January 17 – 12:25AM – Mumbai.

Today was an intense day on many levels. Intense heat, intense smog, intense crowds and some intense levels of travel. We set out on a boat to Elephanta Island which, as I said in a previous entry, is an island with very old caves carved in the mountain side. There are about six of them and they were used for religious ceremonies and have large columns and big religious statues carved out of the rock inside them. It was an hour long trip by medium sized boat each way and was definitely much longer than we had expected it to be. Cool but super needed a beer when we got back.

After the boat landed back in Mumbai we headed over to Café Leopold which is apparently pretty legendary for several reasons, one being that that it is super old, from around the 1870’s, and the other two being that 10 people were shot to death by AK-47 fire and a grenade explosion during the 2008 Palestinian terrorist attacks and also that the food is very expensive and not that great. We knew that it wasn’t going to be the traditionally great-deal-meal that is normal in India because it's kind of a tourist joint, so it was fine. About 40 dollars for two people which is beyond unheard of in India. Somewhere in our day Kevin bought a fine TAG Heuer knockoff watch which would soon break into a billion pieces.

After Café Leopold we caught a dollar fifty cab ride to Chowpatty Beach which was full of Indians watching the sunset, flying kites and enjoying the last day of their weekend.

From there we headed to Victoria Terminus, a huge train station built by the British with some great old Victorian architecture. A huge dome and spires, stained glass and many intricate and ornate craggy designs all over it. The station has a very European feel to it and if it wasn’t for the thousands of dark haired Indians running around inside you would swear that you were in Germany or Holland. If you weren’t ready for the sight it would definitely not be something that you would expect to see in India.



After being shocked by the shear masses of people around the train station, we tried to head to large indoor Crawford Market, also designed and built by the British. We were never successful at finding the actual market itself but did see miles and miles of packed streets full of vendors and shoppers with each block specializing in a specific product like the chicken street, the baked goods street, textiles, or the goat street.

We also bought a movie ticket at a theater to check out a Bollywood flick. The movie was called something like “Who Killed Jessica?” or something to that extent. It was in Hindi and was pretty bad so we left early but that was the plan to begin with. Interestingly they do throw in some English words here and there so we could sort of follow the story. Sorry if we offended any Indians with our early departure.

Previously during our stay in Mumbai we had found a good and very cheap little breakfast spot by our hotel. You could get an omelet and toast for under two bucks US and being the cheap bastard that I am this authentic local eatery was quickly on my favorites list. Things, however, changed drastically when I went back late-night an hour or so ago. It is after midnight now so maybe I will go deeper into the issues I had on later pages. To briefly sum it up here, I walked in by myself at about 11:30PM and had to walk out after about four minutes because too many people were staring at me and I was very uncomfortable and slightly annoyed. I did get some food at another locals only joint but only after psyching myself up to not care about how many people were looking at me as I ate.

Thinking back on the situation, I don’t think that any of the staring was out of hate or abhorrence, just the fact that Indians don’t see a whole lot of white people, especially in a locals place like this so they just couldn’t help but stare. Maybe it is too cocky sounding that I think I am that interesting to look at but I can’t think of anything else. What I do know is that Indians tend to look at you for far longer than what is considered normal in the US and other parts of the world I have been to. People walk by our seats on the train and glance at us but then do a double take and maintain their stares, turning their heads completely as they walk by our compartment. Maybe staring is just part of the culture and isn’t considered rude or not normal but it is uncomfortable if you aren’t used to it. I’m not pissed and actually more interested in why this is a normal way of social interaction more than anything else and that’s why I’m talking about it so much. Also because it feels very strange to have dozens of eyes staring at you at all times and weird to be making eye contact with everyone around you for like a minute each without flinching. Don’t challenge anyone to a staring contest here. You’ll go down.

Alright, it’s late and I am very tired so I’ll look into this staring thing a little deeper when I get a chance to talk to someone about it.

January 17 – 9:15AM – Café Universal, Mumbai.

I am sitting in a café near our hotel called Café Universal. What I have found is that there are two types of establishments in Mumbai. One is that for the locals and the other is that for the tourists as well as more westernized Mumbain’s. This separate local and tourist establishments thing is pretty much a worldwide phenomenon, San Francisco included, and I am usually baffled why anyone would travel to a city like San Francisco and go somewhere like Fisherman’s Wharf where you are completely surrounded by other tourists and no San Franciscans. Fisherman’s Wharf isn’t San Francisco. In a more extreme environment like Mumbai, I can now kinda understand this a little though. Here it is really segregated, not a blatant in your face type segregation but pretty obvious if you look around and observe your surroundings. It's interesting position for the one being stared at.

