Agra, Delhi & a Wrap-up of India

Before we went to Agra, people (and the internet) warned us that there really wasn’t anything to see there except the Taj (and maybe one other thing). We took the advice to heart, and only spent a couple days there. Turns out that’s absolutely correct. So, we saw the Taj, and we saw two other things: the tomb of Akbar (who was the third Mughal emperor), in the neighboring city of Sikandra, and Agra Fort. Those were enough to see, and then we got out of town.

The Taj is pretty incredible, no doubt about it! From outside the palace walls it seemed a bit smaller than we expected. But once we got inside, and could see the scale of the thing compared with the people standing in front of it, then we could really appreciate how big it was. It is pretty damned big!

Before I get to that, though, let me tell you the story of getting into Agra in the first place, because it was pretty hairy. We arrived by train, around 10:30 at night. We had arranged with a hotel to pick us up at the train station, but we arrived 30 minutes late, and nobody was there to meet us. Fortunately, we knew our hotel was not far, so we just tried to grab a rickshaw. But they were all being dicks. They all wanted to charge us more than double what it should have cost, considering how close we were. We talked to about 5 or 6 different drivers, but everybody kept saying “Not possible!”

Finally, we went back to an early guy who told us that there was a huge festival or something going on, and that they were blocking the main road, and that he would pay US if we could get our hotel to send us a car at all, let alone for what folks here wanted to charge. Since it was late, and we were tired and frustrated and sick of arguing, we gave up and paid extra. When we got about half-way there, we saw the problem. There was a MASSIVE march/festival going on, full of way too over-excited young men (thousands of them), taking up the entire main street, which was the only way to get to our hotel area.

These kids were WAY too charged up and completely full of themselves. We had to pass (the road was not closed, just full of people), but this apparently bothered some of them. One particular group of over-excited teenagers actually ran up and SMACKED our rickshaw. And then they did it again. We actually picked up and old policeman, and had him riding on the side, next to the driver. That didn’t stop them. In fact, every time we tried to get past them and failed due to some other traffic block, they would get even more bold. At one point, they even came out and smacked Jimena on the arm! WHAT THE FUCK?? GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, NOW!

The cop did nothing. I think he tried to reason with them, but they were too full of testosterone. The driver could do nothing, because the road was too packed. This was a VERY long street, with walls on both sides, and no exits for at least 3km. And there was nothing either Jimena or I could do. Even if they teenagers could understand a word I wanted to say to them (along with much cussing), they were a mob, and we were just a couple foreigners. We think this was supposed to be some sort of religious celebration walk. That SHOULD have made them calm, I’d have thought, but no. In any case, we were powerless. They smacked Jime’s arm one more time, and my rage and frustration just grew. I was also scared, because if this is how they’re behaving when they’re NOT being challenged, anything I might do to defend Jimena would just make things worse.

Long story short, we eventually made it past them. After that, the driver had no idea how to find our hotel. We had to stop at an internet café and ask directions. Eventually we got to a gate and he said he couldn’t take us any farther, and that we had to walk the rest of the way. After Jime spoke with the hotel guy on the phone, and yelled at him for not sending someone to meet us, or that there was a gigantic festival blocking the way, they said that they would send somebody from the hotel to come outside and meet us. Nobody was waiting at the gate. Nobody was waiting after we went in and around the corner. Nobody was waiting when we walked a kilometer down the road and saw no sign of the hotel. You know what?  Fuck them; we’re done. We went back and chose another hotel that Jime had also read about that was closer, but just didn’t have internet. They took us, and the place was fine. Not great, but at least it was there, and we were finally done, and could take off our backpacks… at around midnight.

So, the next day we went in to see the Taj. Our hotel was right by the East Gate, which I had read you could buy tickets at. Not true. We had to walk around the corner, about 1km, to the South Gate. The gate was hard to find. For what is arguably the most famous tourist destination in the country, these guys are remarkably poorly organized and with almost no signs anywhere. Maybe they learned from Costa Rica! The “main gate” was a little room, down an alley, with a guy at wooden desk.

Anyway, we got in, and through the gates, and it was definitely an impressive sight! The main gatehouse buildings themselves are pretty neat. They have some really beautiful inlaid ceramics and cool architecture. The main palace building inside was built as a tomb for the wife of Shah Jahan, a former Mughal ruler at a time when Agra was the Capital of the Mughal empire. His wife had been very popular, apparently.

(One of the Gateway buildings)

(The Taj Mahal!  For scale, take a look on that 2nd raised platform, right in front of the door, and see the line of people there.  Jori chit, that’s big!)

So, the building is gigantic, but really, it’s all just a lot of ornamentation for a very small room in the center, on the ground floor. There may be other rooms, but they’re not open to the public. Before you get to the inside, though, you walk through the very large garden, full of all sorts of pathways and ponds and fountains. Of course, since this is the summer, and the peak of heat, all the ponds and fountains were completely empty, just like all the other ponds and fountains we’d seen in the country. And the “gardens”, as the were, were really just a series of lawns with a few flower patches, a few trees and some shrubbery here and there. The audio guide called this garden “a paradise on earth”… an “earthly heaven”. Earthly heaven, my ass.  Perhaps in contrast to the vast desert we left behind in Rajasthan, this may be true. But by any other standard we’re used to… it was sort of underwhelming.

One nice thing we did find there though, that showed good planning on the part of the caretakers of the site, was they had free water-bottle filling stations, with Reverse Osmosis machines right there. Reverse Osmosis is pretty much THE most effective water filtration method. So finally HERE, at least, you COULD drink the water.

Eventually, we made our way into the tomb proper. It’s a very small room! But the room is covered in absolutely the most incredible and beautiful inlay work I think either of us has ever seen. And unfortunately, that’s the only nice thing I can say about it. But we were not allowed to take pictures, and in this particular location, they actually meant it. In any case, it was very dark, so the pictures wouldn’t have come out well anyway, at least without flash.

Speaking of flashing things, though, even though all the online guides we read told us to take a flashlight to see the inlay work, the workers inside yelled at us for it, even though when we first walked in, one of those same guys came up to us and HIMSELF showed us one of the tiles up close… with HIS little light, right on the marble. But when I tried to do it later with my own light, not even touching, he not only yelled at me, he called one of the cops from the door to come in and yell at me.

This same guy had one other really horrible feature… a whistle. He kept CONSTANTLY blowing his whistle at people to keep them moving around the room, in a circle, like fish in an aquarium. By his standards, people were allowed about 30 seconds in this place. If anybody stopped to look at the really fine details, which are the PRIMARY attraction of this room, he would yell at them, blow his whistle, and, if they didn’t move right away, he’d come bang on the railing right next to him. This room is supposed to be a peaceful, solemn place of rest. And yet, this one guy did everything in his power to create the exact OPPOSITE environment. We paid more for this one monument than any other place we’d seen in the country… by a LOT. And this one a-hole ruined the entire experience of what should have been the best part of this beautiful marble building. We, of course, ignored him, or flat out told him NO, when he tried several times to hurry us along. But we still had to suffer through the constant pressure, the constant whistling and banging and yelling by this one puffed-up, power-mad ass-clown. Jimena says that he probably learned from every guarda in Costa Rica.

