A return to the blog! I haven’t been away for it for lack of activity; merely, perhaps, for lack of time to write! (And a current helpful perk: our hotel in Udaipur has wi-fi, which makes for a pleasant evening of sitting in our hotel room and writing on the laptop; the laptop comes in handy once again [though rarely!]).
India. Sometime since the peak of struggle in Mysore, we have begun to settle in here in a deeper way. It obviously takes time to acclimate to a new country, and sometimes I forget that in the midst of my acclimation process! J Hampi was such a welcome haven to curl us in her peaceful arms; lazy clear river, boulders stacked upon hillsides, 500 year old temple ruins everywhere you looked, a kind guesthouse guardian at our Laxmi Guesthouse, delicious healthy clean food at the Mango Tree, fireflies, our walk through the banana trees, a big Shiva temple right in the middle of town, Lakshmi the elephant and all her activities and blessings, a motorbike ride through the sunlit countryside ruins, a bike ride to the hillside Hanuman temple, many smiles, boat rides, rice paddies, new clothes made out of comfy fabrics, and a home-like feeling (kind-of like Pai actually!) We (especially I) left there reluctantly, as their once-a-year holy festival was to take place 3 days after we departed, and pilgrims from all over India were set to arrive in Hampi to celebrate Hanuman’s birthday and other festivities. It would have been fun to be there for that! Oh well.
We woke up early on March 27th (already a week ago, wow!) and got a rickshaw ride into Hospet at 5:30 am from a very kind rickshaw driver named Ganesh. We caught the train and of course our assigned Sleeper Car seats were already overtaken by sleeping bodies from the night before (the train had originated in Kolkata/Calcutta, already 2 days prior to our boarding!). We found some nice men dressed all in white and they invited us to sit with them. They were on their way to Hubli, the town we had previously visited on our train ride up from Mysore. They were quite fascinated with my journal process; all three of them were hovering over my hand and journal as I wrote my reflections of the morning. I’m not sure if they could even read what I was writing; at first I felt self-conscious, but that quickly passed, as I started to enjoy the oddity of something so regular and day-to-day being observed with such attentiveness. I heard one of them say certain words I wrote, like “temple,” out loud to the others. The morning was brilliant, on the rails through rice paddies and small villages. By the height of noon, though, we became quite weary; not enough sleep, the impending heat of the day, and no breakfast to be had! We came up short in the snack department too, only some dried mulberries left over from Kuala Lumpur, and some dried bananas left over from Thailand (woah, we’ve been carrying those around for a while!) and a small handful of cashews from Hampi. Luckily, a train worker came by and took a lunch order, and we ordered one veg Thali to share. It took a couple hours to arrive, and by then our white clothed men had departed and we were joined by a really sweet couple from Hubli on their way to Goa too. They watched us eat hungrily. The train began to go through mountains on the way to the shore; trains always have the best views, don’t they?! The woman in pink across from me would smile at me every time we emerged from a long dark tunnel, for in each tunnel, tricksters in each car would make scary witch cackling sounds in the darkness, and she and I both thought it simultaneously creepy and funny.
Goa. An interesting place. I love the ocean, but sometimes I only need a couple days to be on the beach, especially on a busy beach. Luckily Carson and I planned well, and gave ourselves just a couple days to be there. It was humid and sticky hot. We splurged on a point-to-point taxi versus taking the local bus to Palolem, which was a nice little gift to ourselves. We pulled into town and a man flagged us down and told us about his guesthouse right down the road. Sometimes our first instinct is to ignore these touts, but sometimes (as we keep learning actually!) these touts can actually be lifesavers and are in reality pointing us to the exact right place to stay, instead of burdening ourselves to the sorry task of waking around for an hour with a heavy pack to find a place to land. After such a long (9hr) train ride and taxi, the room we discovered was cool (nice whirring fan!) and clean and even had a TV! (Mom, there was a little Olympic coverage, though out of date!) Carson watched some tennis off and on, and we tuned into a few moments of some dramatic colorful fun dance scenes in some Hindi movies. We went down to Palolem beach that first night, and found it to be much more touristic than we had anticipated. We did find a nice restaurant with strawberry lassis, Goan fish tikka curry, and a thali plate; we ate ravenously, our first real meal of the day! (And also our first non-veg protein, as Hampi is a vegetarian Holy city).
