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!