After the Taj, we went home and took a nap, then headed out to the Agra Fort. Apparently, if you see anything else in town on the same day after seeing the Taj, you get a discount. The Agra Fort didn’t look like much when we first walked in, but then we went through a very small, unmarked door, and found an entire palace to walk through. It was nowhere near as extravagant or well-preserved and decorated as Mehrangarh, but it was definitely more interesting than that other palace we saw in Jaipur. There were lots of neat windows and courtyards and lattices. The architecture was neat too. Also, from one side of the building, the fort has a pretty spectacular view of the Taj Mahal off in the distance. This is notable, because apparently in his old age, Shah Jahan, who built the Taj, actually got imprisoned in this fort by his own son. He lived the rest of his life in a sort of house-arrest (which, to be fair, was still in a palace), but looking out his window every day at the magnificent building he had had built, and where he would eventually be buried himself.

(A little nicer than your average home-jail.  That’s a fountain in the floor of what could basically be his living room.)

On our last day in Agra, we popped out to Sikandra, a nearby city about 30 minutes away or so, to see Akbar’s tomb. This was a much quieter place than every other place we’d seen. I’m guessing it’s not as popular as the Taj for all the Indian tourists, but it did seem to be popular with the foreigner tourists. My guess is, like us, all these other people had come all this way to Agra, and figured they might as well see everything the area had to offer, since they might never come back (or at least, not any time soon).

Inside the gates for this place, the grounds were laid out very similar to the Taj, with a tomb in the center of a large garden, and a big gateway building at each of the 4 corners of the compass. The tomb building itself has really ONE room with nice decoration, but those decorations are pretty incredible. And what’s better, here there was no asshole shouting at people all the time to move along! And even better than that, in this place we WERE allowed to take pictures. So we did. A LOT. :) In fact, we stayed in this little room for quite a while, to take in all the details, and most of that time, we were all by ourselves. In any case, the walls were covered with pretty spectacular inlays and tiles and paintings, and in the center of the room, and very pretty hanging lamp. We think we got some really nice shots to show off the beautiful work (Jime even used my head as a tripod for some of them).

(Main Gatehouse)

(Incredibly fancy entry room.  Many more pictures of this on our photo site)

The main tomb area, by contrast, was completely UNdecorated. It was just a very large, empty room, with unpainted, flat walls, and a tomb in the center. It did have a few vents to the outside which let in a little light and kept the room cool. It also had a very high, vaulted ceiling. All of these combined to give the room some pretty incredible acoustics. There was even a guy inside who would sing (for tips) a couple very long, loud notes and the room would resonate until the sound absolutely filled your whole body. That was pretty cool.

One other really cool part about the grounds of this place, though, was that it was also apparently some sort of wildlife sanctuary. We saw more of those antelope we had seen back in Jodhpur, just wandering around the lawn. Neat. :)

(S’up!)

That night, we jumped on a train to New Delhi. Since this was a much bigger tourist destination than some of the other cities we visited, the train station was MUCH better organized. It had electronic signs and monitors and everything, telling us when our train was coming, and exactly where to stand to wait for our specific car. The train showed up and left on time, and was quite fast, and pretty comfortable, actually.

We showed up in Delhi at around 11pm, and were happily met with a sign by our “pickup” from the hotel. We followed the guy out of the building and across the parking lot… then across the street, and down the block… when finally we said “So… hey… exactly how far away is your car parked?” We’d agreed to pay 200 rupees for this pickup, so we didn’t want to walk half-way there. Well, it turned out he had no intention of making us walk half-way there. He wanted us to walk ALL the way there. “No taxi”, he says, “the hotel is just up the street”, he says.

Well, we looked, and as far as we could see, our hotel was not visible. We told him that we would not walk with our big packs. Eventually he flagged down a bike rickshaw. We had been avoiding bike rickshaws because we don’t like the idea of having some small guy pedal our large asses down the street. And now, not only was this guy going to pedal us, but also our heavy-ass backpacks.  Still, it was better (for us) than walking.

The hotel was pretty basic. The room was small, but at least it had internet, and was in the heart of a very busy shopping area. And since, really, for us, that’s all Delhi was, was a last-chance shopping destination, that worked out just fine.

Our street was called the “Main Bazaar”, and, while it may not have been the biggest bazaar in town, it was definitely a very busy place, completely stuffed with little stores. Most of what we saw were clothing and textile stores of one sort another, but of course, there were lots of knickknack (tiliches) stores as well.

Here, we finally found ourselves some nice fabrics and each had ourselves 3 custom shirts made, and all for what it would have cost us to buy used clothes at Goodwill in the US (o Ropa Americana en Costa Rica).

And then I saw in one of the “stuff” stores, a box of really pretty wood block stamps, and Jime decided then and there that she could love me forever. The guy running the store hired out all the actual wood carving, but at least he was the artist who drew all the designs. So, I give him credit for the creative work. And his stuff was GOOD! He had walls, and drawers just FULL of all KINDS of really beautiful, intricately carved designs. He had lots of different themes, from cutesy stuff to fine design. We loved his stuff so much, and bought so many pieces, that he decided to gift Jime with a very lovely henna tattoo that he just drew on the fly. When you look at the picture, bear in mind it took him about 5 minutes from start to finish. Cool dude!

(Nuestro Señor de los Tiliches Lindos)

(5 minutes, I say!)

For the rest of our time, we ended up hanging out with a local Couchsurfer named Sumit. We went out and had a decent breakfast and then a nice lunch at a popular and very busy all-you-can-eat cafeteria he knew about. Then we went to a coffee/hooka bar. I had myself a very LOVELY coffee from Tarrazu (Costa Rica’s best coffee region)! It even came in a french press. I also tried the hookah, which was a new thing for me. It was nice and mild, with an orange/mint flavored tobacco. I didn’t hate it. It was an amusing experience, and was neat to taste the flavored steam. But when all is said and done, smoking is not my thing. So, I let Jime and Sumit enjoy that, and I enjoyed my coffee.

(Charcoal-fired hookah, with free charcoal refills to keep things goin)

Sumit helped us work with a local post office and get all of our collected souvenirs up this point shipped off to the US. It was EXPENSIVE! Probably cost us about $75, but it was a whole pile of stuff… 15 kilos worth. Also, there’s this weird thing where they have to sew up the box in its own little canvas wrap, and you have to pay for that service. That canvas outfit for the box cost us more than our custom-made shirts from hand-chosen fabric! But we can’t carry that stuff for the whole trip. Now we have room for more!

