The End is Nigh

Tonight is our last night on the road. We have a full day in Delhi tomorrow and then we're on the midnight flight to JFK.

We wrapped up our stay in Rajastan with a few nights in Jasilmer, a town within and around a stunning fort.

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One of our nights there was spent on cots alone in the desert after we rode camels out there. It rained at night, but we woke up to a nice morning of playing in the dunes and riding our camels back out.

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From there we took a luxurious 18 hour AC overnight train to Delhi, where it hit 109 today. Even so, we're running around hitting every market we can and eating until we can eat no more.



We're excited to see everyone back home - and we certainly could use some R&R - but we're going to miss the pleasures of the road...

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Jodhpur - Far Fewer Funny Pants Than Expected

Our next stop was Jodhpur, home of baggy pants which aren't even in style here anymore. Lucky for them, they are also home to the much more intriguing saffron lassi.

Jodhpur is also home to one of the nicer of the dozens of forts we're seen. Included in our admission was one of the better audio tours we've taken. From the fort you look down on the old city, which is famously blue.

Tasty Udaipur

From Pushkar we headed another 5 hours by bus to Udaipur. Udaipur is a bit of a fairytale city and for those of you who are Bond fans, it is home to the Lake Palace where some of Octopussy was filmed. Once again, the lake was dry, so some of the magic was lacking, but I still fell in love with the place.

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What makes Udaipur really special is that it is packed with havelis (mansions) most of which have been turned into hotels or have at least been restored. The havelis have intricately painted walls with flowers and scenes of the maharajas, interesting scalloped archway doors and windows and it feels like you stepped into another world. We stayed in a haveli right in the middle of it all and even though we had the cheapest room there, it still felt pretty special. We also went to a dance performance in another one around the corner.

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There is not much to do per say, but we left the tourist trail for a little bit and entered the real Udaipur where there was a wonderful spice market, lots of sari shops, sweets and even a special local paan shop where we got our first taste of the very popular "chewing tobacco". I put that in quotes as we actually did not have any tobacco in ours and if I understood the guy well, I think we had what the locals call girly paan - a flat leaf filled with all kinds of sweet flavors, including a maraschino cherry and some mint flavoring. The place was packed and this guy makes his paan individually to taste and was eager to have us try a little. Howie liked it... I chewed politely for as long as I could and when we were out of sight, spit it out immediately.
In the evening we decided we would try another cooking class. This one seemed a bit more professional and it ended up being the Indian experience we had been waiting for. Shashi, our wonderful and patient teacher, was not only a fabulous cook, but has a fascinating story. When her oldest son was about 9, her husband was killed by his best friend over a money dispute. Because she is of the highest caste, Brahman, she was not allowed to leave the house for one full year, the first 45 days of which she did not leave the corner of the room as family came cried and left. When she was finally able to leave the house, she had no way of earning any money for her kids - because of her caste she was not allowed to do menial labor or re-marry. Secretly for a few years she did laundry for some hotels at 2 rupees a piece and she would also sneak out in the mornings and do some housework, making sure to be back before anyone noticed what was going on. It was not until she met a foreigner who suggested the cooking class that she began doing the work, learning English from the tourists as she taught them to cook. Various tourists have helped out, copying the recipes into various languages so she can hand out recipe books and things like that. Now she has two sons in business school and while she still lives simple, she is doing a heck of a business.

The cooking class was in her kitchen and since it was school holiday she had her sister and nephews visiting. The house is simple, one room and the kitchen off of that and since there were so many people around, it was like being in either of our family's kitchens during a holiday. We were chopping and cooking and kids would come in and steal a tomato or nag Shashi for something.

We cooked way too much food starting with masala chai (the secret ingredient of which was peppercorns, who knew?) vegetable pakora (little deep fried veggie fritters), eggplant and potato masala curry, vegetable pulau (veggies and rice, pulau is heavy on the veg and light on the rice, biryani is heavy on the rice, low on the other ingredients)naan stuffed with tomato and cheese, paratha (fried Indian bread, both plain and sweet) and plain chipati. We ate our food with the family, chatting and enjoying and really feeling at home. We ate as much as we could, until we were about to explode (although we just could not eat it all as Shashi would have liked), and we are looking forward to trying a few of our new tricks when we get back home.

