Alternative Modes of Transportation

A man pulling a motorcycle on his cart

Two (maybe more) men riding in the luggage compartment of a bus

Jaisalmer

We arrived two days ago to Jaisalmer, which is known for it's amazing desert landscapes and fort. The fort sits in the middle of the city raised above the surrounding houses and buildings. We took a tour of the fort palace with audio guide and it was one of the more interesting forts.

Entrance to the fort

These stairs looked like something out of a video game

Front of the palace, complete with power lines blocking the shot

Top of the fort with my audio guide going

Within the fort walls many budget hotels have been built for the blossoming tourist trade here. The over development and increased water needs cannot be handled by the fort structure, literally making parts of the fort collapse. Our guide book advised us to not stay within the walls, which we did not. Instead we stayed at a hotel called Hotel Golden City, which offers some unique services.  Check out what you get when you dial 107.

This part of Rajasthan is the most arid part of India. Jaisalmer averages only two inches of rain a year! And coincidentally enough, we were here for maybe about half of their annual rainfall. We got a torrential downpour yesterday, which left us without power for a few hours, but thankfully no leaks in our room.

Motopia

Indian motorcycles are an interesting topic. No, I'm not talking about the classic American motorcycle brand, “Indian Motorcycles,” a reference to native American Indians rather than the sort this post will discuss. Motorcycles (including mopeds, Vespas, and all other variety of two wheeled transport) remain the premier method of motorized transit throughout all of India. Although there are quite a few small cars here (think Honda Fit for a size comparison), according to sales statistics for January 2011, motorcycles accounted for 75% of all vehicle sales.

It is not uncommon to see three or more people on one motorcycle either (the most we've seen is five). Couples are common, with a man driving and a woman on back, typically in a sari riding in a “side saddle” style, and almost always without any sort of safety helmet. Babies here seem to be born with the knowledge of how to hold on – as soon as a kid can walk, the kid is old enough to sit in front of their parent on a moto... no joke. It should also be noted that the “motos” are grossly underpowered compared to what we are used to seeing in the United States. Buses traveling no more than 40 mph pass motorcycles left and right on all the roads. The motorcycles may look like larger models at home, but rarely have any more power or speed than an scooter might in the U.S.

Which brings me to the real purpose of this post... the ellusive leather jacketed miscreant depicted in the image below. Leather clad gang member bad-asses like this rabble rouser are quick about foot, and as they are always on the run they are exceptionally difficult to photograph. Evidently, in addition to gun and drug running, they are also deathly afraid of their egregious copyright and trademark infringement crimes, and the hard time they may have to do if they are apprehended. Take a close look at this roustabout as you will likely never again gaze upon a specemin of this gang, let alone the gang's creme-de-la-creme numero uno leader. “Harley Devidson” too. Watch out!

Udaipur

We had been told of the beauty of Udaipur long before visiting, and our guide book calls it the most romantic city in India. Even with these high standards, Udaipur still overwhelmed us with its beauty. The city is set on Lake Pichola and surrounded by hills. The city was also featured in the James Bond film Octapussy; many of the hotels around here play the movie every night in their restaurants. We plan on catching a screening tonight.

Our hotel's rooftop restaurant with views of the lake and the city palace.

One of the bridges spanning part of the lake

The old city has small winding streets, lots of hotels and tourist shops. We succumbed to one such shop and bought a painting of an elephant, horse and camel painted on silk, which we hope to frame when we return to the States.

We visited the city palace yesterday and awed at its beauty and extravagance. There is another palace that was converted to a luxury hotel called Lake Palace Hotel, which is it's own island. My parents were able to visit here in the 1970s and enjoy it's beauty, but now only guests of the hotel are allowed.

The city palace from the outside

Lake Palace Hotel

The palace at sunset

Rajasthan has continued to impress us with its beauty and it is an odd contradiction that it is one of the poorer states in India. We will be in Udaipur a total of four nights, then off to Jaisalmer – a fort in the desert with sand dunes like the Sahara Desert. Only three more weeks in India!

Bundi

The next stop on our Rajasthani tour is Bundi. Once a capital city in the region, most of the historic sites have been left to the bats, pigeons and monkeys. We spent four days here in a historic haveli (mansion) that is 450 years old. It is run by a family and the home-cooked food is AMAZING. The follow is a video of the haveli - it's broken into two clips because we ran out of battery at the end.

We toured around the long forgotten palace the first day. The royal family still owns the palace and recently opened it up for tourists. It sits underneath a fort, which we did not tour because the price was too high. Something that greatly bothers us here is the constant price raising for foreign tourists to visit sites and we've found many to not be worth the extra rupees. The money does not seem to be put back into the historic sites, and after you've been to as many Indian cities as we have, you learn to be a bit more selective.

Bundi's second claim to fame is Rudyard Kipling wrote part of Kim here in 1900. Yesterday we walked out to the palace Sukh Mahal where Kipling stayed (and we found he only stayed there for 2 days). I picked up a copy of Kim and am about halfway through it.

