yes, its true. after typing furiously for about 45 minutes i lost my blog as some silly indian turned off the generator about 2.5 seconds after i clicked "publish post." i guess the post takes at least 3.5 seconds to actually publish, and time was not on my side.
so. ill try again. we left agra on an overnight train to jodhpur, and spent several hours on the train having a hilarious conversation with the people in our compartment - one hilarious young british guy, working in calcutta with street children, and 3 middle-aged indian army guys on their way back to their post in rajastan. it was an interesting recipe for comedic dialogue as the conversation bounced back and forth, touching such subjects as the benefits of communism, india's rise to superpowerdom, overpopulation and poverty, the cowardice of american soldiers, cricket history, and all points in between. finally we slept.
we awoke in jodhpur, and we immediately loved the city. narrow streets with very few tourists, but very little hassling and agression as well. beautiful ancient architecture left over from the wealthy Rajput ruling classes that controlled this desert state for so many centuries. we stayed in a wonderful old "haveli" (palace) with a terrace cafe full of sitting pillows, a lounge decorated with old silk hangings and ornate embroidered blankets, carved archways and Rajputana paintings. our room was similar, and we stayed a couple of days there lounging on the rooftop and watching the sun set in the desert behind a panorama of blue houses - jodpur is called the blue city, as a huge portion of the hosues are painted with the same blue color (theoretically to represent the brahmin classes it was home to, but more accurately, we found out, because the blue provided a good insect repellant to the concrete buildings). behind us in the skyline was the enormous Mehrenghar Fort, which was just as impressive to look at from our rooftop as it was to explore inside. this fort was never sacked, never conquered....which is a hell of a statement in india, a country of perpetual power-shifts and military struggle. we walked through it with our headsets and explored the ornate stone carving architecture, the maze of palace rooms filled with artifacts from the royal family's centuries here, the 30 foot high solid steel doors covered in steel spikes to prevent the elephants from ramming them down. there was live music in the cobblestone streets of the fort, enormous lines of canons staring out past the 40 foot thick protective wall (looked like china to me), and we even walked to a white marble mausoleum on the premises that looked a lot like the taj mahal.
from jodhpur we took another train to jaisalmer, into the thick of the Thar Desert and very close to the Pakistani border. by the time we arrived, we each had 1/2 of a lung full of sand and a 1/4 inch layer covered the entire train. shouldve splurged on the AC compartment, or at least taken a bus. but no worries, jaisalmer proved to be wonderful. this entire city was covered in buildings made of yellow Jurassic sandstone, most of it intricately carved in wonderfully ornate designs which make America look like a newborn child with no conception of even the word beauty. we explored the (correction from Kendall's email) Jain temples, which were a highlight to me, and several palaces (haveli's) in the city, as well as the infamous camel trek.
yes, kendall was absolutely miserable on this trip, which dissapointed me a lot cause she had been looking forward to it so much. but its true, the camel is pretty much the most uncomfotable form of travel imaginable, and my groin was sore for days afterwards. probably the last thing youd want to be doing if you were as sick as she was. but what was i to do - leave her to lay there in the middle of the desert? despite her misery, (and i know this sounds really horrible of me) i had a great time! we walked miles and miles through the desert, through traditional villages where people were subsisting as they had been for millenia. we ate all oru meals over an open fire, only traveled a couple hours in the morning and a couple in the evening each day, and spent the majority of the day laying in the shade and relaxing, taking naps, and listening to the silence. at night we camped right in the middle of a huge sand dune, with nothing but a blanket between us and the sky full of stars. the sunrise woke us up, and we had a nice view over the entire neighboring desert as it greeted us on the horizon. so....despite the discomfort while actually traveling, it was quite an experience (these camels are still used for work the same way they have been for a long, long time, and i really felt like i was experiencing part of ancient history). also it helped to have a crazy italian overweight truck driver on the trek with us, and i really enjoyed the his eccentric and hilarious company.
