Changing Blogging Services!

Hey folks!

Just a quick little message letting you know that I'll be switching blogging services. I've found a site that is more user-friendly and has more customization, so here's my new address:

awaykatherinegoes.wordpress.com

You can subscribe to the WP blog just like you did with this one, so please keep following, because I'm going to keep writing! My first post on the new blog was published this morning.

Happy New Year!

Udaipur: Darkest Before Dawn

After a wild and crazy time in Pushkar, I headed south for Udaipur. Rather than take the bus, as I had initially planned, I decided to wing it and try to get a train ticket with my new friends from the guesthouse. It worked swimmingly, and we spent the next five hours chatting with people on the train and eating unexpectedly disgusting Indian sweets. (We were supposed to suck on them rather than chew them, but still. Gross.)

I had reservations at a guesthouse, so we all piled in to a rickshaw and went that direction. Unfortunately, the guesthouse didn't have any rooms available for the next couple nights, so my friends went off to find other accommodations. Jon wasn't feeling well at the time and ended up going to the hospital, which he reports as being quite nice.

After falling down some stairs, getting settled into my room and taking a short nap, I decided to explore. I went walking in the neighborhood around my guesthouse trying to find three restaurants that my Lonely Planet guidebook told me were nearby. I didn't find any of them, but I did wander through some really pretty neighborhoods; hardly a soul around, and the buildings were all beautiful shades of blue and cream and green. With the afternoon sun dousing everything gold, it was pretty magical.

Here's the view from my guesthouse's restaurant. Not bad.

I ate almost all of my meals right here.

About an hour later, I found myself, unexpectedly, back where I started. I decided to venture further south to continue my wanderings, but before I could make any real progress, I felt my lower intestines move in a decidedly unsavory manner. I hurried to the guesthouse.

- - - - - - - -SIDEBAR- - - - - - - -

If you've ever travelled to India, you know the importance of keeping a roll of toilet paper with you at all times. You never know what's going to happen when you're out of your room, and you can never expect toilet paper to be provided for you. One of my biggest logistical concerns during my travels was a) do I have more than half a roll of toilet paper in my bag? and b) where is the closest place I can buy a roll? I once spent a half hour in a rickshaw trying to find a general store that sold toilet paper. For those of you who haven't been to India yet, imagine the panic you feel when you're alone in a public bathroom and you've just done your thing and you reach into the dispenser to find that you're clutching at air. Now take that times a million, every day, and instead of sitting down, you're squatting over a hole.

- - - - - - - -END SIDEBAR- - - - - - - -

I ended up staying in that evening, eating at the guesthouse rooftop restaurant (not a bad deal, really, if you consider the view), and, feeling more and more ill by the minute, I went to bed early. It was a good move. Without going into too much detail, let's just say that I was in and out of the bathroom more than I was sleeping that night, with chills, a fever, and nasty body aches (among other things). And then the nightmare of all nightmares occurred:

I ran out of toilet paper.

Not only did I run out of toilet paper, but I ran out at 2 in the morning. Where could I go? I was in no shape to leave the room (I even thought about sleeping on the bathroom floor at one point), and besides, there were no shops open at this hour. Who could I call? There was not a soul manning the desk at the restaurant, and the number for the guesthouse would surely go to voicemail. I thought about knocking on a neighbor's door, but blanched at the thought of disturbing other guests at this hour and with my disheveled appearance. What could I do? I rummaged frantically through the contents of my backpack and found, with a sigh of relief, a plastic package of Kleenexes that I had thoughtfully packed back in July (undoubtedly thinking to myself, "you never know..."). Not knowing how many I would have to use, I rationed them carefully, being sure not to waste in case I needed them longer than anticipated.

Once it was around 8:30, I steeled myself to walk the three flights of stairs to the desk in the hopes that there would be someone to assist me. I dressed myself--sort of--and made the long and arduous journey. Unfortunately for me, it was much harder than expected; I felt nauseous almost immediately, my legs were weak and shaky, and my breath was coming in gasps. I arrived, got to the desk and told the sleepy-looking worker, "I need a roll of toilet paper." He looked at me. I saw spots. I bent over double to keep from falling over and to bring the blood back to my head. When he returned, I stood up slowly and took the roll that he gave me. It was puny, only an 1/8 of a regular roll. I knew it wouldn't last me more than two hours. I better not have to pay for this, I thought malevolently, and told him, "I need two rolls of toilet paper."

