Bangalore (Prelude)

So unplanned pit stop in Bangalore.  We decided to "save time" and buy plane tickets between the North and South, after all India is big country to get across.  Unfortunately, we were planning on arriving to Kochi yesterday afternoon but our trip was 2 connecting flights the 1st of which was delayed 3 hours.  Our US entitlement attitude of give us more info and give us a new flight didn't get too far so instead we find ourselves in...Bangalore.  A week early and trying once again to make a new game plan and still fit in some backwaters and wild elephant spotting.  Wish us luck, we are off to the train station and bus station now to try to find some answers.  Apparently bus travel is far more common in the south as a way to connect places, another adventure for us!

PAUSE

So did we succeed?  This would be an appropriate place for an Indian head wobble.  This silent affirmative gesture is a catch all motion and although it takes some getting used to it is rather contagious.  So what does this mean in terms of our next steps?  We did not leave with an itinerary planed out by train tickets like when we left Delhi but it seems likely we will still be able to squeeze in much of our 1st choice options of what to see in Kerala.  Kochi is out, we crossed it off the list immediately after missing our connecting flight in an attempt to stay closer by and save a travel day in the long run.  Mysore is in, we added this since it is a main transportation hub to get between states.  So currently we are on the train to Mysore and also have a bus ticket in hand from Mysore to Tholpetty a Wildlife Reserve in Wayanad - hello elephants!  We are hoping to we will get a place to stay since its high tourist time and also be able to get from Wayanad to to the western coast for some beaches and lesser known backwaters in Northern Kerala.  Then we are going to make 1 last effort to fly back to Bangalore for wedding festivities, wish us luck!

Jaisalmer - Desert and Town

The town of Jaisalmer is an odd place and the feeling I get here I only describe by equating it to a New England beach town-it is outstandingly picturesque; every time you turn a corner or simply tilt your head and the light changes slightly you have the urge to take yet another picture even though photos do little to capture the enormity of the beauty you see.  Yet despite this enigmatic quality it is a tourist town catering towards the weekenders and summer crowd everything sounds new and exciting until you notice the patterns and lines begin to sound rehearsed and shops begin to look identical.  This is the feel of Jaisalmer, it caters to westerner tourists and puts on a very flashy show, but let me remind you I am in India not Cape Cod.  So here instead of nautical theme you find desert theme and for me desert is new and exciting and yes holds a bit of mystique.  The "it" thing to do from Jaisalmer is go on a camel safari.  Although the word safari conjures images of camouflage, Jeeps, and binoculars to my mind here it means ride a camel into the desert.  We decided to leave our palace for 1 night to sleep on the sand dunes under the stars.  A guide drove us to in a Jeep about an hour outside of the city to where we met our camels and 2 camel drivers (so I guide and 2 camel drivers just for Casey and I a pretty good attention ratio).   Along the way we stopped to "see a desert village" which was extremely uncomfortable as we drank chai while being stared at by 15 children who then ran after our Jeep asking for rupees and chocolates.  After this unfortunate detour we got to hop on the back of a camel and ride for a few hours lulled by the not so even rocking of the camels gait and the beat of the strong desert sun.  It was in fact quite spectacular.  After a few hours we arrives at some amazing dunes which were to be our campground for the night.  The desert is a fascinating place open and seemingly endless but certainly not still.  Steady winds pass through, moving out the air and exchanging it with cooler fresh oxygen and wildlife scurries about eating and singing to the wind.  When we set up camp our guides invited us to the "desert restaurant" they let us watch as they prepared chai, pakora, daal, rice, chaibati, and a mixed vegetable dish over the campfire.  We watched the sunset from the dunes and the sun huge and red have way to an enormous amount of starts, a desert sky certainly is unparalleled in my book.  Sleeping under the stars with a cool breeze on my face and warm blankets shielding the rest of me with the murmur of camels hanging about was delightful.  The next morning we rode our camels a few more hours met the Jeep and headed back to Jaisalmer.  The following day we went to the Fort which is really just a town within the town (this is the original section, remember, that the king left so his people would follow) it had the same touristy feel as the rest of Jaisalmer - beach town or desert mirage showing only that which the desert wishes to disclose and keeping the rest safely locked away and tricking your mind into not believing it exists. 

Note: I finished writing this in the Jaipur airport after taking an overnight train from Jaisalmer (AC3 not remarkable even though its a higher class, I personally would rather stick to SL) we are now going to fly south to Kochi and begin Phase 2 of our India Travels. 

Jaisalmer - Staying in a Palace

We are staying in a palace!  This is not a figure of speech but a true fact.  The city of Jaisalmer was for years contained within the walls of the fort (yes another fort) but due to the rapid growth of the population the king realized they would need to expand from the confines of the city walls and he asked his people to move outside but no one wanted to move.  Apparently, the king loved his people and refused to force anyone to move so he chose to lead by example and move himself.  This was 300 years ago and the royal family of Jaisalmer still lives in a portion of the palace but the rest is now a hotel so we decided to splurge on some luxury and a few nights in a palace and boy do I feel like royalty!  We were escorted to our room which has marble floors, a balcony, a window seat, and the most immense bathroom and shower.  Already I spent a few relaxing hours by the pool and took a nice long hot shower.  I know there will be plenty more to come as I explore Jaisalmer for the next 3 days and go on a camel safari but I just wanted to share this tidbit about feeling like the queen of the Thar Desert living in this beautifully carved stone palace!  How I love to daydream and how easy it is to do in India. 