Sukh Mahal

Other Bundi highlights: we worked as proprietors of the homestay one night while the family went to a party, we untied a goat caught in some rope in the middle of the street, we played with Taniksha (who may be the cutest baby in all of India), we had the worst chow mein yet and the best Indian food yet, and Jeff tried to scare off one of the mean red-faced monkeys at the palace but ended up getting scared off himself (those are scary monkeys!).

Pushkar

After two nights in Jaipur, we hopped on a bus to the small, religious hamlet Pushkar.  It is believed that Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth and thus appeared Pushkar.  It is a Hindu pilgrimage town with one of the only Brahma temples in the world; the town surrounds a small holy lake.  Being a very religious, the entire town follows strict Hindu principles of vegetarianism.  This means nowhere in town can you buy meat or eggs, and no food is cooked with either.  Men and women also cannot embrace or kiss in public, there is no alcohol, and no shoes can be worn within 40 feet of the lake.

It took us about 40 minutes to loop the lake on foot.  This town is so slow and peaceful and has a magical quality.  We are staying at an incredible little place called Hotel Everest.  We have a large room with a small balcony for about $13/night.  We were informed that we should close our balcony door when we leave otherwise monkeys might come in!

Jeff from the opposite side of the lake where we are staying

Many of the buildings here are painted light blue.

One of the many monkeys we've seen around.  This one was sitting above us in a restaurant and a few seconds later he dropped the chapati he was eating on some diners!

Our room with the morning light coming in.

Today we hiked up to a temple.  It took about an hour and it was quite strenuous.  It was incredible to see Hindi women making the trek up this hill to visit the temple, many of whom were quite old yet kept pace with Jeff and me. The view was great from the top and was well worth the hike.

The start of the hike.

View from the temple

We sat and enjoyed the view for a while before climbing back down

We'll be here for a couple days just reading and relaxing.  There's no TV and frequent power outages and it is actually quite difficult to not hold hands when we walk around, but this place is quickly rising to one of our favorite stops in India.

We ordered #5 - it was delicious but nothing like what was advertised!

Being a touristy town, there are many wares to buy.  Here is a knife stand selling a knife sheathed in an Eiffel Tower. Jeff quickly dubbed it Kneiffel Tower.

Pretty in Pink

Sorry its been a while since the last post everyone.  Immediately following our last post, we had a few days where I was feeling a little sick, and we really just holed up in our hotel in Agra so I could rest and get well.  I am thrilled to report that I am feeling much better now, and we have been back on the travel trail for the last few days.

We took a six hour bus ride from Agra to Jaipur, our first stop on a tour through the desert state of Rajasthan in the Northwestern area of India.  During the bus ride, I could slowly sense the amount of moisture in the air lessening as we approached our destination.  This has been the first part of the trip where I have been compelled to wear lip balm on a daily basis.  Throughout our travels through central India, Claire and I were excited to start the Rajasthani portion of our stay because so many travelers had so many positive things to say about the region.  In fact it seemed like it would be a slam dunk choice to spend three weeks, and I have always enjoyed dry desert air as opposed to humidity anyway.  Blame it on my Southern California upbringing.

The desert landscape

Having said that, Jaipur is the gateway into the state, and according to our guidebook, can be a very difficult city to adjust to with its crazy traffic and dirty city reputation.  It is known as the “pink city” because in 1876, Maharaja Ram Singh ordered the entire old city painted pink, a color (or colour) associated with hospitality, to welcome the prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), and the tradition has been maintained.

This is the main entrance to the old section of the city

The traffic was still insane here though!

 I know I can speak for both of us when I say that Jaipur surprised us.  First, it was not nearly as difficult to contend with as the guidebook led us to believe it would be.  Maybe that's just because we are now battle hardened India travelers, but I really don't think so.  Jaipur is surprising cosmopolitan compared to much of what we have seen here.  The newer buildings are fresh and modern and there are a host of restaurants to choose from that offer a wider variety of faire than we have seen some places too.

We had a nice dinner at a BBQ place that made tikka masala kebabs. The right is paneer tikka masala (cheese) and the left is aloo tikka masala (potatoes). Claire is determined to replicate the potatoes which were stuffed with cheese.

We decided to take a day trip that was simply a walking tour outlined in our guide book.  It took us through the old pink quarters where we saw age old shops carving large marble statues.  In all we walked about four kilometers and experienced a fantastic panoramic view of old and new Jaipur from atop the Hawa Matal, or “Palace of the Winds.”  It is a remarkable, five-story, delicately honeycombed, pink sandstone structure.  It was constructed in 1799 by Maharaja Sawaj Pratap Singh to enable ladies of the royal household to watch the life and processions of the city.

Some of the marble works.

The Hawa Matal.

Inside the Hawa Matal.

Jaipur was a very welcome surprise for both of us, and with the clean crisp dry air, a warm welcome into the Rajasthan leg of our trip.

This cow was dining on a lunch of chapati.