after another day of chatting with the strange characters we met in our hotel (we were staying actually inside the fort, in a family's house that had been there for generations and generations) we made the silly mistake of signing up for an overnight bus again. thought it would be better than the last one as these are good, straight desert roads (or so we thought) maintained in good condition due to the army presence in rajastan. and, we got a sleeper compartment, which meant we got to lay down the whole time on a pillow and mattress. but...it was 14 hours of hell, to be honest. and to add insult to injury, as we were getting off the bus at 5:00 in the morning, a lady stole my shoe from right in front of my eyes, and i was left with one birkenstock.
but no worries, cause we had arrived Udaipur, the pretty much magical city where the James Bond movie "octopussy" was filmed. we stayed in a wonderful white marble room with a window that looked out upon the huge lake in the center of town. in the middle of the lake are 2 "floating" palaces with ornate architecture that light up at night and provide perhaps the most romantic scene i've ever been witness to. even the shorelines are covered in fancy hotel palaces with big domes and turrets and romantic lighting. we spent 5 days in this town, roaming the streets and shopping a little, reading a lot in our room looking at the lake, and sitting on our hotel's rooftop terrace at night watching the great fireworks light up the sky behind the picturesque lake. fantastic. one night we watched octopussy while we ate dinner, another night we went to see some really fascinating and impressive rajastani dance, with lots of women in beautiful traditional dress twirling and spinning to the live tabla/harmonium music and singing. the finale was a woman with 6 enormous ceramic water pots on her head, the stack taller than her body was, dancing around on a pile of glass.
from udaipur we started our longest piece of traveling in the entire trip. we took a 6 hour bus to ahmedabad, the capital of the state of Gujarat, and one of the world's 10 most polluted city. it was pretty much what we expected - polluted. from there we hopped on an overnight (9 hr) train to mumbai, and arrived at 5:00 in the morning. but we were at a different station than that from whcih our next train departed, and we didnt have much time to negotiate the long haul through the most crowded city in india. so, we took an expensive taxi and he somehow made it in time. we hopped on our next train, and after 12 more hours in the AC compartment arrived the peaceful beach state of Goa.
and....Goa is pretty much paradise. after himalayan mountains and Thar desert, the beaches here are our third distinctly different type of geography, and the Portuguese influenced culture is only the latest in an endless line of regional diversity. after the 30+ hour trip down here, we found a nice room in a peaceful family's house and slept. then spent one day in the town we had ended up in, Benaulim, which seems to be the home of mainly older European couples who have never seen any part of India outside the resort and simply want to sit on the beach all day and enjoy the cheap alcohol and delicious fresh seafood. not that i blame them.
so, we spent a day in that town enjoying the nice restaurants, palm trees, lack of crowdedness and noise and commotion, quiet beach, and calm peaceful village life, where Brazilian-looking women in flowery dresses (isntead of bright sari's and shawls) serve us lassi's and men named Antonio bring us our giant prawns. pigs and cows and chickens line all the yards, and while this is not anything different or new, for one of the first times in india they actually seem like they belong here.
the next day we took 3 public busses down to a secluded spot we were reccomended called agonda. and this is where we will stay. it is idyllic. tiny little village right on the coast, where we literally watch the fisherman haul their boats to the water each day and bring back our dinner. last night we had the best meal of the entire trip, hands down - a whole red snapper cooked in the tandoor (enormous round clay oven where they make naan bread) - and only an hour and a half afterwards did we realize that we had just eaten our thanksgiving dinner. ironic, but fitting. we strolled on the beach, drank a couple of beers, and savored the thick palm tree jungles and secluded beaches. and this is what we will do for the next 4 days.
after weeks and weeks of fighting different illnesses, we're both finally feeling 100% again, and it feels great. im gaining back the weight ive lost (yeah, was starting to look pretty damn skinny for a while there) and by the time kendall's mom arrives in a few days we should be feeling nice and strong.
we miss you all but we're having a blast - if you havent seen the pictures lately email kendall at kendallw3@gmail.com and she'll send you the link.
soon i will find the time to blog some more reflective, general thoughts about the country and our time here, now that we've been her long enough to let it sink in. but theres just never time, is there. the longer i stay here typing, the more money kendal is out in the street spending.