Our next couple of days there consisted of breakfast at Blue Planet, a vegan/vegetarian/organic spot run by a really nice Indian family, with homemade peanut butter, homemade whole grain bread, the BEST mango lassi in India I’d have to say, yummy omelets, homemade unsalted butter, spirulina shakes, and other interesting healthy non-ordinary-in-India foods. We enjoyed it there. We walked over to Patnem beach both days as well, a bit smaller and more mellow than Palolem, and had, according to Lonely Planet, “the best brownie in India.” (By golly I think it was! It was amazing, and served with a little bowl of fresh cream. Krishna would be proud!) This was at a British-owned restaurant/guesthouse right on the beach called “home”, and we spent many an hour there chatting with an Italian girl named Ilaria about our experience in Italy and her experience in India. We went swimming in the ocean on our second day, watched the sunset, watched dogs lazing around and/or fighting on the beach, saw many girls in bikinis (hey, I guess I was one too; it was so bizarre to see that much skin showing on a woman in India, even if they weren’t Indian women!) And two days; thanks Goa, see you next time!
We hopped on our somewhat dreaded 23 hour train the following morning (the 30th) and were surprisingly delighted by the experience. We splurged a little on the 3AC train, which is a little fancier than the Sleeper Car, is air conditioned, and comes with fresh clean sheets and a pillow and blanket. Also, the cars seemed smoother somehow; because the windows are sealed shut and not open to the outside, it’s quieter and more graceful. We shared our 6 person seats/beds (two across, three up and down, Cars and I had the bottom and middle bed) with two nice Indian guys from Delhi and the absolute sweetest couple, Olga and Maxym, from the Ukraine. Maxym had one of the most genuine joyful smiles I’ve ever seen; I felt a kindred spirit in him automatically. We talked to them a lot about our life in the US, and their life in the Ukraine, and their whirlwind 2 week trip across India (they were on their way to Delhi to fly home). Such nice company! This time, we were overly prepared for our snacks; peanuts, cashews, oranges, bananas, coconut/jaggery/cashew treats, dates, a mango, 4 peanut butter/cashew butter sandwiches from Blue Planet in Goa, and still the dried bananas/mulberries from the other countries (when are we going to finish those anyways?) and also ordered lunch, dinner, and breakfast from the train crew, and ALSO ate 4 fresh samosas and many little cups of chai from the train workers coming through the aisles. Honestly, one of my favorite sounds of India is the way that the vendors who walk through the train cars advertise their products; whether it’s chai, cookies, tomato soup, samosas, you name it, they each have a special call that’s all drawn out that they repeat over and over again all day, every day, and I LOVE it! Those of you readers who have been to India, you’ll know what I mean, and those who haven’t, we’ll work on recording some of them.
So the train; yes ,it was very pleasant! So much so, that we were both a little bummed (!!!) when we arrived at our station stop the following morning! We walked out into Kota, our first Northern Indian place, and were immediately greeted by a rickshaw driver. After our experience in Hubli, where we trusted one of these immediate greeters only to find out that he had lied to us about the distance to the bus station and thus overcharged us immensely, we had promised ourselves to be wary of these immediate greeters. This man was up to the same swindle, as he told us the bus station was 8 kilometers away from the train station. Luckily, we had already perused our map and I knew it was only a kilometer and a half away at best! He wanted 140 rupees, where 30 rupees would probably suffice. We stuck our heels in the ground at 50 and wouldn’t budge. Soon, we had a crew of 15 men surrounding us, watching the exchange. The driver kept saying he could take us all the way to Bundi (our final destination) for 800 rupees: a steep price, considering the bus only cost 22 rupees each (!!!) We continued our 50 rupee bargain, and a couple other guys jumped in and said they could take us for 50. We almost jumped in with one of them, but then our guy consented and said 50 for him, so we honored some strange sort of loyalty we felt to him for finding us first and went with him, even though neither of us really trusted him. As soon as he started his rickshaw, he said “Bundi, yes” and we said no no no! just the bus station! We were worried that he was going to take us for an expensive unnecessary ride as we twisted through the streets of Kota, but luckily he took us to the bus station as agreed upon and begrudgingly took the 50 rupees. Sometimes these rickshaw experiences can be quite the drama!
