last day - what to do?

well, it's my last day in India. I'm a bit templed, mosqued, forted, and "touted" out, and figured i should spend the day shopping, as I've bought sadly few souvenirs (or gifts....sorry folks). BUT, i would really just love to spend the day eating the indian snacks, breads, curries, and sweets. i'll really miss the (good) food. luckily here in Delhi, it's possible to find non-white indian food, but it's still been hit or miss.

last night, i met a man (swiss) who have been in india / delhi for some time and he promises me a fantastic south indian restaurant. :) BONUS: he's a musician! originally did jazz, but having learned african and now indian music, is doing a fusion kind of music. i was treated to a guitar/sitar concert which was pretty amazing. he taught me things about indian music that i didn't understand when i went to previous concerts. a great way to finish my first trip here. he also will help me buy music CD's so i don't have to choose by cover art.

update - 19 nov 2005

from agra (taj mahal), i went to Fatipur Sikri for a day, leaving the bulk of my luggage in Agra. from Fatipur Sikri, i wasn't quite sure what to do, where to go, how to spend my last five days.

the hotel man and a local suggested i go to neighboring town of Bharatpur and Deeg and relax my way to Delhi three days later. so, i did.

Went to Bharatpur where there is a Unesco Wildlife Preserve and stayted for three days.

I'm now in Delhi and leave for the states in two/three days.

See you all soon!
thanks for checking in.

335 Rps or a chai and beer

from Agra, I went to a small town called Fatipur Sikri, which has an enormous fort (well, all the forts are enormous...) which was abandoned after only 7 years of use.
as usual, guides come up and want you to hire them for 85Rp, but i shied away from them. but after entering the huge gates and seeing all these things in the fort, i was wishing for a guide, since there was much to understand.

i approached several tourists to see if they wanted to share a guide, but they all ran away from me. then i knew i was in trouble, since the guides knew i wanted a guide and i had lost all bargaining power.

but then a man with very good english started talking to me and said he's paid by the fort holy family and doesn't need money. i could pay "as i wish". i didn't really believe him, but his english was very good, so i'd be willing to pay something.

off we went, and turns out, he just likes to hang out with tourists. he took me around the fort and showed me great views of the palace (which helped me avoid the special foreigner entrance fee of 250 Rps).

to finish off the evening, we shared a chai then a beer. all was very good.

religion - not a safe dinner topic.

after Fatipur Sikri I wento Bharatpur, where there is a beautiful bird sanctuary. a native took me around and we spend the days half visiting temples and mosques, and some of the time visiting his friends and family (really enjoyed the family visit. finally met the ladies of india. they are all in the homes!)

anyhow, over dinner, we met a Brit (Theo), Frenchwoman, and Napalese. The conversation turned to religion (bad idea). Theo made the audacious statement that Islam should be obliterated since the Mulsims cause all the trouble. My friend happened to be Muslim so this struck a strident chord. After dinner, Mugeesh was somewhat upset that ignorance can lead to such misunderstanding.

The next day, we met up at his friends store where a local woman came in and chatted. Turns out she's Muslim. When she found out that I was American, she said, "i'll go to America as Bin Landen's sister and blow all the Americans up".

needless to say, it was my turn to be upset and shocked. Mugeesh tried his best to explain why i was upset and talk to the woman. not sure how much got relayed successfully, but we tried.

anyhow, i think that was the shock of my indian experience. hope that's all there will be.

BTW, felling all better. yeah!

bollywood ROCKS!

last night, i had some time to kill in Jaipur after a day of sightseeing. seems the the cinema there is popular also with the tourists, so a British couple I met during the day and I decided to have a go at it.

the theater was beautiful in a bollywood kind of way. there was assign seating and we sat in the Ruby section, probably the front third of the theater.

the movie itself was really good. we could make out the whole plot and even caught some of the funny stuff. it seemed like it was loosely based on "one flew over the cookoo's nest" with some singing, dancing, and of course, love, thrown in. an interesting twists of plots here and there. very very good.

the audience chatters the whole time and there was never really complete silence, but the sound system blasted loudly enough to compensate. people's cell phones ring commonly, and they answer them! funny.

the thing that took us most by surprise was that at around 8pm (started at 6:30pm), people started leaving and the doors were opened. then the lights came on in hte middle of the film. well, it turns out that the bollywood films are so long (typically 3 hrs), there is intermission!

a great time indeed.

(i'm in Agra now, going to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow!)

putting spice back into my curry - 12 nov

so, after 5 days of letting the intestinal bug run its course, i decided to try it the modern way, with DRUGS. DRUGS ARE AWESOME. after the third day, things were pretty much all systems go (or rather, stop :) ) and i could eat something other than rice and plain lentils. (the spices and cheese didn't make my life very pleasant for a while.

I'm back in Jaipur, returning from Pushkar. The camel fair was very fun, but only just started to get busy today. i was there for a half day, and that was enough of the crowds. while there, i met many camels (separate posting) and inhaled much desert dust.

i will be here in jaipur for two days, but then off to Agra, where the great Taj Mahal is. I've decided not to visit more of Rajastan, since i don't really want to deal with the dust (and scams). i will visit this area first next time :).

camel experience helpful

since i was at the Camel Fair in Pushkar, of course, i had to ride a camel.