(Hey Lyzz & Jonathan, you can expect this on your door sometime in, say… mid-September.  And guys, if you don’t want your address here, go ahead and send me a Cease & Desist at your earliest convenience)

Sumit had a flight that afternoon (he’s a flight attendant for Jet Airways), so we just hung out in his apartment and saw him again for dinner very late that night. By the time he got home, thanks to delays in the flight, it was around midnight, and we were starved. So the fancy last dinner in India was nothing fancier than McDonalds. But hey, at least that was an interesting experience. What does McDonalds serve when there’s no beef? Lots of chicken and veggie stuff. It was… interesting. I enjoyed some stuff. It was not Jime’s favorite.

We took off early the next morning to the Delhi airport. Our flight was at 1pm, but we had been warned to have extra time at this airport, so we left the house at 8:30AM. It was a good thing we did! As fancy as this airport looks, and as well as the building is maintained and designed, it has got to be THE most inefficient, backwards, lack of logic airport we’ve ever seen.

For starters, we flew on an E-ticket, but still had to have a print-out to enter the building. The check-in process went ok, but then we had to go through some weird sort of “Exit immigration” line, and THAT line was one of the most ridiculously slow and stupid lines we’ve waited in on this whole trip. It takes less time to go through the immigration line to ENTER to the USA than it did to LEAVE India! It didn’t help, of course, that we (Jime) realized at the last minute that we still had my Leatherman in our carry-on bag. So, after waiting 20 minutes in that stupid line (with only 3 people in front of us), we had to get out, find a spare box to put it in, pay to have it plastic-wrapped so it could be checked in, and then wait in that line all over again. When we finally got through a second time (after another 20 minute wait minimum, again with only 2 or 3 people in front of us), and got to the security line, the idiot guard at the end would not let us pass. He said we needed to have an ID tag on our carry-on bags.

Ummm… no we don’t. They’re carry-on; we don’t need ID tags because they won’t be leaving our side. Nope, he says, “You need ID tag.” No, they’re CARRY-ON; we don’t HAVE tags. He insists we have to go back to the airline. We tell him, quite correctly, that we are not ALLOWED to go back to the airline, since we have already passed through immigration. It is not LEGAL for us to go back to the airline. He holds fast, and doesn’t even show signs of relenting, or even asking for help. We also hold fast, for we are righteous.

Also, we were screwed. There really was nothing we could do about it. If we needed tags on our carry-ons, why the hell didn’t the airlines warn us? Of course they OFFERED them, but so does every airline check-in desk. But they’re never REQUIRED. Why the fuck would they be required now?

In the end, somebody found us some extra tags from another airline, and the idiot guard let us go. It turns out that after the inspection of the carry-on bags, they need to stamp… SOMETHING… on your bag, to indicate that it passed. No other airport that we’ve seen or heard of does this, but that’s why they needed the name tags:  not for the name, but for the paper. I’m guessing (and giving him the benefit of the doubt) that if the guard spoke better English, he could have explained what the tags were for. If I instead assume what my heart believes, I’d assume the guard had no idea what the tags were for, and didn’t care. Rule says you must have a tag. No tag? No go. Not my problem why. At least we eventually got through! It took us two HOURS to get from the entrance to this point. Glad we had extra time.

After that, it should have been clear sailing, but it wasn’t even then. First, our flight was delayed by about two hours, but there was no internet to be had, anywhere, for us to use to notify our hotel pick-up in Nepal. Oh yes, the airport HAD free Wifi. Only, like many other places in India, this free WiFi requires you to have a local cell phone. Too bad for travelers…

We gave up and decided to just go get food. Now we ran into a little money problem. You see, when you’re leaving a country, you want to take as little local currency with you as possible. Only, pretty much every restaurant in this cafeteria did not accept credit cards, including McDonalds. And there were no ATMs inside the airport.

At this point, this was the colmo of colmos (the last of the last straws), and we were about to lose our shit on the poor McDonalds cashier, when a VERY kind Sikh man in line behind us actually offered to buy our breakfast for us! We declined but thanked him heavily. Thankfully, one of the other restaurants accepted cards, and we got some food, but it was a LONG morning of contradictory, ineffective systems, our very favorite.

And finally, we were off to Kathmandu! The flight was nice, and SUPER short (like, 1.5 hours). We’re still in Nepal as I write this, but that will come in my next post.

For now, I’ll wrap up this post with a wrap-up of interesting observations we made about life and culture in India.

* Parents put eyeliner on small children, even babies, both boys and girls. Not on all, but it is very surprising to see a 10-month old with big, dark eyes.

* In India, and especially in Mumbai, you can’t go for more than 10 seconds (and usually not even 5) on a major road without somebody honking.

* In India we gave up public transportation, and moved to taxis. We also cut down on couchsurfing and switched to hotels. This also meant that we haven’t been cooking, mostly eating at restaurants. We also lost access to supermarkets, and have been depending mostly on pulperias (tiny stores in someone’s front room that sell some basic products). This makes it harder to shop, since we can’t walk down the aisles looking for stuff, and we can’t really communicate with the shopkeeper.

* A men’s public bathroom is often OFFICIALLY just a wall on the side of the road. And that’s when they bother having an official wall. Frequently, men will just pee wherever they feel like it. Women seem to not have this option. I don’t know whether to be more disgusted that men can, or that women can’t.

* You almost never see pregnant women out on the street in India. In fact, in our entire month in the country, visiting 6 cities in 3 states, I think we may have seen only one. This matches the observation that Silvia (Jimena’s mom) made when she visited 10 years ago.

* The fact that we don’t see pregnant women at all may be related to the fact that women make up no more than, say, 20% of all the people on the street. Overwhelmingly, the people you see are men; the waiters, drivers, even people walking around, are mostly men. This also matches what Silvia noted.

*Of the women we saw, around 90% (based solely on our own observations) were wearing traditional saris for clothing, while the men were frequently dressed in western clothing (and were much more varied in general). It was pretty shocking to see women doing heavy physical work (like laying bricks on a construction site) while still balancing a veil, or a scarf that kept shifting. Women wore saris while cleaning, carrying bricks, shoveling and moving heavy loads.

* Monkeys are everywhere, in big cities and small. That is to say, you don’t see them on every street corner or anything. But it wouldn’t be out of the question on any given occasion.

* Our camera’s auto-focus died in Agra. We don’t know if this was from the heat, the humidity, heavy use, or what. We just know it died. At around the same time, it got some sort of a speck inside the lens. We have no idea how it got in there, but we can’t shake it loose, so it’s going to show up in all of our photos from our good camera until we can replace that lens (which we hope to do in Hong Kong or elsewhere in China, where they make everything in the world that India doesn’t).

