Jaisalmer - Part 2

The next morning we headed to the hospital for Chris' final rabies shot. It has been a lot of effort and risk for a mouse nibble but I'm glad we've done it. A PEP or Post Exposure prophylaxis is a serious of 5 shots that you have to have if you have not had Rabies shots before. If we would have had Rabies shots before leaving the UK, Chris would have only needed 2.

Next we headed for the desert. Ali's brother Obaya drove us and another family to the desert via a Jain temple and an old set of town ruins said to now be haunted. I didn't see ghosts but I did smell (they stink) and saw more bats! Then onto the camels.

When we arrived Chris and I left the other family and had our own ride to the dunes. The guy in charge of the camels told us we were late and if we didn't rush we might miss sunset...

My camel didn't seem to want to go, though amid the spitting and poo-ing it got to its feet. However Chris' camel seemed much happier and the camel safari-man joined him on the back of 'Camel No 1'.

I had hoped that 'Camel No 1' might have got its name because it walked in front but it soon turned out Camel No 1 was the favoured camel and mine, Robert, was the naughty camel. We were told that Camel No 1 used to be a racing camel but Robert had no such talent. As we were late our camel safari man set out to make up time and with a cry of...'No Run, No fun' Camel No 1 set of. Robert struggled a little to keep up which resulted in constant trotting for almost an hour.

Above is Camel No 1. And below is Robert.

Turns out we probably didn't need to rush quite so much as we arrived in plenty of time for sunset...

So we played in the dunes. Obaya joined us.

Chris and I raced to the top of the dunes.

Chris beat me to the top, but I had planned ahead & rolled sideways all the way down. Painful but rapid...if there was any hope of winning Chris had to follow...

Sunset was spectacular...

And then we ate, set up our isolated beds in the middle of the desert and tried to use 'Star App' to find constellations. Chris has more of a talent for finding constellations and I was pretty happy with shooting stars.

AND then to my absolute shock, Chris proposed! I said yes.

And we sat under the stars, engaged....for about 20 minutes. The plan the next morning was to have breakfast and then go in another camel ride (trot) back to our pickup point. In fact after 20 minutes Chris started feeling sick and before we knew it was sick for the rest of the night, in the middle of the desert. Pretty tough.

We also acquired three howling desert strays (dogs) for company who barked and howled for most of the night protecting their territory. These dogs obviously have a love for humans however as I was licked on the face and Chris nuzzled on the shoulder throughout the night. This prompted another Rabies scare.

Finally morning came around and I headed down to ask if we could skip the camel ride and get a car back to our hotel. The camel safari man seemed surprised that someone had been ill. I wonder who he thought had been projectile vomiting all night in the desert? He was sleeping pretty close.

Anyway jeep on its way...Chris just had enough energy for a Breaking Bad shot.

And finally our jeep arrived. Never to miss an opportunity our desert safari man waved us off, sleepily saying..."You write me good review?!" I wasn't too sure what to say. Chris was throwing up.

Two days of Chris-in-bed-trying-to-sip-water later, we boarded a 20hr train to Delhi, for a flight to Nepal!

Side note: a tuktuk driver back in Delhi tried to charge us £3 at the end of a trip to our airport hotel, when we had agreed £2 at the start. He said that it took him longer than he thought, and that we had to pay more. Chris and he got into a 'discussion' on the nature of contracts and agreements and then Chris used a Hindi phrase that Ali had taught him. We had to quickly escape into the hotel,.... and prepare for our flight to Kathmandu.

Bye India! 

Jane (and Chris towards the end)

Udiapur

Udiapur is the city of lakes. There are some gorgeous hotels on islands and right on the banks of the water; we stayed in a local's house in the middle of the slums. That said, cafés like this were only moments away.

It was easy enough to get around, and on the first night went to a restaurant (Ambrai if around there), which blew our minds. The best Indian food, and one of the best restaurants we have ever been to, on the bank of the lake overlooking the city palace.

The city palace was ok. Another palace. 

Each palace and fort is rapidly merging into one, and because Rajestan is litterally the land of kings, each city has it's own palace. This one did have a good place for me to deposit Jane though.

We walked around the lake a bit on day one,... Got a boat ride, and then ate.

Day two was a walk around the lake a bit, a hike up to both a Hindu temple and a mosque, and some stunning views.

... And then a walk down the hill and another meal at the same amazing restaurant.

If this blog entry is a little short and muddled, it reflects how we feel about our time there. Everything was lovely, relaxing, and beautiful, but compared to the event driven places before it, time in Udiapur is almost dreamlike; and we both loved it.

Chris

PS I bought new trousers.

We are still alive...

New posts for Udiapor and the blue city of Jodhpur are on their way.

It's been a hectic couple of days, but we are now in Jaisalmer (which is lovely).

Chris

Jaisalmer

Pushkar

DAY ONE

We boarded a bus at 9.30 (latest start yet) to head to Pushkar. Chris had done a lot of research on India before we came and picked out Pushkar because it was supposed to be a little different!

And it is...It is a small, majestic town set around a lake. To Indians and Hindu's especially, Pushkar is an extremely sacred town centred around a lake surrounded by temples and Ghats (small pools that are separated from the main lake). One in particular is particularly sacred...Ghandi Ghat - where Ghandi's ashes were spread, but I'll come to that in a second.

On arrival we headed straight down to the main bazaar.  This is a long road of shops selling beautiful materials, shawls, bangles, earrings and lovely antiques.  After the bazaars of Delhi and Agra this is really something else. For the first time in India we are getting hassled less (which makes shopping possible). Flys swarm the streets and cows with horns four foot long wander along this Main Street.  We also saw our first cow attack!

We wandered and wandered.

And wandered....