My situation last night was strange. I went into my new favorite small working man's type place, an Indian version of a late night Denny’s or something, although much smaller, just a few booths and one waiter, also not as spiffy as a Denny’s but who likes the spiffy cheapness of those places anyways. This was real India. I sat down by myself in a booth and an older Indian man sitting across from me started staring intensely without breaking eye contact. He then, still without breaking eye contact, told his buddy to turn around and have a look. The second guy turned fully around in his booth and started staring at me as well, both of them less than four feet away from me. I had to get up and leave because I sort of started freaking out, not knowing what to do, where to look, etc. I was actually a little angry as I left because I was hungry and very sick of people staring at me all day long. Thinking back I realize that it was wrong to be angry because the people staring are just interested so they take a good look at you and don’t stop until they are not interested.

The staring is also probably more intensified in the case of the restaurant I was in because white people just don’t go into these real Indian restaurants. When one does it’s a rare occurrence so everyone takes notice. I don’t think that westerners don’t go into these places because they aren’t welcome, it just doesn’t happen. It also may have to do with a society that has come out of thousands of years of a caste system where different levels of the social and economic classes don’t mix. As far as I can tell in these working class cafes, anyone that isn’t a street level Indian just doesn’t come in often and they haven’t for hundreds of years. That’s just the way it is and maybe I’m a jerk for thinking that hidden stratifications in a society don’t apply to me.

Anyways, enough of that, I’m gonna order breakfast now… in one of those tourist restaurants. I do wish that I was in the diner down the street though.

January 18 – 12:30PM – Lal Ghat Guesthouse, Udaipur.

We’ve arrived in the town of Udaipur. We’re a week into our trip and I think we have finally
gotten used to the chaos that is India. Mumbai is chaos to the extreme and was a really great and eye opening experience. Still, it is nice to get to the relative calm of Udaipur and just kick back and think about nothing on our hotel balcony overlooking the famed lake. I say relative quiet because the streets here are still crowded and there is still a lot of horn honking going on, but the horns seem more like peaceful bird chirps compared to those in the bustle of urban Bombay.


We left Bombay at 10:00PM and took the night train to Udaipur which is in the desert state of Rajasthan. Our hotel is a great old stone building centered around a shaded central courtyard with big trees and a big wooden table where travelers hang back and exchange travel stories. According to the owner, Sanjay, the guesthouse was built 300 years ago and was also a guesthouse in the past for people who came to visit the Palace and the King (there’s a large palace in town). The town, more accurately city, of Udaipur is set around a peaceful lake which our room looks out on. The lake has a famous hotel that seems to float on the water called the Lake Palace Hotel. 1,700 US a night compared to our 12 dollars at the guesthouse, which is the best room in the whole place here and has three rooms in it. You can stay for 2 bucks or so a night if you don’t mind dorms and a shared bathroom.

Our last day in Mumbai/Bombay was sort of low key, low key definitely being an out of context word for anything in Bombay. We tried to go to the National Museum but it was closed on Mondays. That was out so we wandered around instead, sat in a café, had a beer and went inside the Taj Palace Hotel to check out what it was like. Being inside the Taj is a huge contrast to what you will see on the streets of Bombay because it’s a ritzy joint and full of people who, judging by their stylish and new looking clothes, seem to be very rich. A striking juxtaposition to those outside.

For lunch in Mumbai we decided to give my favorite authentic diner down the street one last chance. When we walked in there were no empty booths and we thought we would have to wait, but now knowing how people interact in such a crowded country this apparently should not have been an issue for our consideration. Here it is common to share a booth with strangers. This put us in a very small booth with, and very close to two gentlemen who were already eating. The older of the two actually beckoned for us to sit down with them. We said hello and ordered or sort of gestured to the waiter that we wanted the same thing that they were eating, some kind of lamb stew and naan bread.