* In Istanbul, all the vendors kept asking us if we spoke English, as a way to start a conversation (that we didn’t want to have). In India, we were constantly barraged by random people asking us where we’re from, and trying to take our picture (sometimes asking, sometimes not). A lot of the people trying to take “our” picture were actually groups of teenage boys trying to take Jime’s picture. This did not make her feel happy, so we happily told them all no. In some cases, though, the people were just random families, so we used the opportunity to take their picture back. We had always wanted to have pictures of the local people, but felt it would be rude to just snap pictures of people as if they were curious zoo animals. However, since many of them clearly had no such issues about doing the reverse to us, we figured those folks would be ok with it.

* This was the beginning of more regular exposure to squat toilets. Throughout India, in either temples, restrooms or hotels, it was hit or miss if the toilets would be sitting or squatting. In fact, in our hotel in Delhi, we started out in one room with a sitting toilet, then had to switch after a couple days to the room next door, and it had a squat toilet.

* Pretty much every bathroom we saw in India was a full-bathroom shower. That is, there was no separate area for the shower. The entire bathroom was the shower area. The drain was just on the edge of the floor. This meant that everything in the bathroom (brushes, toilet paper, toilet) would get wet when you shower, and the bathmat is OUTSIDE of the whole bathroom!

* In Jodhpur, our toilet, for some reason, was on a raised platform, with two steps up to get to it. This felt very much like the proverbial royal throne. The fact that the floor and steps were all floored with perfectly smooth tiles that become like Newtonian frictionless surfaces when wet (in this shower-bathroom), so that we felt like we were in danger of breaking our Newtonian necks every time we ascended or descended from the “throne” took away, somewhat, from its grandeur. Especially at 3 in the morning.

* India in July is HOT! For how hot, see the Robin Williams monologue from Good Morning, Vietnam. In the entire month we were there, with the exception of those few times we found some free AC, I think we did not stop sweating… ever. I sweat so much that my sweat pores CLOGGED, and actually started stinging me every time I sat down or leaned on something. I didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. I had to google the shit. “Why does it feel like my whole body is being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles?”

* Speaking of “things”, Chinese food in India is a “thing”. They have their own interpretation of it, of course, just like every country does. But it is everywhere. If you ever visit India, you totally gotta try the Chinese food. I especially recommend the Hot & Sour soup at the Mewar Haveli hotel in Udaipur, Rajasthan.

* If you happen to fly out of the international airport in Delhi, leave at LEAST 3 hours to get through all the red tape.

* Mehrangarh, in Jodhpur, is still the coolest thing we’ve seen in India.

Jodhpur and Jaipur, the heart of Rajasthan.

I talked a bit, last time, about the ride up to Jodhpur, which was a blast.  But I haven’t yet told you about Jodhpur itself.  Jodhpur felt like a small town again, but not quite like Udaipur.  Jodhpur is NOT a quiet little place.  Jodhpur, in the heart of the old city, was a cramped, bustling city, with cows lounging around every twenty feet, and a never-ending stream of Autorickshaws, motorcycles, mopeds and bikes blazing down narrow alleys with only enough care for your person to honk loudly at you as they passed you by.  To be fair, though, honking at you is the polite way, here, to let people know you’re going to pass them, either on the road or a walkway (there were no sidewalks in most of this city, just areas where more people walked than drove).

But don’t get me wrong, Jodhpur was also the setting for probably THE most incredible place we’ve seen on our whole trip.  I will tell you right now that my words will not do it justice.  And as many pictures as we took of it, from inside and out, not one or even 10 of them will convey to you the magnitude or magnificence of the place.  It is man-made, but hardly seems so.  It is a great castle, on top of a hill, but seemingly carved OUT of the hill itself.  Indeed, the walls seem to fade into the hill itself, so that it’s hard for your eye to spot where the rock ends, and the castle wall begins.  It is a fortress of the grandest proportions, and of a quality and majesty fit for a story book. 

We saw Kumbhalgarh on our way here, and that may have been bigger in terms of area.  But this place, Mehrangarh, is so much more impressive in scale that they’re barely the same species.  It was built to withstand assaults by elephants, trained and armored for war, bashing at its doors.  It uses tricks like having lots of right angles before and after big gates, so that nobody could get a running start to try to break them.  The walls are incredibly thick, and so gigantically tall that they tower over you and I imagine would even make men on elephants feel like mice in front of a cat.  When you see the inside walls, they are covered like acne with tiny, shallow holes… made by cannon balls that may as well have been spit balls.  It’s not surprising, then, that in its hundreds of years of existence, Mehrangarh was never defeated.  In fact, with each major success, more and more gates were added, to celebrate and remember their victory, and to make it even more impenetrable than before.

(Those spikes are at the height of an elephant’s head.  Ouch!)

Aside from how it’s built, though, the place is also one of the best maintained, organized and operated historical sites we’ve ever seen (and I guess we’ve seen a LOT by now!).  The audio guide alone, which is included as part of your paid admission, includes quotes from Rudyard Kipling, who was similarly impressed with the place, and spoke of it being “the work of giants”.  Many audio guides seem to fail towards being either too boring, or so overly-dramatic that they sound completely cheesy.  This one strikes the perfect balance.  It gives information about each space that you actually care about, and gives just the slightest touch of dramatic flair to engage your emotions.

Inside the fort is a palace, filled with open courtyards, and endless rooms.  The windows of the palace rooms are all covered by intricately carved lattice work, each one unique… and there are hundreds of windows!  The shapes of the lattice are all repeating geometric forms, and Jimena kept picturing how much her dad especially would love this place (both her parents are mathematicians). 

That being said, the lattices have a bit of a dark side, by our accounting anyway.  Their whole purpose was to “protect” the women from being seen.  To go to that much effort to hide away your women speaks of a fairly oppressive society towards women.  And again, I’m not saying the Western World®  doesn’t oppress its women either.   We certainly do, through things like dress codes, beauty “standards”, and the very emphasis on beauty over things like cleverness, resourcefulness or capability, courage, etc.  While the windows are beautifully made, they acted as a very elegant cage. 

Getting back to the rooms… some of the better-preserved rooms are filled with historical artifacts, carpets, tapestries lamps, arms, and even several mini museums (a collection of palanquins, an armory, a collection of elephant chairs (sorry, that means chairs for riding on top of elephants, not chairs for elephants to sit on.  I know… I was a bit disappointed myself), etc), and even a collection of incredible paintings.  The rooms also are filled with beautiful stained glass windows decorated with floral and geometric designs, as well as many incredible miniature paintings, showing multiple scenes spread out across the walls and ceilings.

