will get my shirt on! COME ON YOU WHITE MEN!

Tom x