Saturday, April 4, 2009

trains > buses > planes

or at least that's my opinion on travel in India, according to a complicated formula plotting economy against comfort and interest and dirtiness (clearly some factors outweigh others) ..unfortunately I've just spent a very frustrating hour and half on the IRCTC website discovering that trains all over India are booked solid for the next couple weeks so I seem to be destined for a few more overnight buses then I was planning on. Somehow Nirupa and I were able to book trains all across Rajasthan only a few days in advance, but now we seem to have come back to the reality of nothing being simple here.. Oh well, I guess the whole business sort of adds an element of destiny into where I go when (i.e., wasn't planning on going as far south as Mysore but apparently I have to if I ever want to make it north again without flying).

Anywayyyys I figured it was time for a lil update if I ever want to catch up, we've been covering a lot of ground. Let's see, we got to Jaisalmer in the morning.. sometime last week, spent a day and a night there, went on a camel safari in the desert for like a day and a half, had the rest of that day in Jaisalmer, then caught the sleeper to Jodhpur. Day and a night in Jodhpur, bus to Udaipur for most of the next day, night and a day in Udaipur; then sleeper to Indore, train to Kandhwa, train to Jalgaon, night in Jalgaon, Ajanta caves today, and now we're spending the night in Aurangabad. I guess it sounds kind of exhausting but there's a few days of sitting on buses/trains in there, and we actually didn't really rush around in any of the places in Rajasthan.. in general I think we could have spent more time in most of the places we've been just hanging out, but we wouldn't actually have done much more than we did in a day and a half or so.

Highlights have included camel riding, camel trotting, being on a camel when it stands up (first with both front legs, then both back.. sort of like a see-saw), trying not to step on camel poop, bonding with the camel drivers and listening to them traditional Rajasthani songs and then a personalized version of 'Barbie Girl' and impart wisdom such as 'no chapati, no chai, no woman, no cry', sleeping on the sand dunes, watching the sun rise over the sand dunes.. watching the procession for the Gangaur festival, with little girls dressed in amazing bright and sparkly outfits and women with bangles covering their upper arms and the maharaja on his horse (who stepped on me)... walking the narrow streets in Jaislamer with intricately carved golden sandstone balconies and facades arond every corner, the beautiful palace and Jain temples inside the fort, hearing about how people used to live in the desert before they had running water (using one bucket of water five times!).. finding possibly the best Italian food in India (sorry, I can't eat straight dahl for 2 months).. blue houses in Jodhpur, the huge impenetrable fort, busy bazaars and saffron lassi.. the hills and green and only partly dried up lake up Udaipur after the golden desert in Jaisalmer and rocky red land around Jodhpur.. watching artists make miniature paintings and point out the details with a magnifying glass... 2000 year old Buddhist carvings and paintings in the cave temples at Ajanta

Tomorrow we're going to see the rock-cut temples at Ellora and then... a water park!!! Oh man I couldn't be more excited. I'm pretty adjusted to being constantly sweaty but I've been craving a swimming pool.. or water slides.. or Goan beaches...!

2 comments:

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Stranger World said...

Online Bus Ticket Booking. Jodhpur is the second largest city in the indian state of rajasthan. The city is known as the sun city for the bright, sunny weather it enjoys all year. It is also referred to as the blue city due to the blue-painted houses around the mehrangarh fort. Jodhpur lies near the geographic centre of rajasthan state, which makes it a convenient base for travel in a region much frequented by tourists.