(Fancy Elephant Chair)

(Fancy Palanquin)

(Jime took this one for her aunt, Mariace. Apparently the ancient Hindus also loved South Park; it looks like Mr Garrison reached enlightenment.  )

And then, of course, there are the views.  I mentioned that this was a castle on top of a mountain, right?  Well, not only that, but this particular mountain stands alone. So, when you get a view from a balcony window here or there, you are suddenly shown this INCREDIBLE view, far off to the distance.  But also, there’s the old, blue city of Jodhpur below you.  The houses are painted a very light blue in this city both to help keep cool, and also, interestingly, as a way of keeping out mosquitoes.  I can’t tell you if it works for that or not, but I will say we didn’t see many mosquitoes in this town.  Of course, it may have helped that our windows were always closed…. naaaah.  It’s gotta be the paint.

(In the upper-left corner is a swarm of several dozen hawks.  Since I’ve never seen hawks swarm before, I asked around.  Apparently they feed them from time to time.  Today was a lamb.)

Other than Mehrangarh, we did one other interesting thing.  We took a sort of village safari.  That is, we hired a driver for the day to take us on a trip to visit a few different local people, as well as a wild animal preserve.  The people we saw were a potter, a hand-loom carpet maker (world-renowned, apparently), the home of a Bishnoi couple.

The potters gave us a little demonstration of them throwing on a hand-turned wheel.  Basically, it’s a 100kg disc, balanced on a narrow point.  They use a stick to get it spinning, and it’s so perfectly balanced (and heavy), that once it’s up to full speed, if you just let it spin free, it will spin for an hour!  Even after the guy threw a couple pots on it, it STILL spun for at least 10-15 more minutes.  Jime even got to try playing with it.

(Apparently this guy has won so many awards, even Richard Gere came and bought one of his carpets)

The Bishnoi are a tribe of people in the desert who are known for, among other things, their fierce dedication to the protection of the trees and animals around them.  One particular story comes from the local ruler sending men to chop down some of their trees as his way of forcing them to pay taxes when they had no money.  Not only did the people refuse, but when they set themselves up as human shields to protect the trees, the men who came for the trees just slaughtered hundreds of them and took the trees anyway.  From then on, the ruler (who had apparently NOT intended to kill them all), decided that the people should be protected and respected from then on. 

We had tea in the home of a Bishnoi couple.  The tea was actually an opium tea (though the opium was of course MASSIVELY reduced in strength for us, and replaced with mostly sugar).   Still the tea actually included a small ceremony, which was neat to watch.  The tea contraption itself was actually pretty interesting.  It looks a bit like a fancy, two-sided chorreador (Costa Rican traditional coffee maker).  When we did get to taste the tea, it was so incredibly bitter that even *I* was surprised.  If you know Jimena, you can imagine how it was for her.  But she was a great sport, and drank it down with a perfect smile.

(Did I mention that this was in the middle of a desert, and that it was around 108F/42C? We sweat a lot.  Mine is just unfortunately displayed)

On the way back towards town, we took the long way and drove through the wild animal preserve, where I apparently had good luck in attracting animals to us.  We saw lots of Blackbuck, a couple Blue Bulls, and some other Antelope.  We also saw a really nice little watering hole (and in this desert, any watering hole this big was definitely going to draw a crowd).  In the water we saw some regular cows, but also water buffalo and some MASSIVE wild boar (with lots of cute little piglets running around).   I don’t think I need to tell (again) you how hot it was out there, but let’s just say it never fell below 40C.  Still, it was a pretty neat trip.

From Jodhpur, we took a night train to Jaipur, about 5 hours, and arrived at around 5AM.  After all that planning I did for trains in India, this was actually the first train we took.  We road in a 2nd class sleeper with AC.  It was… an experience.  It was nowhere NEAR as bad as the torturous ride from Mumbai to Udaipur.  But it was also not exactly pleasant.  It was a bit nerve-racking to figure out which coach was ours, and even where our train was going to stop.  Also, the train was late showing up, and there was another bit of train waaaaay down at the end of the station which I wasn’t sure was NOT our train.  I went down and asked, and they told me that this train was indeed going our way, and I started freaking out briefly, because the train seemed like it was leaving, and we were not on it.  I asked somebody else, who had slightly better english, and they told me that yes, these coaches were our train, but that they were only PART of our train.  The rest of our train would be coming along in a moment.  So, eventually it showed up, and we found our coach number, and then our bed numbers. 

Since we had bought these tickets a bit last minute, we were split up into different areas, but at least close.  I took the top bunk in one room, and Jime got a bottom bunk on the side of the aisle.  Long story short, the ride was bumpy and shaky, and we only got about a couple hours of sleep total.  But at least it wasn’t 16 hours, and it wasn’t full of loud car horns the whole time like the bus was.  And when we arrived in Jaipur, we had a driver waiting for us, with a sign with my name and everything.  I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been met with a sign before, so that was a nice way to end the trip.

Our hotel in Jaipur was by far the fanciest hotel we’ve stayed in so far.  The rooms were huge and clean, with fancy murals painted on the ceilings.  But the real gem here was the garden.  The garden at this hotel was BEAUTIFUL!  It was bright, with a really nice shade tree, some pretty statues here and there, and lots of pretty plants around the edges.  Also, this hotel was not in the heart of the city, but more on the edges, so the hotel was MUUUUCH quieter than everywhere else we’ve stayed.  Also, and this was perhaps our favorite part, the restaurant at this hotel was GREAT.  We enjoyed EVERYTHING we ate here, really enjoyed it.  I even had a couple pizzas there in the beginning, and those were good too, with lovely soft, melty cheese.  Here is where I started enjoying Indian food again.  Unlike a lot of other places we’d eaten at, these guys actually knew how to add flavor to dishes, even when they were not spicy.  Our favorite was something called “Aloo Jeera”, which was basically a dish of cubed potatoes with turmeric and cumin seeds.  We could eat that all day.  We’ve had it in a couple different places, but these guys rocked it.

Other than the hotel, we didn’t really see much in Jaipur.  We saw their fort, whose name I forget, but that place has nothing on Mehrangarh.  Most of the rooms are empty, the organization was crap, and the audio guide was so cheesy that we eventually couldn’t listen to it any more, even though we’d paid extra for it.  We did see more elephants on the road though, so I finally have proof.  :)

One tiny bit of amusement came from the fact that on our way out, there was a guy doing a snake charming performance with a small cobra.  So, I finally got to see one of those, and I didn’t have to go out of my way to do it.  Even the traditional instruments they used were cool.  One was a sort of gourd with a string that he played so that it made a sound similar to a big water drop.  All in all, it was worth the 20 rupee  tip.

Other than that, the rest of our time in Jaipur was spent shopping and playing around on the internet (the hotel also had a decent internet connection).  The shopping we did was all at a big area called the Bapu Bazaar.  Unlike the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, this place is basically just a few streets full of lots of sellers.  This particular area is known for all its textiles, so we bought some really pretty sheets to use as table cloths, and Jime got a pretty shirt, and a couple REALLY beautiful long skirts. 