Our bus ride took an hour, and we arrived in Bundi around noon. Feeling refreshed from our train ride, we had energy and were blessed to find a really sweet, honest rickshaw driver to take us to our hotel. Sometimes the Lonely Planet can be a wonderful guide, providing maps, distances between cities, landmarks, restaurant and guesthouse suggestions, etc., and sometimes it’s really important to let yourself wander out of the guidebook itinerary! We asked the driver to take us to a LP recommended spot (he told us it wasn’t nice) and when we arrived, we agreed with him. He told us of another spot, which we were wary of at first because sometimes the drivers only take you to a spot because they get a commission out of the deal, but he assured us that this one was very nice. Nice, it was, as it had only been open for 2 weeks! Down a old stone alley, flanked by cows and paintings of dancers and elephants, was the Haveli Taragarh Palace, complete with a 5th story rooftop terrace with a 360* view of the Bundi fort, palace, and the entire blue-housed town down below. Epic! An incredible view, a clean room, and bats living right outside our window that squeaked in the night. We wandered around Bundi that day, met a convenience store owner named Romeo who sold us the book the Tipping Point, and pointed us in the direction of a restaurant for lunch. Many of the places to eat in Bundi are also the guesthouses; we couldn’t actually find a place that was just solely a restaurant. His recommendation was okay, but later I found out that one thing I ordered (oh papaya lassi, how could you stab me in the back like that?!) did me no good whatsoever. More on that later. After lunch, we went for a walk though the streets, dodging boar/pigs with thick Mohawk hair slopping around in the gutters, mating in the gutters, eating garbage, and eating cow dung (and how did pigs get the reputation of being dirty animals?!) Also the everpresent mellow cows, puppies and dogs, and rows and rows of royal blue Brahmin houses, a color that is everpresent in Bundi, and quite charming. We walked up one small road through the residential area, saw a man with a white curling moustache, women peeking out from their upstairs terraces, children asking playfully for rupees, doors open into housing compound courtyards, and a dead end. Right as we turned around, a woman said hello to us and introduced us to her grandson Rama. Her two daughters-in-law peeked out from inside the compound, and introduced us to their two sleepy daughters. Soon, they all invited us in for chai and we took off our shoes and walked into their home. What a pleasant surprise! We sat in what I think was the grandmother/grandfather’s bedroom on the bed, as they laid out a mat and insisted we stay on the bed as they sat on the ground. I looked up and saw two large photos of a man and a woman hovering over the window, looking down on the bed. I asked about them, and the daughter-in-law with the best English said they were her mother-in-laws parents-in-law. Does that all make sense? I thought at once, “How sweet!” and also “Wow, imagine them looking down upon your bed night and day!” I asked if they were still alive, and she said no and that the woman had died the day before her wedding. Sad! We chatted with the ladies as well as we could, smiled at the children (the youngest girl was a little scared and shy around us), and watched the oldest girl have a bit of a tantrum (I think they’d woken her up from a nap for us). Rama smiled at us for he’d already had time to warm up to us. It was a really special experience, our first time into someone’s home here! We both felt blessed and lucky to be included like this, drinking masala chai from porcelain cups. We departed after about an hour, and made our way back through the winding streets and up to the palace and fort on the hill. We borrowed two monkey sticks made of bamboo (to rap on the ground to scare the monkeys away if they become a bother; apparently the red bottomed ones here aren’t the nicest) and started our ascent. The palace in Bundi had been left to shambles for many a year, and only recently has a family stepped in and began to care for it again. It smelled strongly of bat urine and guano, and had a creepy feeling behind many of the locked doors. We entered a barren courtyard and walked upstairs through an open foyer and into rooms overlooking the city with ancient paintings crumbling on the walls. We also walked up the hill a bit more, to a green courtyard full (FULL!) of monkey families, swinging through the