The Other Side

This week marks the half-way point for our trip through India, poignant to the core in some ways due to our current stay at a hotel just a stone's throw from the Taj Mahal in Agra. Claire and I made a choice early on with regards to the goals our blog, and it is something that deserves acknowledgment so our readers may better understand both our intentions and the truth of travel in this magical Asian subcontinent. That goal has been simply our desire to keep the tone of writing in the blog light, and to deliberately concentrate on the positive, historical, and arcane aspects that have captured both our attention and our hearts. This is, after all, our honeymoon. After five weeks of travel and assessing this goal and it's level of achievement thus far, we both feel it has been a success. At the same time, it also feels as though some very real problems that are evident to us on a daily basis are being glossed over, lending a slant of misrepresentation to those of you who have not had the luxury of experiencing this land for yourselves. In an attempt to address what I see as a shortfall, this blog entry will be a sort of full-disclosure summation of a host of problems that Claire and I have noticed and/or experienced directly during our visit. I also want to re-iterate the main goal of the blog; to be fun, educational, as well as to give our loved ones a sense of our progress and well-being on our travels. The puns and offbeat humor (no that was not a real incident with a hippo in Kerala) will continue to be included at no extra charge in future entries. This one is all real though... no punches pulled. Traveling through India is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us... and I do want to emphasize... once in a lifetime.

How would I best describe India in a few sentences to somebody who has never been here? To paraphrase my father-in-law, Barry Taugher, India is a land of extremes. The thing that stands out the most in a positive fashion, is that even among tremendous hardships and sometimes shockingly appalling living conditions and poverty of the general population, there is an indescribable humanity that shines through in so many of our interactions with Indians. India really does let it all hang out. It doesn't try to hide its problems, and it likely couldn't even if it wanted to.

This is a crowded country. With a population of over 1 billion and a high growth rate, India will become the world's most populous country by 2030. The population density is 4 times higher than the US. You can constantly feel this everywhere you go in this country. It can be seen on the overcrowded buses and trains, the congested city streets, and the large number of rural settlements. And with this large number of people there is a complete disregard for trash and pollution. Food wrappers and plastic bottles litter every street, park, national monument, railroad and roadside. Indians seem to use their beautiful country as a trash can. As one chai seller said after we finished chai in a plastic cup, “Use and throw.” It is frightening to think of what this place will look like in another 30 years if no action is taken.

Combine a “use and throw” mentality with the current method of garbage disposal... burning piles of trash outside of homes and businesses everywhere. Yes, the whole country is a landfill here and when the piles of used paper products and rotten produce have grown too large, Indians just light a fire and away it goes. Perhaps a methodologically sound practice for thousands of years, burning trash in some ways is a perfect way to get rid of it... the produce is eaten by the street dogs and cows which are abundant, and then the paper products leave nothing but ash and smoke. There is a major problem with this in the last century though, and that is the burning of plastics. There seems to be complete unawareness as to the toxicity of burning plastic bottles and packaging of all sorts. While most of the places Claire and I have stayed have not put up with the smoke directly, there are many times when we have been on a bus or rickshaw and been driven past heaping piles of burning plastic with an Indian stoking the fire while standing in the billowing smoke.

The poverty here is also always in your face. The beggars are the most obvious example of this and it is very difficult to see children begging, and knowing if we give the child a rupee or two, someone else will take the money from the kid. We've seen missing limbs, untreated broken bones, and other signs of a poor health care system. There is no social security system here so if someone cannot work and has no family to help, that person is forced to beg. People routinely give a couple rupees to the beggars (as that is the form of social security here) but as Westerners we are expected to give more. And the reality is we can afford to give more. But when you walk down the street and there are dozens of beggars asking for money, it is impossible to give to all of them. And it is so hard to ignore someone's suffering like that.

India is a land of extremes in every sense. We write this post to share with you the other side of India we have experienced, and these are the aspects of the country that will have a lasting effect on us. We don't want to dwell on the poverty and pollution with our blog but rather to show the beauty, light, and tremendous humanity here.

Jeff and Claire

Taj Mahal

We did it.  One day before the 3 month mark in our marriage, Jeff and I visited the most beautiful building in the world dedicated to love.  The Taj Mahal was completed in 1653 as a mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Emperor Shah Jahan. The Taj Mahal is located in Agra in Northern India. Every traveler we met said it is the most breathtaking building they have seen, and it did not disappoint.

The first glimpse we got once inside the compound.

 When we first entered and saw the building, I almost had tears in my eyes.  We spent about an hour walking around the Taj, taking in the beautiful marble designs, but the true beauty is from a slight distance.

Some of the marble designs.

We had to wear little red shoe covers to protect the marble.

This picture is very hard to see due to the pollutants in the air, but down the river sits the Red Fort. In 1658, just 5 years after the completion of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son in the Red Fort, where he could see the Taj from his prison cell for the remainder of his life.

Our train from Varanasi to Agra took 4 hours longer than it should have.  It's because partway through we had to wait for a new train conductor; the first one was Agra-phobic.

The money shot.