Rajasthan
After 30 hours of train rides, i arrived in Jodhpur, Rajasthan; home of the blue city surrounding a legendary, semi-ancient Raj fort among giant mechanical-legged camels, rickshaws and the typical beauty and filth that encompass India. I arrived at night and stayed at a rooftop restaurant in my hammock. The view from the roof was one of the most awe-striking sights I've seen. While staring up at the magnificent lit-up fortress poised above a sea of blue run down homes, restaurants and hotels lavishly built with rolling curved architecture, a very strange feeling came over me and tears welled up in my eyes at the sight of it and I was entranced. I sat there for a very long time before roaming the streets and taking in the culture and life of the area with all it's friendly inhabitants and aesthetically pleasing buildings.
The following day I went to the fort and payed my 250 rupees (about 6 dollars) and walked around with my self-guided MP3 headset tour. I felt like a typical tourist but it was totally worth it. The tour was incredibly informative and really gave you a sense of what it was like to live in the fort during its glory and wars. Nothing was shabbily done, everything was created while striving for the best quality possible and it was quite evident by the weapons and palaces and the general lifestyle that they lived. They lived by the code of "Death before Dishonor" and when Kings died, mistresses often willfully torched themselves at the funeral pyre along with their fallen king without even a scream of pain. Or so the stories go. You cant leave that place without a very romantic, glamorous picture in your head. And when I left, that's exactly what I had. I felt as though I was falling in love with the place.
I left to the furthest western for town called Jaisalmer where the fort was actually used for hotels and restaurants and stores and all. Hotel rooms had windows with their own little window balcony equipped with overhead "Arabian-style" arches. It was a shame to come to Rajasthan as a single man. I met some friends there that I knew from earlier on in my trip and I went with them on a camel safari. We were meant to go on a 2 day, one night safari but it wasn't meant to be. The 9 Israeli's and I set off on our camels with our guides in the desert and stopped off at a tiny village that looked like it was an Afghani bombing site. We met some very nice local people, gave the camels a rest and trudged along on our "star-warsesque" beasts into the desert where we were made a great meal by our guides. While eating, drinking chai and chatting, I noticed that some serious looking clouds were rolling in, and being from the northwest I could tell that these were no fleeting clouds. And sure enough it started pouring down rain for the next two days. Most the people I was with got irritated and really wanted to go back, so we huffed it back to the village where we hunkered down and waited for our ride to come. Overall it was a good time even though quite short.
I promptly left the following day to Udaipur, a captivating lake town beautiful island palaces, where I met up with Madeleine again. While there we took a cooking course and made the best food i've had in india (possibly a biased statement) and i plan on making indian food alot when i get home, providing that i can find the spices. Madeleine then went further up north to check out the yoga scene and i went to another rajasthani city called Pushkar that's know for cheap....well basically everything. I bought a bunch of clothes and a ton of ear-rings and then skipped out to Agra to see the Taj Majal. The Taj was incredible but dwarfed by the sheer number of tourists, the horridness of the city and the ridiculous entry fee. I would up taking a rickshaw to the back of the Taj to get some good photos and then left for Delhi on the next train.
I was planning on spending just a few days in Delhi and meeting some people through couchsurfing, but i wound up staying for three weeks and made some great friends. I spent most my time playing X-Box and moving from couch to couch, watching movies and generally lounging around. It was really nice and reminded me of home. Im going to come back to Delhi when I come back from Nepal and hang out with my new friends a bit more.
After three weeks, I left for Varanassi (the supposed spiritual epicenter of India where the dead are cremated along the Ganga river banks). Though I met many people who said that Varanassi was their favorite place in India, I didn't share their sentiments. It was a very dirty, crowded city who's only redeeming feature (In my humble opinion) is that it was an ancient city on a holy river. You see people swimming in this river and bathing right where sewer drains dump into the river. There are massive sewage treatment plants as well that constantly cause blackouts throughout the city since they are operating on max capacity. The river is home to the ashes of the cremated dead, as well as dead babies, dead pregnant women, snake-bite victims and countless other corpses who for one reason or another were not decreed suitable for cremation. And people swim and bathe in this thing and say it's cleansing!! Well I wasn't bgutsy enough or foolish enough to brave the waters. I arrived early morning and left late the same night so I guess I didn't give myself the chance to really experience the charm of Varanassi.
I took a train near to the border of Nepal where myself and many other travelers took a bus to the border and then a cab to Kathmandu where I now have been for the past three days. I really like Kathmandu, aside from the pollution. Its got clean, narrow streets winding everywhere and its a paradise for mountaineering gear fans. Though all the gear are knock-offs of the originals, they do an incredible job. They buy all the gore-tex and fabrics and then create everything here by copying North Face and various other brands' designs for a fraction of the cost (around a tenth of the price). The quality is probably a bit less but its definitely worth the money if you can bargain well. I spent my birthday here last night and went out to a bunch of bars with live music and topped it off with a dance club where we danced till 3 A.M. Today is The Nepali New years (something like 2064) and its beautiful madness everywhere with decorations and people milling about and live music filling the air. Im going to head out and take it in right now. Im leaving in a couple days to trek for 3 weeks so I wont be posting for a while.