After that, it was off to Agra and the Taj Mahal, and then Delhi.  But that will have to wait until the next post.  Until then…. ciao for now.

India – Mumbai, Udaipur and the Road to Jodhpur

Well, hey there!  Long time no see!  Oh wait, you say I just wrote a couple days ago, and now I'm writing again about a completely different place?  Oh my gosh, could I actually be caught up??  Say it ain’t so!  Aw, heck.  I guess it is so.  :)

So… we are now in Jodhpur.  Jodhpur is apparently the second largest city in the state of Rajastan, so it’s quite a bit busier than our last city of Udaipur, but still nowhere near the major metropolis that was Mumbai.

Let’s go back and talk about Mumbai for a bit.  Mumbai  was our first introduction to India.  You may have seen a couple posts on facebook from us talking about how incredibly overwhelming that place is.  Everybody says this.  We expected overwhelming.  But, the thing is.. it’s still overwhelming.  We got off the plane and it was HOT.  DAMN HOT!  And humid.  And that was so early in the morning that the sun hadn’t even come up yet (4:30AM)! 

So, we got out of the airport fairly easily at least, and past customs without too much trouble.  Getting a cab was a bit of a challenge, because we needed cash, and there was only one working ATM at the airport, and that was upstairs from us, which was a bit of a trek to get to.  But despite that, we did have one nice thing, which was they have a Pre-paid cab service right there at the curb (and also inside), so you don’t have to worry about negotiating, or whether or not you’re getting ripped off on your first day in town.  Of course, there are still PLENTY of independent cabs trying to get your business, some even promising the same rates as pre-paid (which is a bit of a joke, since at that point, they’re counting on you not having any idea what the pre-paid rate is).  But we got our cab all straightened out and even sprung for an air conditioned ride.  I mentioned it was a bit warm, right?  Our cabbie spoke no English, and had no real idea where our place was, but… to his credit, he did stop quite a few times along the way to ask directions, so we eventually got there.

We were lucky enough to find couchsurfing hosts in Mumbai, which was quite a blessing!  In such a big city, in such a crazy country for us, it was WONDERFUL to have the peace of mind of having somebody local to help guide us through.  Beyond that though, our hosts, a couple named Sandeepa and Chetan, were REALLY sweet, super welcoming, and a joy to spend time with.  Sandeepa even cooked us a few delicious meals while we were there, and let us watch and see what she was doing.  In at least partial trade for hosting us, and making us and showing us these wonderful home-cooked meals, we shared our bread recipe and gave it a shot.  It wasn’t my best batch but it worked out good enough to get the idea.  :)  One of the meals she cooked for us, though, was this really neat dish where you took this crunchy hollow, fried dough balls, cracked a hole in them, then filled them with mashed potatoes, some other smaller crunchy dough balls, and a bunch of this spicy, sweet broth.  They’re called Panipuri and they were DELICIOUS!  And fun to eat.  :)

Our first night in town, they took us on a little bit of a ride around town by taxi (taxis are SUPER cheap here!), and then to a restaurant with a roof-top terrace restaurant and bar.  Because this is monsoon season, the waiters were a bit hesitant to let us sit outside, but we eventually convinced them that we would risk it for as long as we could get away with.  So, we ordered some drinks and enjoyed the view a bit. 

The view was interesting.  Aside from being a great view of the city, it also gave us a view of a slum, which really made us think for a bit.  Every major city has slums.  Every city has poor folks, and homeless folks, and every city has its good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods.  The difference with India seems to be that they just don’t always segregate their poor folks into the bad neighborhoods.  There are still some very poor neighborhoods here, but you also have entire neighborhoods of folks living in make-shift shelters right underneath  skyscrapers.  They line the sides of busy roads and fill empty fields in every neighborhood, poor and rich.  Yes, there are some neighborhoods with none, and some neighborhoods with no money anywhere, but the point is… there is much less physical separation between the rich and poor, even while the economic, psychological and quality of life separation is VAST and heart-breaking.  The contrasts you see just driving down any major street can shock you.

Probably a perfect example to this is a very interesting solution they have worked out to keep folks physically separated, even in the same areas.  In some places around town, they have built elevated walkways, so that folks can pass over entire neighborhoods without having to get their feet dirty in the slums below.

So, we got our first real taste of this while having drinks on a roof-top terrace, while a sprawling, tent city spread out below us.  In any case, the beer I had was pretty good.  And then the rains came.

The monsoon rains, much like the rains in Costa Rica, are not subtle.  They also don’t give much warning.  First it was just a couple drops, then the wind kicked up.  Then all hell broke loose and the sky opened up like a fire hose.  The actual drops weren’t as big as we get in a good Tico Aguacero, but it was like this… thick sheet of small drops that would plaster you and completely soak you just as fast.  We ran like hell and took our stuff inside.   The waiters of course were choking with how badly they wanted to say “I told you so!”, but we didn’t care.  For the hour or so of time we DID get on the roof, we enjoyed it a lot, and wouldn’t have given it up, even though we got half soaked running away when the rains did come. 

We still ended up having a quite lovely dinner inside.  The food was spicy, but very tasty.  There were these spiced mutton (lamb) meatballs that I particularly loved, but that Jime couldn’t even touch because they were so hot.  The curries were very good too, and SLIGHTLY less spicy (even though we’d asked for NONE on the spice scale).  Asking for “NO SPICE” here is like asking for food with “NO FLAVOR”, at least according to the looks we get.  From what we can tell, “spicy” and “spices” mean the same thing to them.  So, if we want stuff not hot, they really don’t know how to cook for us half the time.

Here, we ran into a bit of culture clash.  When the waiters here serve you food, they REALLY serve you.  As in, they bring out the big pots of things, and then put individual portions onto each of your plates.   Jimena and I found this to be incredibly annoying, actually, but here, it’s just considered good service.  In fact, we asked Sandeepa about this and she was sort of surprised that we would accept anything less.  “And you guys tip 20%!  If they don’t even serve you, for what service are you tipping them?” (tips here are more like 5%).

Other than that, we really didn’t see a whole lot in Mumbai.  We went to a couple parks, but they were pretty plain and empty.  We saw the big Gateway of India thing people said we should see, but there wasn’t much to it, and there was nothing else at all there to see.  The ocean wasn’t particularly attractive at this time of year, because everything is always grey and overcast, while still being deathly hot.  So, rater than take a walk down marine drive, we had a taxi drive us down on it, and past Chowpatty Beach (another recommended tourist spot) on our way to the Hanging Gardens park (which had no hanging anything).

Speaking of taxis, India is where we officially switched over from public transportation and busses to taxis and rickshaws.  Busses here are a bit too chaotic and unknown (much like Costa Rica, there are no maps, and no time tables for the busses).  And, since Taxis and rickshaws (basically a 3-wheeled motorcycle with a roof) are so cheap (as in, a 20 minute ride across town costs about $2.50), there’s just no reason to bother trying to figure out the busses anyway. 