On the camel trail

We are now in the heart of Rajasthan and have hit the land of castles, forts, turbans, spice markets and camels. The heat has gone up, sand storms have started and we are getting back into the run back to the room in the middle of the day or risk melting.

The first stop was Jaipur, famed for its pink old city. Personally I would call it more of a salmon color, but anyway, it is an old city and it is, in fact, pink. It was not quite as charming as we had expected an old city to be - the roads were quite busy and it was not what I would call quaint - but we had a really nice time wandering around.

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The main sight is the city palace, which lucky for us had an audio tour included in the ticket price. The tour was actually really well done, albeit a little on the wordy side, and we got a good dose of culture. The palace is in great condition, with some stunningly painted walls and hosts exhibits of everything from the textiles of the royal family to the armour worn in battle.

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From Jaipur we took a bus about 5 hours to Pushkar, which is famous for its lake and camel fair. While the lake was completely dry and the camel fair not going on this time of year, Pushkar is the kind of laid back town that backpackers flock to and get stuck in. It has windy small streets and is packed with temples, including the biggest Brahman temple (sorry no pictures allowed). Much of Pushkar is closed in the off season, but we enjoyed the temple hopping and the fresh fruit juice/lassi guy. Funny enough, we did not see any camels in Pushkar, but we did see a lot of camel handbags and shoes...I guess if you are not lucky enough to get a job at the camel fair, your fate is sealed.

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As good as the hype

As hard as it is to believe, the Taj Mahal is as beautiful and magical as it is hyped up to be. We went at 6AM to beat the crowds and the heat of the day and it was truly incredible. The Taj sucks you in and no matter how hard you try, you cannot take your eyes off it. We spent about 2 hours gaping and snapping endless photos and we could have stayed longer.

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We also made it to the Agra Fort, which is across the river from the Taj and aside from being a pretty cool in and of itself, has amazing views of, you guessed it, the Taj Mahal. You would have thought two hours up close was enough, but not for us.

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Despite all the pretty horrible things people have to say about Agra (it is often said the Taj is the only thing the city has going for it) we really enjoyed our time there. I think Jakarta really prepared us for India's cities - a few piles of garbage and an open sewer or two do not scare us! We had a blast checking out the local food joints and wandering the local markets (we hit a spice market that could make your eyes water just wandering down the street.)

Entering an Indian kitchen

Walking back to the hotel our last night in Orcha, we stumbled on the very nice man asking us to his restaurant. We had actually noticed the place before and were talking about eating there, so we were happy to give it a shot. We also noticed that the sign said they had cooking classes. We asked and he was happy to oblige - dinner that night and a lunch cooking class before our 3:30 train in his kitchen "like family". Dinner was really tasty, so we were pretty psyched to do some cooking.

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Well, maybe I did not want to see the inside of an Indian kitchen. First off, it was TINY. A little square room with a table and chairs squeezed in for us. There was leftover food everywhere, tons of flies, some giant ants and no running water. Honestly though, I ate in many places in Indo that I am sure were worse, so I just took a deep breath and let it go.

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Squeezed into the kitchen was us, the owner who invited us, Mr. Salim who was the chef and after about 10 minutes a French couple that wandered in looking for lunch. In the door peering in was the owners wife and 4 year old son. There was barely room to move our arms let alone chop. Each time we made something we got one demo from Mr. Salim and then each one of us got a turn. If the turn was at the stove, a game of musical chairs ensued each of us moving one over to let someone out or back in. None of us chopped to any Indian in the room's liking, we all made lopsided chapati and in the end, we all got too lazy to even take turns and I was tasked with "finishing up."