The following day I went to the fort and payed my 250 rupees (about 6 dollars) and walked around with my self-guided MP3 headset tour. I felt like a typical tourist but it was totally worth it. The tour was incredibly informative and really gave you a sense of what it was like to live in the fort during its glory and wars. Nothing was shabbily done, everything was created while striving for the best quality possible and it was quite evident by the weapons and palaces and the general lifestyle that they lived. They lived by the code of "Death before Dishonor" and when Kings died, mistresses often willfully torched themselves at the funeral pyre along with their fallen king without even a scream of pain. Or so the stories go. You cant leave that place without a very romantic, glamorous picture in your head. And when I left, that's exactly what I had. I felt as though I was falling in love with the place.
I left to the furthest western for town called Jaisalmer where the fort was actually used for hotels and restaurants and stores and all. Hotel rooms had windows with their own little window balcony equipped with overhead "Arabian-style" arches. It was a shame to come to Rajasthan as a single man. I met some friends there that I knew from earlier on in my trip and I went with them on a camel safari. We were meant to go on a 2 day, one night safari but it wasn't meant to be. The 9 Israeli's and I set off on our camels with our guides in the desert and stopped off at a tiny village that looked like it was an Afghani bombing site. We met some very nice local people, gave the camels a rest and trudged along on our "star-warsesque" beasts into the desert where we were made a great meal by our guides. While eating, drinking chai and chatting, I noticed that some serious looking clouds were rolling in, and being from the northwest I could tell that these were no fleeting clouds. And sure enough it started pouring down rain for the next two days. Most the people I was with got irritated and really wanted to go back, so we huffed it back to the village where we hunkered down and waited for our ride to come. Overall it was a good time even though quite short.
I promptly left the following day to Udaipur, a captivating lake town beautiful island palaces, where I met up with Madeleine again. While there we took a cooking course and made the best food i've had in india (possibly a biased statement) and i plan on making indian food alot when i get home, providing that i can find the spices. Madeleine then went further up north to check out the yoga scene and i went to another rajasthani city called Pushkar that's know for cheap....well basically everything. I bought a bunch of clothes and a ton of ear-rings and then skipped out to Agra to see the Taj Majal. The Taj was incredible but dwarfed by the sheer number of tourists, the horridness of the city and the ridiculous entry fee. I would up taking a rickshaw to the back of the Taj to get some good photos and then left for Delhi on the next train.
I was planning on spending just a few days in Delhi and meeting some people through couchsurfing, but i wound up staying for three weeks and made some great friends. I spent most my time playing X-Box and moving from couch to couch, watching movies and generally lounging around. It was really nice and reminded me of home. Im going to come back to Delhi when I come back from Nepal and hang out with my new friends a bit more.
After three weeks, I left for Varanassi (the supposed spiritual epicenter of India where the dead are cremated along the Ganga river banks). Though I met many people who said that Varanassi was their favorite place in India, I didn't share their sentiments. It was a very dirty, crowded city who's only redeeming feature (In my humble opinion) is that it was an ancient city on a holy river. You see people swimming in this river and bathing right where sewer drains dump into the river. There are massive sewage treatment plants as well that constantly cause blackouts throughout the city since they are operating on max capacity. The river is home to the ashes of the cremated dead, as well as dead babies, dead pregnant women, snake-bite victims and countless other corpses who for one reason or another were not decreed suitable for cremation. And people swim and bathe in this thing and say it's cleansing!! Well I wasn't bgutsy enough or foolish enough to brave the waters. I arrived early morning and left late the same night so I guess I didn't give myself the chance to really experience the charm of Varanassi.
I took a train near to the border of Nepal where myself and many other travelers took a bus to the border and then a cab to Kathmandu where I now have been for the past three days. I really like Kathmandu, aside from the pollution. Its got clean, narrow streets winding everywhere and its a paradise for mountaineering gear fans. Though all the gear are knock-offs of the originals, they do an incredible job. They buy all the gore-tex and fabrics and then create everything here by copying North Face and various other brands' designs for a fraction of the cost (around a tenth of the price). The quality is probably a bit less but its definitely worth the money if you can bargain well. I spent my birthday here last night and went out to a bunch of bars with live music and topped it off with a dance club where we danced till 3 A.M. Today is The Nepali New years (something like 2064) and its beautiful madness everywhere with decorations and people milling about and live music filling the air. Im going to head out and take it in right now. Im leaving in a couple days to trek for 3 weeks so I wont be posting for a while.
posted by Unknown at 3:43 AM
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