Also, restaurants are super cheap here.  So, India also marks the beginning of us eating out for pretty much every single meal.  All through Europe, even in Istanbul, we ate most of our meals by buying groceries and cooking at home (wherever home was at the time).  We’re still not ready to do street food.  That’s not safe here.  But we will definitely be doing a LOT of that in China and Thailand.

We did enjoy one particular restaurant here, called Shivali.  It was right downtown, across the street from the main train station.  Upstairs was an AC cooled room (where the prices were slightly higher than the non AC room downstairs).  The food was DELICIOUS!  They make the most amazing and delicious Mango Lassi.  They also make something that, roughly translated, means “Funny Vegetables”.  They’re sort of a mixed veg dish in a mild, creamy sauce.  Not spicy at all, and quite delicious.  I think we ate there at least 3 or 4 times, and never had fewer than 2 lassi’s each.

When all was said and done, we ended up spending a lot of day time in a mall, doing internet research for our next cities, and then enjoying our evenings at home with our hosts.  I did make one late night trip to see a movie, though, and that was quite an experience.

There are apparently two IMAX theaters in all of India.  One is in the south somewhere, and the other one was a 10 minute walk down the street from our hosts’ place.  So, since I had been dying to see Prometheus (the new Alien movie), I figured no better place or time to do it!  I went on my own late one night, and was very amused.  The theater was huge!  I had a balcony seat, dead center (best spot in the house), and the seats were these huge, luxury, over-stuffed chairs.  The movie, sadly, sucked ass, but the experience was quite amusing.  The sound and lights were top notch, which is always nice.  But the real amusing bit were the Indian customs that I was not aware of, and which surprised the hell out of me.

For one, before the movie started, they played a video of the national anthem.  Amusing.  The video asked everybody to stand.  Amusing… let’s see if anybody does it… holy shit… EVERBODY stood up!  This was a movie starting at 11pm… so not a family crowd.  EVERYBODY… without fail… stood up.. for the National Anthem video at the movie theater.  OK!  Well, there are many ways in which I’m an asshole.  But being the only one to not stand for an anthem is not one of them.  I stood up, and even took off my hat.

The second cultural surprise came right in the middle of the movie.  All of the sudden, with no warning, right at a lead up to a big scene… CLICK.  Intermission.  We are here for your enjoyment.  Please enjoy a 15 minute break to purchase some yummy munchies.  Cue the cheesy intermission music.  WTF??  What… the everloving fuck??  Is this for real?  Yep.  It was for real.  I was the only one who groaned.  Everybody else in the theater quietly just got up, happily went to the restrooms and the snack stands.  The movie started up on time later, and everybody was happy, except me… who thought he was in the Twilight Zone.  Mumbai is a city that LOVES movies.  They made their own industry here.  Bollywood… is in Mumbai.   I would have never imagined this level of disrespect for a movie anywhere, especially here.  But that’s what happened.  I asked Sandeepa about it the next day, and of course her answer was “Wait… you mean you DON’T have intermissions??  EVER??”  Truly, we come from different worlds.

After this, it was off to Udaipur.  You saw in a previous post how the trip itself went, so I’ll leave that bit out.  The city itself, though, was quite enjoyable!  Udaipur began the relaxing part of our journey.  It was the first place where instead of rushing around from site to site to see as much as possible, we mostly just hung out a lot in the hotel room, screwed around on the internet, took about 6-8 showers a day to keep cool, and occasionally went out for a nice dinner in the evenings.

Of course, part of this was by necessity.  You see, it was here that I finally got stuck with a wicked case of the dreaded Delhi Belly.  That meant I pretty much COULDN’T leave the room, even if I’d wanted to.  I could barely eat.  It was pretty miserable for a few days.  But, since it was a lovely room, in a lovely hotel, in a QUIET city, and since we had good WiFi, it was actually pretty nice in all other respects.  And, since the room was so cheap ($9/night), and since we’d just taken a whole city OFF of our itinerary (Aurangabad), we didn’t really care if we blew a few extra days there.

The dinners we did get out to were pretty great.  Udaipur is a city of palaces and lakes, and palaces ON lakes.  We went to a couple different fancy restaurants right on one of the big lakes, with a LOT of palaces on it.  The view was INCREDIBLE!  What a BEAUTIFUL city!!  Our first restaurant was at a place called Ambrai, right down at water level, next to a small old temple.  It was also next to a Mango tree.  This became important as the sun was setting, when a flock of big black birds came flying out over the lake.  We thought they were headed home to roost for the evening.  But then they got closer, and some of them started to land in the mango tree, and against the fading light, I caught a perfect silhouette of one of the “birds”.  Wait… that’s not a bird… that’s a BAT! 

Holy shit!  Those are huge fucking bats!  How cool!  There’s only one kind of bat I know of that gets that big.  Fruit Bats, also known as Flying Foxes. NEAT!  These are one of my favorite creatures in the world.  I NEVER thought I would ever see some of these in the wild, but had always wished I could.  I didn’t even know India had them, let alone right here in this city.  And here they were right next to me!  SUPER SWEET!  I looked it up later, and yep… Indian Flying Foxes.   They’re so cute!  They really do look like little foxes... just.. you know… with those huge Dracula wings.  Of course, it was so dark by then that I couldn’t get any pictures, but hey… at least I got to see them!  So cool!

The following night, we went out to a local show of traditional dance and Rajastani music.  It was held in the courtyard of an old palace, converted into a museum.   Since it was so hot, they gave out pretty little hand-made fans to everybody.  The dances and music were beautiful! The show was also stupid cheap, and lasted for a good hour.  

One of the dancers was an older lady who did a dance about bringing water.  In this dance, she balanced several water jugs on her head, and then danced around, and did some sort of a trick where she would kneel down and pick something up, all without dropping the jugs.  She actually did several rounds of this dance, each time stacking more and more jugs on her head.  By the last round, she had about 10 of them up there!

After the show, we decided to go out to another nice place we’d read about for dinner.  We had no idea where it was, so we just grabbed the first rickshaw we saw and asked him.  He also had no idea, but he asked around, and then we set our price, 80 rupees, about $1.5, which is a pretty high price for a rickshaw ride.  The place must be far!  Sure enough, he started driving us all over, back across a bridge close by that Ambrai place we were at the night before.  The driver stopped every few minutes to ask directions to the place, and was fiercely determined to find it.  But everybody he asked must have just guessed, because they pointed him every which direction.  Eventually, he FINALLY found somebody who actually the place, because he suddenly erupted in laughter.  Though we had no idea why… until he started going back the way he came…. and back… and back… back across the bridge… and more back, until we finally stopped… about 2 blocks from where we started!  D’OH!!  And then he didn’t even have full change for our bills, so we ended up paying 110 rupees for what should have been a 2 block walk.  Oh well.  I think we can honestly say he was NOT trying to trick us, it just worked out that way. 