On the way to Pushkar, i met a wonderful couple from australia (Cheralynn and Chris). they introduced me to their hotel and we spent the days together when we all felt well (they were sick in Jaipur for 10 days!)

yesterday, being my last full day in Pushkar, i figured I had to ride a camel. oddly, this was the idea of all the tourists, as the fair was starting to get really fired up. never mind that camel drivers were begging for business the first two days that we were there, NOOOOO, I waited until my last day, when the crowds started to arrive.

so, charalynn and i ventured down to the main camel drag where we usually are mobbed by camel drivers. "camel for 150Rp?" "you want a camel ride?" but, instead, we walked down and only one person asked "camel? 300Rps only". we contined on, but managed to get one camel driver to take the two of us on one camel for 80 Rps.

we scoffed and continued, sure that we'd find a taker for the 50 Rps we had secured days ago. we walked to the end of the camel road and, despite there being 20,000 camels, NONE were available for riding! we were shocked. we ended up with our tail between our legs, going back, begging for the 80 Rp shared camel. by this time, the man was booked in 10 minutes for a 300Rp ride. He graciously offered a 10 minute free ride (donatation required). We jumped at the chance.

well, we spent probably half of our precious 10 minutes entertaining the locals with our lack of camel mounting experience. we were instructed to "lean back when the camel gets up". well, i didn't realize how much i had to lean back or for how long. before i knew it, i was catapulted foward as the camels rump rised first, and was clinging to the camel's neck. i wasnt' sure if i should let go and fall (it looked like a fair distance down) or try to scamble back to the seat, which also looked hopelessly far away. i was too immersed in my own troubles to realize that cheralynn had popped into my seat and was also struggling to get back to her seat.

there was uch screaming and yelling. the camel driver kept saying "lean back! lean back", but seeing as i was prone on the camel's neck, this was impossible.

we somehow managed to get into the seat an the camel continued to calmly rise.

we fixed our hair and looked around and all the locals had gathered to see our display. the camel driver looked at us and asked "you don't have much experience with camels?"

gee, was it that obvious. :P

ABOUT FACE!

so after a long long train ride (again) from amritsar, i arrived in jaipur. i was planning to just stay one night and them move further west to Jaisalmer for a few days before heading back this way to catch the famed Pushkar Camel Fair which i've read runs from the 12-15 nov.

imagine my surprise when the taxi driver, Ali, told me that it starts on the 9th! the day after tomorrow! i decided to cancel my onward ticket and will go to Pushkar either tomorrow or the day after, depending on my energy.

since my energy is still quite low, i went around by auto (taxi) today. man, life is easy if you are willing to let go of some rupees. at this point, i could pour out rupees to make my life easy. every day i hope that i feel better, it just hasn't happened. those overnight train rides probably arent' the smartest thing.

since i really didn't see much in Jaipur (the pink city), i may have to come back here after pushkar before i go off for the final push to the Taj Mahal and Delhi.

update - 6 nov

I'm just about to leave Amritsar, which is a small town in that state of Punjab, close to the Pakistani border. I'm off to the desert and colorful part of India, Rajistan, first visiting Jaipur, the pink city, and then Jaisalmer, where people do camel safaris.

that's just sick!

so i think i've hit my low point. I managed to get sick from the lunch on the train from Varanasi to Amritsar. It was already a tough trip, being a good 23 hrs, and having food poising didn't help. All the other meals on the train have been excellent, but i guess my luck ran out. to top it off, i also got sick, as I've been fighting the onset of a cold since Kajuraho. i was not a happy camper on the train. I basically lived in the toilet. i'm pretty good at the indian way now though!

Amritsar is primarily Shiek religion state (Punjab state). It's an interesting religion which was born out of a distaste for the caste system and privelages of the higher caste.

After arriving in here, I saw the spectacular Golden Temple, but was feeling worn out so returned to the hotel at 3pm. I konked out and woke up at 11pm! only one thing to do at that hour, go to sleep! so i went to bed for real and slept until morning.

I could have seen more of Amritsar, but me energy was pretty low. It's been three days now, though, and I am finally starting to feel better. yeah.

can i have some bread with my butter?

while i have really enjoyed the food (for the most part) here in india, i've had some difficulty in Amristar. Aside from dealing with food poising from before, i found it really hard to deal with how much butter they use in their dished here.

I had one meal that tasted only like butter, and everything glistened with oil. i understood why, when i walked out on the street and saw people melting slabs of butter on their nan bread. It must be about a tablespoon per piece of nan. with my unhappy digestive system, all this grease didn't appeal to me.

it's odd, since punjabi food is kind of famous. in fact, it's where most of the indian food we get n the states comes from. like chicken tikki masala, palak paneer, aloo gobi. I think these are all punjabi cuisine. well, i guess they've americanized it back in the states, and I'm thankful!

i bought some fruit this morning. the oranges were like heaven.

Happy Divwali!

Yesterday was Divwali, which is a day that I think all Indians celebrate. It is celebration of the return of the god Rama from a 14 year exhile. I'm not sure, but seem that they celebrate Laxsmi, his wife, instead of him.

i managed to snag a fellow tourist into taking a boat ride with me and we had a wonderful view of the ceremony from the river.

the ritual of the dead is simple yet ornate, and having the dead all around is "normal". thankfully, they cover the bodies as they are taken through town. my husband from Khajuraho mentioned that if i take a tour of the cremation area, you can see the bodies burnt, which is fine, but apparnetly the feet don't get cremated well.....

** somehow i've managed to post even though i thought Google discontinued this service..... maybe i just have to access this blog differently. glad i can still post **