trees, picking things out of each others’ fur, and looking at us curiously and suspiciously. (What is it about monkeys that has me both curious and suspicious? Hmm, the same things they probably feel about me!) We entered a gated gallery of ancient Krishna paintings, ornate on the walls and ceiling, the beloved blue bodied god playing his flute to Radha and a surrounding audience of well dressed ladies. We met a guide named Jaysingh with a chipped front tooth and an orange shirt, and he convinced us that a guide was necessary due to the mean monkeys (Hmm, perhaps they might make the monkeys out to be meaner than they are in order to make some extra rupees, because in hindsight, they all actually stayed out of our way!) We agreed, mostly because we never get guides and you can learn a lot more with them. He began a swift pace up the winding fort wall which had us sweating in no time. We trudged behind him, a little out of shape from our travels, and ascended to the top of the fort in about 15-20 minutes. The sun was beginning it’s descent, and he recreated fort life, from hundreds of years ago, in our minds. Empty alcoves became places where people would cook for the Maharaja; small outposts above domed entryways became the places that ladies would stand to throw flowers in a shower down upon the Maharaja’s party as they entered; a long courtyard became the place where the Maharaja and his lady would dance during special parties; little cubbies all in a row became pigeon-mail holes, where the pigeons would depart with messages tied to their feet to deliver to residents of the palace down below. It was really colorful to have this history repainted among the ruins and (sadly) graffiti covered walls of the crumbling fort. We walked to the top overlook and looked down upon Bundi, and descended the sometimes treacherous path to the sight of perhaps 7 monkeys total (much unlike the row of angry monkeys he’d promised!) Jaysingh was a fast-talking sweetheart, who told us he was good friends with our hotel operators (something we checked with them about later and found out was a complete lie; now why did he even have to lie about something like this? We already liked him and were half way through our tour when he said this). Of course when we got to the bottom of the hill, he tried to secure our commitment to a waterfall tour with him the next day, and then he took us to a jewelry shop right by the gate that we’d failed to notice on our way up. Oh, India. Sometimes we think we make a true friend (and maybe we still did) but then here are some little lies and then some commissions thrown in there too. Oh well. We still had a pleasant evening, and enjoyed the twilight on our rooftop with Paul the Canadian from the Okanogan, a 50 something year-old touring around India for five months, currently on a Royal Enfield; and a girl from Arcata, CA, and an older German gentleman who lives part the year in Calcutta. One of our hotel guys had just that day acquired a new song on his phone: Billie Jean by Michal Jackson. Oh, Michael. You’ll never cease to be classic! We all listened to the song play off of his phone as the stars came out and the night was perfection.
The following day (woah, I am writing a novel now aren’t I?!) we awoke and immediately dove into the books we are reading. Before I continue, I should explain that somehow we are each traveling with a small (heavy, space hogging) library. Carson has all three Lord of the Rings books, as well as The Tipping Point, a Thai language book (not so handy at the moment)…..and just got rid of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I Capture the Castle. I have the enormous India Lonely Planet guidebook, Red Earth and Pouring Rain (a novel I’ve been wanting to read written by an Indian author, taking place in India) as well as the 4th installment of the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. I also have a book about mehendi/henna, as well as a yoga book and several small journals. Whew! I finished up my Twilight fix that morning and Carson went further into Middle Earth. We went outside around noon and had a Sathi Lassi, which is an expert, Bundi-only conconction by a man named Sathi. He only makes 50 a day, and takes great care in using the finest ingredients---saffron, cardamom, cashews, pistachios, golden raisins, honey---and putting a lot of love into the creamy goodness! We booked a train ticket for two days from then, and then asked our booking agent about a good place for lunch. He recommended a family-run guest house down the street.