But then we got to the restaurant… and it was closed.  Not just for the night, mind you, but for renovations.  REALLY?  After all that?  You know what… karma is karma.  Roll with it.  They told us about another nice restaurant down the block called Mewar Haveli.  And you know what?   That ended up being the most amazing and beautiful restaurant we’d been to yet!  It had a beautiful rooftop terrace to sit at, and that terrace had the most AMAZING view of the same lake from the night before.  Even better than our last one!  And, here were my bats again, flying out for the evening, only now we were higher up so I could see them even better.  I could even see their furry little faces.  Still too dark to take pictures, but no big deal.  Still cool!  And then all the palaces below us and a huge temple behind us, all lit up.  Just a stunningly beautiful place.  Oh yeah, and the food was fantastic as well, which is always nice.  This, so far, was our favorite restaurant of the whole trip, I think.   We tried to go back the next night as well, but a sudden monsoon rain flooded the streets at dinner time, so we missed out one night, but we definitely went back the following night, our last night in Udaipur, and it was every bit as beautiful. 

Before our last dinner, though, we took a trip up a local aerial tram to the top of a hill to get a nice view of the city.   They call it Sunset Point, and we’re sure it would be lovely, but we enjoyed our rooftop restaurant too much to miss our sunsets there.  Still, we went out to the point to take a peek.  The view wasn’t the greatest ever, but really, views from on high are always pretty cool.  Also, as I took a little hike out to the point, I saw a very pretty lizard, and a BEAUTIFUL and gigantic blue and yellow striped grasshopper.  I’ve never seen anything like it!  I like critters.  Finding critters is one of the joys in my life that makes it worth living, and that makes traveling so much fun for me.  You may have guessed this about me already, but now I’ve admitted it.  We also heard peacocks calling loudly all over the place, but never saw any of them.  It reminded me, though, that peacocks have to come from SOMEWHERE.  Apparently that somewhere is here.  This desert place.  Peacocks are too weird to me.  They don’t seem like they should HAVE a natural habitat, but of course they do.  And Rajastan is part of it.  :) Other than that, it was a pretty quiet day, and a nice way to spend our last day in town.

The next morning, we had arranged a driver in an air conditioned car to leave at 7am to drive us to Jodhpur.  It was a neat deal.  For about $60, this driver would stay with us for the whole day, and would not only drive us to our hotel in the new city, but would also stop at a couple famous landmarks along the way, the Kumbhalgarh Fort, and the Ranakpur temple (and any other little stops we might want to make as well).  The whole trip took about 9 hours from start to finish.

Kumbhalgarh is a really huge fort on top of a mountain, one of 18 built in Rajastan.  It’s also the biggest, and includes the 2nd longest wall in the world (36 km).  The fort is quite massive!  Even from its main gate, the whole facility spreads out for miles to either side, and hundreds of meters above you.  Inside the walls are dozens of little temples all over the place.  Mostly, it’s all abandoned, but the little temples are still in pretty good condition.  There were lots of stairs up to the wall so we went up and walked around.

While we were up there, we heard more peacocks calling around.  Those dudes are LOOOUD!  Some of these were definitely close, but I still couldn’t see any.  And then… I spotted a head… peaking up over a pile of sticks.  Hello, pretty!  And then, unexpectedly, he came walking out from behind the sticks, and then HAULED ASS like a roadrunner across an open field, and ran right up to the wall.  And then, much to my surprise, he ran right up the stairs and onto the wall in front of us, a couple sections over.  We got a little bit closer, and Jimena got a great picture of him standing on top of the wall, right before he flew off.  Yes, peacocks can fly.  In fact, I just saw one flying yesterday (for the first time in my life), and they’re actually quite an amazing sight to see in the air, with that ridiculous tail streaming out behind them like a jumbo-sized Quetzal.

We ended up deciding not to walk all the way to the top of the fort.  It was just too ridiculously high up there, and we didn’t want to spend half the day hiking up the steep walkway, ESPECIALLY not in this un-ending heat.  So, after walking around inside for a while, and seeing the little temples, we headed on to the next site.

The ride to Ranakpur was BEAUTIFUL!  It was a long, winding path through forested mountains, which was a very nice break from the dry and empty desert.  Along the way, we saw some lovely monkeys, lounging by the side of the road.  So, we stopped and said hello.  We also saw a guy with a pair of oxen, turning a water wheel to bring water out of a particularly beautiful open well, covered in wild flowers. 

And finally, we came around a bend and there was a mango tree… FULL of Flying Foxes!  Finally!  I get to have my pictures!  And there they were, all fuzzy with their Dracula wings, hanging upside down from the tree branches like bats from the movies.  I know… right now you’re laughing AT me and not WITH me, for being so amused by a bunch of bats.  But damnit, they’re COOL!  And they’re FRIGGIN’ HUUGE!  I think Costa Rica may actually have something similar, but you will NOT find those just chillin on the side of the road.  Turns out this particular spot had them all over the place. When we looked off to the sides, we could see all sorts of trees just covered with these guys.  So cool! 

But alas, the visit had to be cut a bit short.  Almost immediately after we arrived, we got mobbed by local kids.  At first, it was amusing.  They seemed like they just wanted to say hi, and it felt fun to be the center of attention.  But very shortly, the amusement turned into frantic and forceful begging, and by the end, it was actually quite difficult to leave, because they wouldn’t even let us close the car doors.  So we had to go.

And then we got to Ranakpur.  Ranakpur is an old temple, carved entirely out of marble.  In it are 1444 columns, each one individually intricately and beautifully carved, and each one completely unique.  And not just that, but the entire temple is similarly carved.  What an astounding place!  BEAUTIFUL!  Also, the heat on this particular day was even more amazing than usual.  We heard later it peaked at 42C (around 109F).  That is not the hottest we’ve EVER been in, but it’s definitely up there, and it’s probably the hottest we’ve ever tried to walk around to DO things in.  Jori chit!  So, being inside the temple was a nice break from the heat (though it of course had nothing on the AC in our car, it was still nicer than walking around outside in Kumbhalgarh).  The whole area actually had a couple other smaller temples, and also more monkeys running around and lounging, but the big temple was the main attraction.  If you ever visit India, this place is a must-see.  It’s about half-way between Udaipur and Jodhpur, and can be done either on the way between the two, like we did, or as a day-trip from either city.

The rest of the trip up to Jodhpur was pretty uneventful, and back to barren and empty dessert the whole way.  So, we are now in Jodhpur (though we leave tonight for Jaipur), and you know almost as much as I do!  I know I’ve sort of flooded you guys with a bunch of updates in a row, but now that I’m all caught up, you can expect a little bit of a break, to catch up if you need to.  See you in a couple weeks!