Chris and Paula’s World

We are in an internet cafe in Jodhpur, escaping the mid afternoon heat outside. Jodhpur is near the desert in Western Rajhastan and we are feeling the heat. Happily there is no humidity so we are coping ok. I’ll start with our time in Jodhpur then move to Udaipur as I’ll have more to say about that. Jodhpur is a city with an old section and a sprawling new section. There are narrow streets with shops everywhere, and like most big cities, packed with people, rickshaw wallahs, motorbikes, cows, and stray dogs. People are quite friendly here and we haven’t had any problems finding our way around. This morning we visited the massive fort that overlooks the city. It is where the maharaja family lived until the 70’s and has since been restored into a cultural centre and museum. The architecture is amazing here, with beautiful sandstone and marble carved into gorgeous patterns, and lots of wood and stone lattice work in the windows. The rooms are full of bling — the walls are often covered in mirrors, coloured glass, luxurious fabrics, paintings, and even semi precious stones.

After the fort we took a rickshaw to the train station where we bought tickets for a 5:55 a.m. ride to Jaipur for tomorrow. What a fuss buying tickets. There is a line for “Ladies, Foreign Tourists, and Senior Citizens” that we stood in. This is our second time purchasing tickets so we knew the drill. We didn’t anticipate the crazy budding! Man oh man, what a production! We finally got our tickets (for one of the trains, the other tickets we needed were not available so we will have to do the whole thing again when we get to Jaipur!).

Back to Udaipur. We loved Udaipur. We were there for three nights and really enjoyed this quiet, peaceful city. Octopussy was filmed here and is showed nightly at pretty well every hotel in the city. The streets were narrow and winding as well as hilly — most building were painted white and it was very clean. Udaipur as a city is trying to be more environmentally friendly (lots of solar panels around), easy on tourists (not so much haggling), and also generally cleaner. From our hotel we could see the beautiful Lake Palace - formerly home to Maharajahs, now a gorgeous hotel. In momsoon season, the lake surrounding it fills and there are boat rides that you can take at sunset - which we did. It is lovely. On one side of the city, the Monsoon Palace perches high up on a mountain. We went up there for sunset on our first night in Udaipur. Amazing view, funny monkeys and a beautiful if somewhat dilapidated building. This is where the Maharaja would spend monsoon season. The City Palace is home to the Maharajah now. The Maharajah doesn’t hold official power anymore, but the family is very involved financially in the well being of the city. They live in part of the palace and the rest is used as a museum.

We took a rickshaw tour with Salim, a guide we met at the train station. He was a good guide and took us out for two half day trips. On our first day we visited some city gardens, ghats, a memorial and the Monsoon Palace. On our second day we visited the spice market, a burial ground for the royal family (amazing - hundreds of “cenotaphs” - huge stone or marble memorials), some local villages and a Jain temple. One of the Jains’ most fundamental beliefs is that all animal life is precious and should be protected. Some of the very devout Jains will actually cover their noses and mouths to prevent accidental inhalation of insects, and may also carry a broom that they use to sweep in front of themselves while walking to avoid stepping on insects.

One of our highlights of Udaipur was a cooking class that we took. Shusna is a local lady that cooks a mean Indian dish. We first learned to prepare garam masala as well as masala chai. We also learned how to make paneer, paneer masala, curried dhal, and vegetable raita. At the end we of course got to eat it all too! It was a lot of fun and we are hoping that we remember how to do it when we get home. We both took lots of notes on our recipes, so hopefully it will come back to us.

That is all I have to report for now. I seem to swing between loving it here, and not being so sure. Today walking through the crowded market, walking by the odd open and smelly sewer, and constantly hearing honking horns, I felt unsure again. I think that may be just the way it is with India. Guess you have to take the good with the bad. The good seems very good, I must admit. I feel I am constantly seeing things that make me think I will love it here more than anything else. On our way to the fort today we were invited into a home where we chatted with a man and his wife for about 30 minutes. She henna’d my left hand, introduced us to her grandson, and gave us some good suggestions for local restaurants to try. Like several others they showed us their collection of foreign currency and told us how much they like Canadians “great friend to India, and many Indians loving living in Canada”. These are the exchanges with people that you really come to appreciate and that will no doubt make up many of the good memories that we carry back home with us.

Going to leave it there. Hoping that all is well at home. Namaste.

Paula
xoxo

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.