We entered a three story family home/guesthouse, and tentatively walked into the quiet surrounds. We looked up through the home (all three floors shaped in a square, surrounding the open center) and were greeted by two enthusiastic children. They invited us upstairs and immediately we were shown a green parrot named Mickey and a 35-year-old tortoise named Gopi, forever happy just sitting facing the corner of the room on the ground. (Gopi had a chipped shell, we learned, from a naughty monkey that got a hold of him a couple years prior and threw him to the ground violently. Poor Gopi!) We simultaneously perused the menu and the two customer-comment books with raving recommendations by all the previous diners and guests of the guesthouse/restaurant. We became more and more excited by the upcoming meal, and good it was (save the salty lassi, which still leaves a poor taste in my mouth and might be another reason why I got sick; more later). Their mother is an *expert* cook, and the flavors and freshness of the food there were authentic and incredible. And thus, our day continued, sitting around the table in their family home! They invited their cousin over, and she spent 2 hours covering my arms in henna. Carson played racing video games with the 7 year old boy. We chatted with the 15 year old girl when she woke up from her nap, and she told us of their previous years’ journey up to Jammu and Kashmir to a holy triple-goddess temple of, I think, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Kali. She told us where in town to get the best sweets, and I sat motionless for hours with my hands and arms covered in crusty flaking sticky lovely henna designs. We ordered dinner after some time, checked out their pink rooms for rent (quite more rustic than our brand new hotel though, and for the same price). It was fun to be inside the family space for the whole day, hanging out with the kids, hearing about their lives, and passing an afternoon in a new way in India. Towards the end of the meal, though, I began to feel nauseous, a feeling that persisted with gusto and strength as the night progressed. We walked outside, met their kind father at his ice cream shop down the street, and sat with Sathi for a half hour as he shared more about his lassis and his special Mazoum treats, made with magical ingredients including bhang (we didn’t try one, but read in his book about many other travelers who had; one in particular could barely hold the pen he was writing with after he ate one! Potent!) I began peeling off my henna, and after we got back to our hotel, exploded from both ends with sickness. Ugh. Just that day, I’d had the thought, “Wow, it’s so nice that I haven’t really gotten sick in India, save that one day in Mysore.” Bingo! You think something, it is manifest (or, the opposite is manifest!) I spent the night with several trips to the bathroom, as well as the entire next day in bed. I didn’t eat anything except for several vials of some Chinese “Curing Pills” that my Acupuncturist in Portland gave us in case of such emergencies (Thanks Carrie!) Carson spent much of the day inside reading Lord of the Rings, and emerged our room a few times to eat something for himself, or to get us some Sprite (it did feel good on my sick tummy). We ascended the flight of stairs at sunset, me quite weakly due to the sickness and fasting, to the pale golden-lit fort crowned city of Bundi. Bats began to swoop out into the night, monkeys leapt across rooftops, the sun sank, the palace highlight lights turned on, Paul told us of his adventures in Northern India, and the day struggled to cool off (Bundi was overly hot!) I descended into my bed after a while, and we slept through a hot night to awake at 6am for our train.
Bundi. I could have explored so much more of you! We never made it to your market, or your supposed special waterfall, or the 84 pillared relic, or any number of other sights. But my experience for now was all I could do, and in that, it was perfect (though an unfortunate last day!) As we stepped out of our rickshaw at dawn, an Indian woman came up to me and smiled and shook my hand, and then her little girl did the same. “Wow, they are so nice!” I thought. Later as we waited for a train, another girl came up to me and smiled and shook my hand, and introduced herself to me. On the train at one village stop, three girls outside came up and smiled and shook my hand through the window. Hmm…..ohhhhh….the henna! Bridal designs! These ladies and girls all think I just got married, and are shaking my hand in congratulations! How funny! (and also, how nice and a treat!) All day yesterday, I had so much more attention than usual, *especially* from the women, due to, I think, the henna designs covering my hands and forearms!
