Jaipur, Day 5 of trip

Arrived in Jaipur for the sunrise, which seems to be a trend on this trip, and checked into a hotel for a few extra hours of much needed sleep. Once we had rejoined the world of the living we went out to see the city. Steffen had done a slow-motion-fall down the stairs the night before and now had an identical bandage on his big toe. I won’t even try to describe what a slow motion fall is, but it has been re-enacted numerous times on the trip now, basically anytime there is a soft surface for Steffen to fall on and re-enact it by popular demand, its a real crowd pleaser.

Had WONDERFUL samosas and Chai for breakfast, only 5 rupee each, (for perspective, 50 rupees is about 1 dollar). First we hit up the palace, which our guide told us not to go to because it was too expensive – typical rickshaw drive code for: let me take you somewhere else that will give me commission, but we went anyway and it was pretty spectacular. The whole city is pink by regulation, so its pretty sweet. The current Raja still lives there with his family, but to tour this part of the building it is 2,500 rupees, or about 50 dollars, US so we decided to pass. There is one very interesting courtyard with four different doors representing the four different seasons, where many Bollywood movies have been filmed.





Afterwards we went to another building we could see from the palace, which was the Hawa-Mahil, or palace of the wind. This was really cool and gave incredible views out over the city. The original city was planned into 9 different blocks, but today it has spilled far beyond the original plan.


We went for lunch at a normal street restaurant and after headed up to the fort for sunset, singing Beijing Hunangning ni the whole way up. By this point our rickshaw driver was getting very upset that we were going nowhere that he would get commission.


The fort was also incredible and you could wander around at will, which was very cool. There were monkeys everywhere and we also had a large group of boys acting like monkeys fighting for the opportunity to pose in pictures with us. We stayed for the sunset and then got in our rickshaw and went back to the city to get oil massages, which were a ‘different’ experience, especially for Steffen, who I think felt quite violated.

Jaisalmer, Day 4 of trip

We made the unfortunate decision to wake up for the sunrise, but ended up sleeping through the snooze for an hour and missing it, an incredible feat since the snooze went off every 5 minutes. On the way up to explore the fort we were intercepted by the shopkeeper we had met the day before and allowed ourselves to be ushered into his store for some Chai. 4 hours later and 300 dollars poorer we left the shop after buying a large amount of the sparkly patchwork wall hangings that typify Rajasthan. During the buying process we were treated to a samosa breakfast, dress up as maharanis, and of course numerous cups of Chai.

After we couldn’t spend anything more without going bankrupt on the spot we left and went to do a tour of the palace, which was incredible. Everyone thinks romanticizes the castles in Europe, but India is where its at, those maharajas and maharanis had it right. In contrast to the heavy cold castles of Europe, these palaces were light, airy and covered in delicate carvings and comforts. Audio guides were free so we got to learn something about the rooms we were seeing as well which was cool since usually I scoff at audio guised as being SO touristy and beneath me, I guess that’s stupid, they are highly informative.

After doing a whirlwind tour of the palace we adjourned for lunch to a wonderful spot perched on the battlements with a spectacular view of the city. It would not have been for the fain of hear because the only thing between your table and a sheer sixty-four drop was a wall of about 2 feet.
We unfortunately had to move on again, this time to Jaipur, but I could have easily spent another two weeks in Jaislmur alone the place was that spectacular.

On the train out we sat by the doors for a while and watched the desert go by, which was cool because on European or US trains you would never be allowed to open the doors and dangle your feel out while the train was moving. Everyone waved to us as we were going past which was very fun. India is the most smiley / happy/ wavy people on earth. In china people stare at you but if you stare back and wave they just give you a grunt or a blank stare, whereas in India as soon as you catch them staring at you they break into a huge grin and wave.

Steffen and I also got to jump on to a moving train: we were at the station and went to get dinner form a vendor, but toot too long so the train started leaving and we had to jump on at random, me holding a bowl of curry in each hand, so it was slightly impossible, especially since after getting on he train Steffen accidentally slammed a compartment door on my head. Despite this, most of the curry made it back to our compartment and into our mouths, with only a small bit ending up on my skirt.

Line for: Supervisor, Parliament, Blind, Cancer Patient, Handicapped, Freedom Fighter, Foreign Tourist and Senior Citizen.

Jaisalmer, day 3 of the adventure

After our brief 24 hour stint in Delhi we got on an overnight train and headed all the way out to Jaisalmer, a fort in the Rajastani desert. The fort gets its name from the golden sandstone that it is constructed from and is perched on a high plateau that rises out of the otherwise pancake-flat surroundings. This was definitely one of my favorite places in India, and well worth the trek.

During the train journey I kept seeing dark things go across the aisles out of the corner of my eye, but I figured that I was just seeing things since no one else was alarmed, but about halfway through there were several confirmed rat and roach sightings, so from that point on we were careful not to leave our stuff / feet on the floor to get eaten by the pests. We did kill a few cockroaches, so now their numerous ranks have been depleted, but I’m sure they were busy having babies in the handle of someone’s bag much faster than we were killing them.

