I’ve got many things to write about so I’ll get started with last nights evening in Udaipur. We started off watching the sunset over the lake from our hotel balcony and chatted with some women that we had met earlier, two British girls named Liv and Laura and a girl from Holland named Rose.
As I mentioned, the James Bond Movie Octopussy (ahem) was shot in town, so many of the restaurants play the movie at night. We wandered next door to our hotel where the film was playing and sat in front of an old TV and a DVD player that skipped so much that it condensed the entire film down to about 45 minutes. It was all good because we saw the parts that were shot in town anyways. The scenes were comprised of a pretty awesome tuk tuk chase through the narrow city streets, with ridiculous jumps, knife fights, fire walking and explosions. There were also several scenes shot in the palace where James Bond of course used his 007 techniques to easily seduce several enemy women. Oh James! We sat around for awhile after the movie, finishing off some beers and chatting with the ladies. My 007 techniques are slightly lower in skill level than Bond’s.
We woke up early the next day (today) and caught a rented car to see the fort and temple in the Indian countryside and then move on to Jodhpur. The drive was very windy, through hills and down bumpy roads but very cool because we got to see what the life of rural farmers in India is like. While the surrounding hills were dry and rocky the small valleys were fertile with trees and terraced crops fed by intricate waterways that seemed to do the job well as far as I can tell from the greenness of the crops. The whole system is dependent on water wheels turned by cows and oxen walking in circles, nudged along by men sitting on their backs with a small stick. We quickly buzzed through the rock walled countryside, goat herds and one-street towns populated by traditionally dressed men in bright pink turbans and women dressed in electric pink, red, and orange saris carrying large baskets of goods on their heads.
Our first stop was at a fort perched high on a very defendable mountain rock outcropping called Kumbalgarh. It was constructed in the 1400’s. This thing was pretty cool, with massive sandstone walls surrounding it. Over the hundreds of years that the fort was functioning as a home to its inhabitants it was only overtaken once by a warrior general named Akbar. He was successful by poisoning the water supply. We climbed a steep cobblestone path leading up to the main palace which had absolutely breathtaking views of the flat desert plains fifty or so miles below. Very cool and worth the drive if you can handle the long trip to get there. With the next stop that we would make included, the total trip time was about ten hours between hotels.
After the fort we made a quick stop at a Jain temple… what is Jain? Mmmm, all I know is that Jains don’t eat garlic and I that it is a religion older than Buddhism. The temple we stopped at was carved from white marble and was made up of several wings supported by hundreds of columns with small intricate carvings on them of elephants and gods and the like. It was very peaceful inside.
After hanging out at the temple for a bit we descended out of the forested and monkey laden hills and hit the flat dry planes of the Thar Desert. This area of India can best and most accurately be described with one perfect word, dusty. The ride became semi brutal at this point with the dust from the large and brightly decorated Indian versions of semi trucks kicking up dirt and sand, most of which went straight into our un-air-conditioned car windows and is still crunching between my teeth as I sit here and eat naan and chicken masala for dinner.
It is worth describing a pit stop we made at a truck stop/garbage dump/roadside-pee-area (minus the actual bathroom)/town where our driver took a break to get a chai tea. This place was completely destroyed with garbage strewn everywhere, cows eating the garbage, all types of excrement and the smells to go with it, as well as the ever present dust from passing trucks and exhaust in your face. If you have ever been appalled by Tijuana or a similar place then multiply that by about at least three or four, no kidding.
That’s about it up until now. Like I said we are in Jodhpur which is called the blue city because its buildings are painted light blue to repel the desert heat and also because the blue color somehow repels mosquitoes.
Kevin is definitely sick. As I stopped by the room to wash my hands before diner he was having a good puke in the toilet. I’ll try to get him a banana from the street market when I take a look around town this evening. Leaving for Jaisalmer by car tomorrow at 8:00AM.
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