In India people eat with their hands. Actually they eat with only their right hand because, due to the non existence of toilet paper which is replaced by a water squirter thing, their left hand is used for bathroom duties. It is bad-mannered to eat with your left. Kevin and I had a hell of a time trying to use one hand to break our naan bread into bite sized pieces to use as a scooping utensil but we didn’t want to offend our hosts so we tried our best. This effort may have not been enough because the younger of the two men seemed to be making snide comments under his breath when we tried to make conversation and was hushed several times by the older man who was friendlier. I tried to be a good ambassador of the US and made small talk but got nowhere because the older man said something to the extent of “now we have quiet” or something like that after a few questions. It was a little awkward toward the end. Kevin did not have a good time at all because the younger guy who he was sitting across from kept giving him dirty looks. People in India have so far been extremely friendly and maybe in this situation our guests just didn’t feel like chatting. The food was good though and couldn’t be beat for two bucks.

We decided to wander some more after lunch and eventually ended up in the bazaar district again. We headed toward Victoria Terminus and, being that it was around 6:30PM, we were met by hoards of people making their way to the station. We got a firsthand immersion into one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Seas of people streamed around us, cars and motorcycles battled to make their way through the crowds and the whole experience put us to silence with awe and oversaturation from the huge amounts of people concentrated into a single area. Inside the station itself it was even more crowded and was definitely the most people I have seen in one place ever, far surpassing New York City. Even more awe inspiring was the fact that this concentration is not only centered into just the area of the station but is city wide which we would witness in our taxi ride to a different train station to catch our train to Udaipur later that night. We rode for miles and the seething mass of people never ended.

That’s it for now, going to check out Udaipur.

January 19 – 11:25AM – Lal Ghat Guesthouse, Udaipur.

Alright, don’t remember exactly where I left off so I guess I’ll just start at the beginning. Scratch that, I just flipped though the last few pages of this journal and found that I’ve already introduced that we are in Udaipur.

So anyways, I’ll recap yesterday in Udaipur which was pretty good. All of our days are actually turning out to be that way so I am happy. We started off our stay by going to the palace which is the main attraction in the tourist area in town. According to the tour info it is the largest historical palace in all of the state of Rajasthan which is impressive because there are many to compete with. The first construction was started in the mid 1500’s (relatively new by Indian standards) with subsequent additions continuing until the recent decade. The palace is cool to walk around in, many stairs and narrow hallways built by design to confuse potential invaders. We checked out some of the royal apartments and looked at some decent old art work portraying one of the several kings who lived in the palace going on hunting expeditions for tigers and other wild animals as well as some interesting portrayals of elephant fights put on for amusement in the palaces courtyard.

When we were done staring at the palace we went over to another section of town by crossing a bridge that connects one side of town to the other, possibly on an island or peninsula. We sat down at a restaurant called Ambrai that looked back over the lake and to the palace and city on the opposite shoreline which is built up to many stories and looks more like a cliff of humanity and ancient architecture than a shoreline. We saw an epic sunset and just relaxed. We also snapped a photo for three women, one of who turned out to be from Oakland across the bay from where we live back home.













We then decided to catch lunch which actually happened more around dinner time. These super late lunches seem to be occurring commonly over here because our heads are always busy on a swivel taking in India and we just forget about lunch. We went to a restaurant that I really wanted to try because it was on one of my favorite TV shows, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. It was an authentic locals type thali joint, thali being vegetarian curries served on a large stainless steel platter. The restaurant was called Natraj. Most thali restaurants here are all-you-can-eat places where you sit down and are given a platter that has several small independent ramekin sized steel bowls on top of it. You are then barraged by a crew of servers who instantly start filling your bowls with curries and soup like stuff as well as dishing out big spoonfuls of the more solid foods like rice, potato curry and naan bread onto your platter. It’s a crazy thing because you’ll be hunched over trying to eat everything in front of you and the moment you think you have an edge on it all a large ladle or spoon instantly shoots into your tunnel vision and refills your finished portion and you’re right back where you started. I loved it. I wish I knew the names of the food I was eating but all I could do was try to keep up with what was piled onto my plate. The best part of this all-you can-eat marathon (my specialty) is that it only sets you back 70 rupees, or just under two dollars US.

Once again we were the only westerners in the whole place, which is a good sign. If Indians like it that means it’s good, and once again we sat face to face with two random Indian gentlemen. This time we did not attempt conversation which was probably for the better and which we didn’t have time for anyways trying to keep up with all the food being thrown at us. And yes, once again it was an intense but great experience.