Jodhpur

I am totally charmed by Jodhpur (known as the blue city); blue is definitely more impressive than pink.  We arrived in Jodhpur late and I was surprised by the quiet of the station and also the amount of people sleeping out front in the entryway.  So far since arriving in India one of the major ways the image in my head has differed from reality is that I have seen far fewer beggars than I had anticipated.  I never realize I have a preconceived notion of a place until I arrive and am startled by what I do or do not see, then I realize it must be a juxtaposition with my made up version.  So yes, there is extreme poverty as seen by the people sleeping in the station in Jodhpur, and cows lying on piles of trash in the middle of the road, but in terms of beggars on the streets there have been very few.  I'll circle back to a few other general surprises later but for now I'll go on about Jodbpur.  After crashing out the first night we had another planning morning figuring out where we wanted to stay the other 2 nights since we weren't jumping for job about our guest house and also decided roughly what we wanted our days to look like.  All the drag of logistics was soon forgotten, however, as the afternoon plan was to see the Maharangan Fort (the towns main attraction).  The people of Jodhpur were generally super friendly so as we climbed up to the top of the hill people were waving hello and pointing us in the right direction without further agenda just because they were happy to show off their city.  The fort itself was incredible, complete with an audio tour that was not in the least bit dull.  Listening to first hand accounts from the current Maharaja about how he has redefined his role in current day Jodhpur and hearing stories  about protecting the fort from armies of elephants was truly riveting.  To top it off we had dinner on the terrace where the cannons used to be just outside the fort walls and watched the sun go down finishing the meal in candlelight with a warm fire and the entire place all to ourselves,  what a way to spend an afternoon/evening.  Walking around Jodhpur even after dark felt quite safe and we had the same friendly encounters coming down from the fort as we did heading up.  We had 2 full days in Jodhpur which was a nicer pace then the squish it in-catch a train pattern we started off with.  While this in no way means we had time to dilly-dally about we were able to have  one more day of site-seeing and 2 whole nights in the same hotel.  The second morning we hired another tuk-tuk driver for the morning to take us to the Mandore gardens about 10km (sorry can't figure out conversions) out of town.  Although these gardens are supposedly a hotspot of Jodhpur they were underwhelming to say the least.  They were home to the shrine of a million gods an old Jian temple, the ruins were beautiful but it was a good lesson that we don't need to go out of our way to find more of this sort of thing.  After wandering about we got our driver to take us to Jaswant Thada a cenotaph of white marble on a picturesque hilltop.  This did not disappoint, it truly is an architectural marvel as touted.  Feeling a bit weary we still decided to tackle the bazaars of Jodhpur and do some shopping.  Known for spices and textiles it couldn't be missed.  Everyone knows that in the US shopping is one of my least favorite activities but oh how I love markets!  Saris and scarves next to piles of vegetables and piles of ground powders in all different colors, I could walk around forever and never get bored.  To make the experience even more enjoyable the friendly vendors would invite us in for tea as they opened each and every shawl and hanging hoping it would catch our eye.  It was not only fruitful but a delightful experience despite the fact that I have no sense at all what items should cost.  Bartering is much easier if you have a sense of what items actually cost, oh well if I paid to much at least I was full on chai and chit-chat!  Although shopping was actually fun and not painful I still left rather exhausted; we stopped by the hotel to grab some items before heading to dinner and found we no longer had the entire place to ourselves.  A couple from England joined us for dinner and it turned out to be his birthday so we had a celebratory dinner and drinks at a funky spot called On the Rocks, definitely catered towards tourists and yet there were few tourists there.  Another very surprising observation is that we have encountered very few white folks.  Our route this far has been pretty standard as far as I can tell (Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur-all key spots in Rajasthan) yet the westerners we encounter are few and far between.  This has been rather lovely, to not feel as though we are in a pack of curious white folks looking to see the sites and sounds of India, but again quite surprising as I alone know a few handfuls of people who have visited India.  A by product of the lack of westerners is that Casey and I are subsequently celebrities.  As we tour around people regularly stop us to ask "Madam, one photo please."  They do not mean they wish for us to take their photo in exchange for a couple of rupees (this is another, less surprising, phenomenon) but rather they want to take our picture usually with every single member of their family.  I can only imagine what their photo albums look like after a trip.  What do they say when showing photos to their friends "there is the such and such fort and here are a couple of white girls, how exciting."  Its a funny thought, no?  Anyway, back to the birthday celebration and our last night in Jodhpur.  When we got back from dinner we went up to the roof since we heard a bunch of noise and wanted to see what the commotion was about.  Turned out to be a wedding procession coming down the road with lots of music and fire crackers!  As we watched our host (the people who ran the hotel-which was actually their home) showed up and told us they had been waiting for us to return to have cake-how sweet is that! A night full of festivities and very little sleep before catching a 5:00am train to Jaisalmer. 