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The two dishes we made were good - aloo paratha, a stuffed bread with potatoes, onion, garlic, chilis and tons of other spices, and dhal fry, which as sauteed onion, tomato, garlic, spices, some soupy lentils (which appeared from god only knows where while I was minding the frying pan)and a lot of ghee (Indian very rich butter) - and it was fabulously comical from beginning to end.

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After enjoying the Ganges, we headed to the smaller and quieter Khajuraho, famous for its many ancient Hindu temples with detailed and stone carvings. What makes this place stand out is not only the number of temples and temple ruins, but also the carvings themselves which lean quite often to an erotic nature. Yes, that was not a typo, erotic, not exotic. This is the home of everything Kama Sutra and you can get everything from "exercise books" to playing cards and coasters with people entwined in all kinds of insane positions.

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The carvings are impressive, erotic or not, and we spent a full two days wandering the town and its outskirts. It was especially fun with the good camera. The only downside to Khajuraho was that there are not many tourists this time of year and it seems there is no other industry to keep people busy. We were literally followed almost everywhere and not one person ended a conversation without asking us to just look at their shop. Just look, no buy! Why not??

From there we headed to another historic spot, Orcha, where instead of temples there are forts and palaces. Also small Orcha itself is tiny, but you cannot look in any direction without spotting a ruin of some sort. Luckily the nice thing about forts and palaces is that they are shady, so we were really able to make the most of our time there.

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Most of the structures are in tact and some of rooms still have some gorgeous paintings on the walls. Since security is a bit lax as well, we really got to do some great climbing up towers and scrambling thru ruins. I imagine the place would be in better shape if someone paid more attention, but it was nice to be free to do as we pleased.

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Bathing in Our Own Sweat (Not the Ganges)

It's wedding season here in India and on our last night in Bodgaya we stumbled upon a couple. They had all the usual music and dancing and then the celebration moved to the streets, where participants paraded along 'till all hours. We reluctantly gave in and even danced along for a block or two.

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We spent the last few days in Varanasi, one of the holiest sites along the Ganges. Hordes of pilgrims come here to bathe in the river - or to be cremated on its banks. We've witnessed lots of both and despite the oppressive heat, it's been fascinating.

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Varanasi has the ancient feel of Cairo or Jerusalem, with winding, narrow, shop-filled streets and the added attraction of the Ganges. We've spent hours wandering around the old part of the city and strolling along the waterfront. We also hired a boat to take us out on the river at sunrise and a rickshaw to show us around some of the temples around town.

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In an attempt to appease the weather gods and bring a much needed break to the heatwave, Haviva even set a candle adrift on the Ganges. We'll let you know if it works.

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Tonight we're taking the 11:20PM train to some random town, where we hope to arrive in time to change to an 8:00AM bus to take us five hours to some other town where there are supposed to be great ancient temples to see. We had good luck on our three hour train ride getting to Varanasi, so we're hopeful. We're riding in style - in an AC compartment with six other people. Should be fun.

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More photos online at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/India#

After three ridiculously long, filthy days on local buses, we finally landed in relaxing (by Indian standards) Bodgaya, the home of the bodhi tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment. The trip here was complicated by a dearth of train tickets due to it being school holidays, so we've ditched our plan to visit Calcutta and will instead start our journey west.

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Being an important Buddhist (and Hindu) pilgrimage site, Bodgaya has temples built by Buddhists from around the world. Haviva has taken to calling it the Epcot center of Buddhism, which is pretty apt. You walk down the main road past temples that look like they were shipped in straight from Thailand, Tibet, Burma, Japan, etc. Each has monks and staff from their respective countries, so it's quite an international scene during the busy season, we're told. Of course, the current sweltering weather and impending monsoon has scared most of them off for now.

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During our wanderings we met a nice Indian monk who is studying at the Thai temple. He took us for a little tour and sat us down under our very own bodhi tree to teach us a little. I'm not sure we found enlightenment, but it was most interesting.

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Tomorrow we're heading to another holy place, Varanassi. We managed to get ourselves a cheap non-AC seat on the three hour train, so we'll get to find out how it compares to the cheap seats on the bus, I guess.