I forgot to mention, for reasons which will become obvious in a moment, that on the way to the thali place we stopped by a small hole in the wall shop, almost literally, with a man sitting on the floor with several large pots of murky water in front of him to get a bhang lassi. A lassi being a very prevalent curd drink in India and the bhang part being marijuana tea. Now just a quick disclaimer here, I’m not a stoner or a pothead by any stretch of the imagination, and bhang, which specifically is only the dried marijuana leaves, is completely legal in India. I really wanted to try it and hey, Anthony Bourdain tried it here on TV and if Anthony Bourdain walked off a cliff I would definitely follow him. The man in the shop used bucket water and some other normally shocking unhygienic techniques to make my drink, but I was going for it nonetheless. Let me tell you that this stuff is no joke. I floated around the streets of Udaipur for the rest of the night. Thankfully Kevin chose not to partake because otherwise we probably both would have ended up wandering lost in the desert or talking to holy cows all evening.

If it isn’t obvious yet I have to say that I am really enjoying this travel experience so far. It is a huge culture shock and things surprise/astonish/scare/amaze me around most every corner. Right now we are very close to Pakistan and will be getting closer in the coming days. It’s a trip to think about being so close to a place with such strained relations with India and also the fact that it is next door to Afghanistan. It is an even bigger trip to think about being halfway around the world, literally, at least 24 hours on a good day, from home. Whoa dude, that is trippy. I can’t feel my hands. Just kidding. But I’m not kidding about how huge the distance and well as the difference the everyday way of life here feels to me from what I am used to.
Oh, and I also found out through talking to a group of English women and one woman from Holland that staring is a super common thing to encounter, even worse for women who get stared at by Indian men for pretty much entire eight hour bus rides as well as get snapped cell phone pictures of blatantly in their faces. Don’t let that scare you though if you are a woman thinking of traveling here because they were all having the time of their life.

Alright. Gonna find something to do for the day now. More later.

January 19 – 5:40PM – Udaipur.

Major Trip Update: We got mini speaks. Mini speakers for my iPod that is, and we now have beats for our room and train cars. There is some majorly low quality sound coming out of these things, but they only cost seven dollars split between Kevin and I so it’s all good. Listening to Kanye West in the hotel room now. Nice.

Of course… great day so far. I think Kevin and I were initially a little sketched out about finding enough to do in the somewhat small city of Udaipur, but that is definitely not a problem and things are working out well. One of the benefits of Udaipur is that it is definitely made for chillin'. There is a totally relaxed vibe and that is exactly what we have been doing, relaxing and feeling those vibes.


After breakfast this morning we took a tuk tuk piloted by our new man in India, Babu, to the foot of a mountain that we spotted from Ambrai Restaurant yesterday. We rode an aerial tram from the mountains base about a mile or so up to the top and walked around. It was completely peaceful with an epic, near 360 degree view of the entire city of Udaipur, the palace, the lake, everything. I highly recommend it and it isn’t in the guidebooks. Just ask to go to the gondola thing-a-ma-jigs and the tuk tuk dudes will know what you’re talking about. When we were cruising around up top a group of young Indian kids asked if they could take a picture with us so we did and then asked them to do the same for us with our camera. They probably got us confused with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Easy mistake to make so it’s all good.

We’re back at the hotel now as I said, listening to mini speaks. We may go out at 7:00PM tonight and watch the James Bond flick Octopussy, which was filmed here from what we have heard, with tuk tuk chases through Udaipur’s streets. A lot of the bars here play it because of that. Sounds good, fun and relaxing. Word life for now. Late.

Amber Haze

In the north of India there is a mellow haze. People move slower, it takes longer to get your beer, the tuk tuks still move fast but life is… although hectic on its face, just more relaxed as a whole. Everything huge seems to matter less. The sun sets slower. Your next destination isn’t important and even though as an American your brain wants to tell you to move fast, wants you to accomplish your next goal, something seems to seep up from the red Indian clay beneath your feet that tells you the opposite, to step pleasurably, a little slower, to know the earth, not necessarily to examine and scrutinize it but to just… be.

Words can’t put into words what I am experiencing now.

January 20 – 10:05AM – Driving.

In a bumpy car traveling North through the Rajasthan countryside. We’re headed to the blue city of Jodhpur but stopping off at two places to see some sights on the way there. One is a fort called Ranakpur and the other is a Jain temple called Kumbalgarh. Write more when less bumpy.

January 20 – 7:30PM – Jodhpur.

We just arrived in Jodhpur at the Yogi Guesthouse after a long dusty car ride from Udaipur, but more about the ride later. I’m now sitting at the guesthouse’s rooftop, with a view of the old fort that the town is settled around. Kevin got sick (puke number two of the trip for him) on the drive here so he’s taking it easy in the room now.

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.