Jaipur

We were on speedtrack and did a whirlwin tour of Jaipur.  One night and one day before rushing off to catch yet another train.  We did manage to squeeze in quite a bit however.  Another early start complete with watching the sunrise from a rooftop garden.  So far our experience with hotels has been that the best part is most definitely the views from the rooftop.  We then hired a lovely tuk-tuk driver named Alibaba to drive us to Amber Fort (pronounced Amer) just 20 minutes out of town, hang around while we rode an elephant up to the top and then bring us back.  Yes, that is correct I just said ride an elephant!  We took the touristy route and decided to to be carried to the top by elephant (I think I will fit the word elephant into this post as many times as possible).  Bhavi, who was our elephant, plotted along with a slow calm sway, it was amazing.  The fort itself was quite impressive though we were a little pressed for time so we did not get a guide or learn too much about its historical significance.  Along the way Alibaba stopped to show us the water palace and take pictures at a few opportune lookouts-never lingering too long as he was on board with our tactic of squish in as much as possible in as short a period as you can.  After a wonderfully successful morning the afternoon consisted of climbing a minaret to see an overview of the "pink city", visiting the Hawa Mahal (also know as the honeycomb palace and also rushing through the city palace all before jumping on a bus to Jodhpur.  In order to see all the sites we also managed to skip lunch (an unfortunate habit we seem to have developed).  Not surprisingly, the afternoon is a but of a blur but I will share a few impressions I remember.  The most exciting part of Jaipur was certainly not the fact that it was "pink" or in actuality red (this seems to be a translation error).  Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and so it is a rather large place and with large generally comes a bit more attention from eager tuk-tuk drivers and guides wanting your business, still nothing too bothersome.  The afternoon events were rushed and inconsistent in terms of the wow factor but Jaipur still managed to make a good impression.  The minaret was an interesting view away from the craziness of the streets, the Hawa Mahal was very impressive architecturally, and the city palace was flat our boring.  Hard to imagine I know!  Perhaps it was just compared to all of the other marvels we had seen that day alone, but it lead us to one of what Casey calls our "genius points"--this one was end on a high note.  So after an exhausting day we boarded train #3 and headed to Jodhpur.

Delhi and Agra

Hello friends! I decided that instead of spending  hours at internet cafes writing blog posts I would hand write then and transcribe later, so you might read this far after it has happened, I am currently writing while waiting for a pot of chai with Casey and some to go food to bring on our next train adventure in less than an hour (hope it doesn't take that long to make our food!).  Let me back up a bit about booking trains in India.  It was a rather big pain in the neck.  Although I was in Delhi for 2 1/2 days leaving with train tickets was definitely the most exciting part.  It was lovely to arrive in India, to meet/catch up with Casey and to happen upon some sort of festival coming down the road randomly BUT it was frustrating to have to make 3 attempts at the train station before booking tickets.  After being thwarted from the tourist bureau the 1st time and having the line close just in front of us (even after cutting) the second time I was psyched to finally leave leave with a total of 5 tickets in hand costing a grand total of $38; 3rd times a charm!  This did feel satisfying but the reason it was so cheap is because we didn't get the train seating class (of which there are 8 I think) we were hoping for-so train travel could be an adventure.  It wasn't until we waved Delhi goodbye from the window of our "sleeper" car that pulled out at exactly 2:04 as planned that the excitement settled in--good riddance Delhi, hello Agra!

PAUSE-have to go jump on a train.

Resume (now in Jaipur):

So we now have 2 train rides under our belt and I can circle back to a comparative study but first let me interject with I SAW THE TAJ MAHAL TODAY! Yes, that's right, one of the 7 wonders of the world as impressive in person as in photographs of which I am posting a few.  This immense marble creation took 22 years to complete it is ornate and symmetrical despite the fact that it was all done by hand.  The romantic ideas of commemorating people in such a grandiose way or filling entire pools with rosewater seems as crazy and outlandish as this wonder.  We hired a guide, though it was mostly to find out where the good photo spots are and get a basic background since I confess I am extremely ignorant about the history of the country I am touring.  It wasn't until we went to Agra Fort and hired another guide that the pieces began fitting together.  Although visiting Agra Fort wasn't the original plan (we usually plan about 5 itineraries for the day before doing something altogether different) it was another impressive structure made mostly of red sandstone built by the grandfather of the king who built the Taj Mahal and small marble section added later around the time of building the Taj. The Taj Mahal was build for the kings 3rd wife who died at age 39 giving birth to her 14th child, EEK!  Agra was the capital until was later moved to Delhi which is when the Red Fort was built (I never it made it there).  So having seen the Taj from all angles and some other Agra sites we are now hightailing it to Jaipur.  This brings me back quickly to the fact that although our first train ride was a success we are now on cushy seats eating a meal that was apparently included in the tickets we bought, it's a nice life but I won't get to used to it since we are back to Sleeper class for the next few rides.  More soon!