love you all
thane
so. ill try again. we left agra on an overnight train to jodhpur, and spent several hours on the train having a hilarious conversation with the people in our compartment - one hilarious young british guy, working in calcutta with street children, and 3 middle-aged indian army guys on their way back to their post in rajastan. it was an interesting recipe for comedic dialogue as the conversation bounced back and forth, touching such subjects as the benefits of communism, india's rise to superpowerdom, overpopulation and poverty, the cowardice of american soldiers, cricket history, and all points in between. finally we slept.
we awoke in jodhpur, and we immediately loved the city. narrow streets with very few tourists, but very little hassling and agression as well. beautiful ancient architecture left over from the wealthy Rajput ruling classes that controlled this desert state for so many centuries. we stayed in a wonderful old "haveli" (palace) with a terrace cafe full of sitting pillows, a lounge decorated with old silk hangings and ornate embroidered blankets, carved archways and Rajputana paintings. our room was similar, and we stayed a couple of days there lounging on the rooftop and watching the sun set in the desert behind a panorama of blue houses - jodpur is called the blue city, as a huge portion of the hosues are painted with the same blue color (theoretically to represent the brahmin classes it was home to, but more accurately, we found out, because the blue provided a good insect repellant to the concrete buildings). behind us in the skyline was the enormous Mehrenghar Fort, which was just as impressive to look at from our rooftop as it was to explore inside. this fort was never sacked, never conquered....which is a hell of a statement in india, a country of perpetual power-shifts and military struggle. we walked through it with our headsets and explored the ornate stone carving architecture, the maze of palace rooms filled with artifacts from the royal family's centuries here, the 30 foot high solid steel doors covered in steel spikes to prevent the elephants from ramming them down. there was live music in the cobblestone streets of the fort, enormous lines of canons staring out past the 40 foot thick protective wall (looked like china to me), and we even walked to a white marble mausoleum on the premises that looked a lot like the taj mahal.
from jodhpur we took another train to jaisalmer, into the thick of the Thar Desert and very close to the Pakistani border. by the time we arrived, we each had 1/2 of a lung full of sand and a 1/4 inch layer covered the entire train. shouldve splurged on the AC compartment, or at least taken a bus. but no worries, jaisalmer proved to be wonderful. this entire city was covered in buildings made of yellow Jurassic sandstone, most of it intricately carved in wonderfully ornate designs which make America look like a newborn child with no conception of even the word beauty. we explored the (correction from Kendall's email) Jain temples, which were a highlight to me, and several palaces (haveli's) in the city, as well as the infamous camel trek.
yes, kendall was absolutely miserable on this trip, which dissapointed me a lot cause she had been looking forward to it so much. but its true, the camel is pretty much the most uncomfotable form of travel imaginable, and my groin was sore for days afterwards. probably the last thing youd want to be doing if you were as sick as she was. but what was i to do - leave her to lay there in the middle of the desert? despite her misery, (and i know this sounds really horrible of me) i had a great time! we walked miles and miles through the desert, through traditional villages where people were subsisting as they had been for millenia. we ate all oru meals over an open fire, only traveled a couple hours in the morning and a couple in the evening each day, and spent the majority of the day laying in the shade and relaxing, taking naps, and listening to the silence. at night we camped right in the middle of a huge sand dune, with nothing but a blanket between us and the sky full of stars. the sunrise woke us up, and we had a nice view over the entire neighboring desert as it greeted us on the horizon. so....despite the discomfort while actually traveling, it was quite an experience (these camels are still used for work the same way they have been for a long, long time, and i really felt like i was experiencing part of ancient history). also it helped to have a crazy italian overweight truck driver on the trek with us, and i really enjoyed the his eccentric and hilarious company.