And then I turned around to find out that Chris was having two holes in his shoes glued, stitched and patched (for £3)!! He now has two big patches on his trainers which makes him like them even more.

One shop down he had a close shave and a face massage (which he loved).

These are the cows that chill all day on the street and sometimes get angry!

Next we went to the Brahmin temple. This was more of an inclusive experience than before with a guy showing us around and explaining the daily rituals that take place at the statues of Vishnu, Ganesh etc. He also gave us both a little red bindi to walk around the streets with.

After that he led us to Ghandi Ghat to deposit the rest of the flowers. On arrival we were greeted by two monks who separated Chris and I and took us off to separate sides of a platform in front of Ghandi Ghat for a chanting ceremony. The purpose of this is to tell us that we wish for the lives of our family and for luck and good Karma for them.....Then to get us to chant the name of many important Hindu gods, then the names of our family, AND THEN say...'how much is your family worth, you give donation'.

I looked at him blankly, I had been warned of this particular con and as such told him my family were priceless. He didn't like that and said 'English give £40, Americans give 40 dollars etc per family member...for the poor'. At this point it is worth saying that the only thing that signified these two con artists as being priests was a small piece of string around their neck. Now maybe I'm suspicious but that doesn't sound right.

Anyway at this point Chris' ritual had finished and I was able to finish my chanting and get away. Between us we gave them 100 rupees which is far more than we would have liked. 

I have to say after having our guards up for the conning we had experienced everywhere else Pushkar had been a great chance to let our guards down, just watch out for conning monks...

However we wondered home dodging cows and motorbikes, had a look around some more shops and tried our first street food before bed...

DAY TWO

Took a nice walk around the lake, looking at temples at Ghats.....

And then ....BUY BUY BUY... A day at the market.

Oh. And Chris got his third rabies shot.

Jane xx

Jaipur

We got to Jaipur and instantly found it relaxing and chilled. With an amazing hotel, (where we got a free upgrade and a nice pool), and a cool tuktuk driver who offered to drive us for £5 a day, everything was so much easier than we'd had experienced up till now.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

DAY ONE

We awoke in Agra at 5am, and made our way to our early morning train which we were told was 4 hours in a sleeper train. We sprung for class 2AC which means an air conditioned bunk bed. It's pretty much the best, but as we saw when we arrived, there's room for improvement. Our room, which was separated from the train corridor by a sheet, was shared with another bunk bed and a family who didn't like 

a) Jane sleeping near their 20yr old son,

b) me sleeping near their female family members.

After a delayed train and 5 hours, I offered around some polos and everyone started chatting about the finer points of Indian and British culture! 

Jaipur is called the 'pink city' as the old town is painted a salmon-y pink colour. We started the afternoon with a trip around the tourist trap bazaars, and moved on to the city palace.

The city palace was very interesting and since we were still reeling from our experience with the 13 year old wanna-be guide in Agra, we were helped by using our first audio guide. Jane got some nice henna done (see above), and then we tried to get a 2 minute tuktuk to the Wind palace; a famous building where the maharaja used to keep his 'close personal lady friends'. We had asked our driver to start the next day, so we got a random tuktuk driver...who thought the wind palace was a restaurant, and so a 30 minute comedy started, with us telling him the name and address, him agreeing, and driving on, only for us to get obviously further away and repeat the questioning...

We made it in the end...and it was great to look at. And elephants walked down the road in front of it.

Perfect.

Tired and hungry it was time to return to the hotel. Laughing about how inept the last driver had been, we hailed another tuktuk, and the both blankly looked at each other when asked where our hotel was. Or what it was called.

We had left all the details in our bags in the room, and so spent over an hour driving around the rough area, asking for hotel names, and finally going to another hotel to use the internet in order to track it down.

DAY TWO

The driver we met on the first day sent his friend instead, but he was chatty and friendly too so we didn't mind. First stop was the Amber palace; a sprawling castle of corridors, tunnels, rooms, and courtyard gardens. All of this overlooked a beautiful lake with an island garden... Very beautiful, and an easy place to waste an morning exploring.

We got lots of "hellos" and "goodbyes" from children excited to see us, and lots of initially timid handshakes from parents telling their children to go talk to us. As soon as one kid did it though, dozens wanted in on the action.

While the Amber palace is on a hill, we spent 30 minutes climbing further up to a fort which gave us even better views! You can see it in the background here...

And this was the view from the other fort! The Amber palace is huge! What we didn't realise until after we had hiked 30 minutes each way in the baking midday sun though, is that they are connected via an underground tunnel!

The top fort also had the worlds biggest wheeled cannon!

Having left the Amber palace area, we went to a sanctuary to meet some elephants!

SIDE NOTE... What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino?

Eleph-Ino.

Jane got smoochy with an elephant. Sort of jealous.

Climbing onto an elephant actually proved really tough! Jane went first.

You move up his trunk, and he then lifts you up. It's like climbing a tree that's moving upwards.... 

But we fed the elephants, stroked them, and went for a little wander...I hope it enjoyed it as much as we did.

While our driver tried unsuccessfully to convince us to come back to his house/shop, I tried to change the subject and asked how difficult it was to drive a tuktuk....and then... To my suprise,....

I GOT TO DRIVE A TUKTUK!!!!! (Video evidence available).

We finally got home, me now showing a beaming smile, and paid the driver 500, plus a 200 rupee tip (£7 in total). However he hadn't been told of our arrangement with the other driver. He wanted 2200 rupees. We told him of the deal, which he didn't believe so called his mate, (who was apparently drunk), and then after a quick argument down the phone, grudgingly accepted the money...

Jaipur has been great, but instead of for the sights like Agra and Dehli, it's mainly because of the random adventures it threw up...

We are loving India and can't wait for more!

Chris

Jaipur