We arrived in Jaisalmer around 2 pm the next day, and went with the first person who offered us a hotel room, which I tend to steer clear of since it always seems to end up a mess one way or another. We were ushered to a waiting car and after our driver found out one of the men in the car was British they immediately started a heated argument about cricket. The British man was insisting that the brits had been winning but the driver was having none of this and said that the British won on Indian soil simply because it was the polite thing for the Indians to do for their guests. A lengthy debate followed with a lot of unintelligible terms such as “sticky wicket”, improper bowler, and tea with crumpets.

Excited to be there... and not eaten by cockroaches

We wanted to watch the sunset from one of the camel rides in the desert (touristy I know), so we went right from the hotel when we arrived to do that. Our driver told us at great length about his Swedish girlfriend who calls him monkey. We got the whole back-story on this and why he is also called donkey.

The first thing to know about camels is that they are TALL, very TALL – The Indian strain of camels must be much larger than the western china breed of camels because these were slightly terrifying, whereas the others looked extremely ride able.

We got on, which you have to do while the camel is sitting and then hold on for dear life and just trust luck that you wont fall off when the thing stands up, which is accompanied by a violent lurching back and forth motion, kind of like a mechanical bull in slow motion. We went off trotting towards the sand dunes, which rise out of the scrubby desert for a very small area, and because of this all of the tourist-camel-enthusiast-sunset-watchers are concentrated in one area. Despite this, it still was a really cool experience. The sand was the softest I have seen, and flowed like water would when you disturbed it. Steffen tried to sand board and ended up spectacularly wiping out, flying five feet in the air to land on his head.

After the sunset our camels literally galloped back to the camel depot, I guess thats a fitting term for the loading zone. We were the only camels going so fast and passed everyone else who were only walking or maybe trotting if they were adventurous, suckers. We saw this awesome sign back at the main area:

More camel riding pictures.....

After this we walked up to the fort, which was all lit up, to have some grub. We chose a place on top of one of the buildings ad had a wonderful diner accompanied by shooting stars. It was very romantic; unfortunately none of us are the romantic types. After dinner we wrote a novel in their guestbook, complete with pictures of samosas, camels, a few songs, and a camel drawn by Steffen which looked like it had been drawn by a lower life form. We were the only people left in the restaurant so the cook took us back into the kitchen and talked to us about Indian spices and cooking. He offered to give us a lesson the next day, but we ended up not having enough time, which was too bad.

Our amazing guestbook entry. Some choice quotes: "English not so good, stomach happy" , "Benny-Lava Approved Restaurant" , and of course, "Eeeeeeaat a samosaaa...Taiwan will touch your heart.."

Fort all lit up at night

Beer is good for your Child!!

Delhi day 2

Red Fort, Sikh Temple, Train to Jailsamur

"You want fake beard?" (hes trying to sell me a fake beard)

We started out the day taking a tuk-tuk car thing to the red fort, and got our first look at Indian streets during the daytime, which are even more hectic than they are at night. Arrived at the red fort, which is an incredible sight because of its size. The outer wall runs over 1 k and varies in height from 12m to 33m. Construction started in 1638 and was finished in less than ten years, the original idea being to move the capital to this new fort. However, before this could happen, X was imprisoned by his son who usurped the throne.

The interior of the fort are Hammams, living quarters, audience rooms, and strangely enough, barracks contributed by the British, which look very out of place in the surroundings. We spent only about an hour or so looking around the fort since we were on a tight time schedule, which would continue throughout the trip, but that was enough time for at least 20 people to accost Gardiner and I wanting to take pictures.

Cool stonework in one of the fountains

Benny Lava Pose, about to do jetpack operation

More classic Indian posing

All the Indian tourists were much more interested in taking pictures with Gardiner and I than with the actual fort

After perusing the Red Fort we felt a need for food so we went over to a nearby VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT (WOOOT) and got some grub, which was again very good. The food put us in the mood for some religious enlightenment, so we crossed the street to the nearby Sikh temple to take a look. There was an information center and a man working there gave us a rundown on the history, theory, and happenings in the temple. The believes that one must overcome the conflict in the world that arises from he need to be right, and from fighting between religious groups. They believe in only one god, which is the same god for all religious groups and in freedom of worship. Someone should not try and impose their beliefs on another, but instead try and understand from all points of view without altering. The temple we were at honored one of the main gurus who was executed for preaching freedom of religion. Members of any faith or no faith can come to the temple and take part in the rituals ad well as be fed from the auminity kitchen. Overall it sounds like a very good, tolerant religion, one that I would like.

Ritual washing at the enterance to the temple

Man making Chipati at the restauraunt we went to

Once we had gotten our cultural fix for the day we go in another rickshaw and drove to the parliament building and or India gate which is a monument to the solders killed in WWI, The parliament building was HUGE, one of the most massive I have seen, and again, we saw monkeys!!
Parliment behind a cool gate

Steffen being an uber-tourist and searching the book for Kobe Biff

On the way back to the hotel our rickshaw driver let each of us drive, WOO, Steffen and I each drove just for a few minutes, but Gardiner was pretty decent at it and actually drove the entire way home, which was both scary and funny as all hell. Everyone around us thought it was either really funny, or in the case of this guy, had a very dim view of letting tourists drive on the streets of Delhi. Our driver kept control of the brakes, so I guess we weren’t totally going to die, but there were a few very dicey moments.

Gardiner driving, Steffen running along ahead taking pictures and me riding on the side sticking my leg out - the driver loved us!!

Very dubious about foreighners driving rickshaws...

Mid-scoop