We arrived in Chittor, the halfway point to Udaipur, and met a nice rickshaw driver at the station. We were tempted to just hang out in the station and do nothing for a few hours to wait for the next train, as I had only eaten 2 bananas since two days prior, and we were both tired and hot, but the fort in Chittor is supposedly the best in Rajasthan. We decided to go with the driver, and he took us on a steep climb up to the amazing fort on the hillside. Good choice! We passed perhaps our biggest trust test in India thus far, leaving both our backpacks in his rickshaw with him as we went into numerous temples, palaces, and landmarks. Each time the rickshaw got out of sight as we walked to the next temple etc., Cars and I gave each other a weary hopeful glance, just praying our driver was trustworthy. He was!! I was thinking, “Gosh, I hope that thought I had about my bag being a burden and too heavy doesn’t mean that I’m going to lose my bag today!” But luckily, all was fine, and we got to see some *amazing* temples, some from the 6th and 8th and 11th centuries! We visited two Krishna temples, walked inside a Shiva/Brahma/Vishnu temple, rang the bell and got blessed by prasad, a coconut, and the most fragrant rose I’ve ever smelled in our first Kali temple (!! It’s been a Kali temple since the 14th century!) and also visited a pristine Jain temple from the 11th century. Each temple had ornate carvings on the outside of so many deities, in marble….oh, I can’t even begin to describe. Incredible! I wandered away from Carson at one point, and walked into a small archway/tunnel. There, three Indian families were hanging out, and at the sight of me and my arms, a mother urged her 2 year old to come up to me and shake my hand, and then the other children, and then I was the star in picture after picture with a varied assortment with all of them; men, women, and children galore! Probably 10 photos at least (I wish I had one on my camera!) It was surprising and fun!
When is this post ever going to end? I hope you are not getting bored reading my long descriptions of everything. It actually feels brief to me, as there is so much I am leaving out of the visual experience of being here, or my emotional responses to things, or the beauty of the Rajasthani architecture, or the tastes, or the feeling of the ancient warm stones on my feet, or the red seated bike leaning upon the crumbing wall, or the kindness of a cow’s eyes, or the smell of the rose in my hair as it’s Kali blessed scent wafts around the rickshaw, or the feel of the soft hands of the little girls shaking my own, or the delight of our new bed in Udaipur (just when we said to ourselves, “We’ll never have a soft bed in India!” Wham! A soft foamy mattress AND soft pillows!!!!)…..or the view-from-our-room of our current city, Udaipur, with it’s large palace and “Most Romantic city in India” luster….or the glow of the fireworks over the town last night….or the heat of the ghats as we watched the sunset….or the frustrations of meeting a new “friend” last night only to find out he’s a tailor and he got more and more frustrated as we tried to dodge out of going to his shop…or the smile of our current Panorama guesthouse owner, Krishna (Krishna, you are everywhere in so many forms!)….or the taste of our tandoori cooked chicken tikka masala last night (my first chicken of the whole trip! I felt I needed the protein after being so sick!)….or all that I am learning, swirling into the fabric of who I am, elusive and clear, emerging and hidden and re-emerging, concealing, revealing, building, releasing, cleansing, growing, changing, knowing, easy, hard, tender, soft, strength, light, dark, blessed, guided, every moment building upon the next, perfect in what it is, learning how to say yes, learning how to say no, and learning the in between, the head bobble, becoming nearly second nature to me now as I find myself bobbling my head slightly often! My henna hands type this, not washing out for a couple of weeks, stained with a color of India, touched, marked, highlighted, noticed, a part of this place.
Always, there is so much more, here is your taste for now! Carson will be writing his view soon too!
Love,
Melissa
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