after another day of chatting with the strange characters we met in our hotel (we were staying actually inside the fort, in a family's house that had been there for generations and generations) we made the silly mistake of signing up for an overnight bus again. thought it would be better than the last one as these are good, straight desert roads (or so we thought) maintained in good condition due to the army presence in rajastan. and, we got a sleeper compartment, which meant we got to lay down the whole time on a pillow and mattress. but...it was 14 hours of hell, to be honest. and to add insult to injury, as we were getting off the bus at 5:00 in the morning, a lady stole my shoe from right in front of my eyes, and i was left with one birkenstock.
but no worries, cause we had arrived Udaipur, the pretty much magical city where the James Bond movie "octopussy" was filmed. we stayed in a wonderful white marble room with a window that looked out upon the huge lake in the center of town. in the middle of the lake are 2 "floating" palaces with ornate architecture that light up at night and provide perhaps the most romantic scene i've ever been witness to. even the shorelines are covered in fancy hotel palaces with big domes and turrets and romantic lighting. we spent 5 days in this town, roaming the streets and shopping a little, reading a lot in our room looking at the lake, and sitting on our hotel's rooftop terrace at night watching the great fireworks light up the sky behind the picturesque lake. fantastic. one night we watched octopussy while we ate dinner, another night we went to see some really fascinating and impressive rajastani dance, with lots of women in beautiful traditional dress twirling and spinning to the live tabla/harmonium music and singing. the finale was a woman with 6 enormous ceramic water pots on her head, the stack taller than her body was, dancing around on a pile of glass.
from udaipur we started our longest piece of traveling in the entire trip. we took a 6 hour bus to ahmedabad, the capital of the state of Gujarat, and one of the world's 10 most polluted city. it was pretty much what we expected - polluted. from there we hopped on an overnight (9 hr) train to mumbai, and arrived at 5:00 in the morning. but we were at a different station than that from whcih our next train departed, and we didnt have much time to negotiate the long haul through the most crowded city in india. so, we took an expensive taxi and he somehow made it in time. we hopped on our next train, and after 12 more hours in the AC compartment arrived the peaceful beach state of Goa.
and....Goa is pretty much paradise. after himalayan mountains and Thar desert, the beaches here are our third distinctly different type of geography, and the Portuguese influenced culture is only the latest in an endless line of regional diversity. after the 30+ hour trip down here, we found a nice room in a peaceful family's house and slept. then spent one day in the town we had ended up in, Benaulim, which seems to be the home of mainly older European couples who have never seen any part of India outside the resort and simply want to sit on the beach all day and enjoy the cheap alcohol and delicious fresh seafood. not that i blame them.
so, we spent a day in that town enjoying the nice restaurants, palm trees, lack of crowdedness and noise and commotion, quiet beach, and calm peaceful village life, where Brazilian-looking women in flowery dresses (isntead of bright sari's and shawls) serve us lassi's and men named Antonio bring us our giant prawns. pigs and cows and chickens line all the yards, and while this is not anything different or new, for one of the first times in india they actually seem like they belong here.
the next day we took 3 public busses down to a secluded spot we were reccomended called agonda. and this is where we will stay. it is idyllic. tiny little village right on the coast, where we literally watch the fisherman haul their boats to the water each day and bring back our dinner. last night we had the best meal of the entire trip, hands down - a whole red snapper cooked in the tandoor (enormous round clay oven where they make naan bread) - and only an hour and a half afterwards did we realize that we had just eaten our thanksgiving dinner. ironic, but fitting. we strolled on the beach, drank a couple of beers, and savored the thick palm tree jungles and secluded beaches. and this is what we will do for the next 4 days.
after weeks and weeks of fighting different illnesses, we're both finally feeling 100% again, and it feels great. im gaining back the weight ive lost (yeah, was starting to look pretty damn skinny for a while there) and by the time kendall's mom arrives in a few days we should be feeling nice and strong.
we miss you all but we're having a blast - if you havent seen the pictures lately email kendall at kendallw3@gmail.com and she'll send you the link.
soon i will find the time to blog some more reflective, general thoughts about the country and our time here, now that we've been her long enough to let it sink in. but theres just never time, is there. the longer i stay here typing, the more money kendal is out in the street spending.
love you all
thane
posted by thane at 11:26 PM
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