That was the worst of Udaipur. Now I'm going to show you the best.

Keep in mind this quote from Charles Baudelaire and you may have an idea of my attitude at this point in the journey (gendered pronouns are changed):

"But lately returned from the valley of the shadow of death, she is rapturously breathing in all the odors and essences of life; as she has been on the brink of total oblivion, she remembers, and fervently desires to remember, everything."

On my third full day in the city, I finally made it out of the guesthouse. Udaipur is beautiful, but not heavy with sights like other cities. I love Udaipur, and it's really all about the ambience: Lake Pichola, the brilliant white buildings, the colorful doors, the narrow streets (so narrow, in fact, that cars can't fit through many of them, making Udaipur one of the quietest cities I visited). I met some really cool people, ran into some other folks I had met in Pushkar, and saw City Palace.

City Palace is my favorite of the palace museums that I visited. The building and the rooms were exquisitely restored, the flow was great, the signs were well-placed and had few of the grammatical errors that typically plague Indian museum signage, and the tour was just long enough to give you satisfaction but not too long as to make you tired. I found myself almost skipping from room to room, camera in hand, delighted at everything I saw.

My favorite room in the whole place.

This area of Rajasthan is home to a particular breed of horse called Marwari.
The defining characteristic of this breed is the turning-in of the ears.

This is made of silver. How crazy is that??

That same day, I hung out with a new friend I met at City Palace and we went on a photography adventure, taking in the sunset and going up in a cable car to a point outside the city to look at the lights. It was beautiful, and the photos truly don't do it justice.

Pushkar: Holy Handlebars!

My second favorite experience in Pushkar was the Pushkar Fair Annual Mustache Competition. That's right folks: I attended a mustache competition at a camel fair in a desert in India. I know, I know...I didn't think it couldn't get any crazier than Drunk Love Zombie, either.

But here we go.

After meeting some great folks at Milkman that morning, including a fellow music educator (!!!), we made our way to the crowded arena where this competition was schedule to take place. Jon, the music educator, had a pretty impressive display of facial hair, so he went to join the competition... and got kicked out after about five minutes. Poor Jon. While I felt sorry for the guy, I was quickly distracted by the other, Indian participants. I feel this experience can best be shared in photo form.

Contestant One:

His beard dreds were at least twice as long as his arm span.
I don't even want to think about how long it must have taken to cultivate those.

Contestant Two:

This guy would intermittently hold his ribboned beard dreds out from his face,
fall to his knees and laugh maniacally. Awesome.

Contestant Three:

You might wonder why Contestant Three is so impressive, and then you realize
that his lush black beard is tucked behind his ears. Like whoa.

Contestant Four:

This guy is pleasant-looking and has a great turban, but this isn't a turban contest.
(The turban contest happened an hour earlier.)

Contestant Five:

Though he has no dreds, Contestant Five's facial hair is pretty impressive.

Contestant Six:

Ok, I'm not sure why this guy is even here.

And the winner is (drumroll, please!):

Contestant Three!!!! Look at that impressive sword.

AND THE BEST PART:


While my friends and I were drinking chai at a stand behind the stadium where the contest took place, and who should show up with his wife and a bejeweled sword? Oh, just the winner of the mustache competition. So we all sat and drank chai and talked about facial hair and swords for a while. He told us that not only did he win this competition this year (2013), he also won it in 2011, and last year he was Mr. Desert 2012. I'm not quite sure what criteria were used to adjudicate that contest, but I'm sure it would have been a sight to behold. I even got to interview him for a video that I put together, which was really cool!

Pushkar: The Drunk Love Zombie

I arrived in Pushkar by bus, after several hours of relatively pleasant travel. I had been warned countless times about the dangers and discomforts of Indian bus travel, and decided to make my longer trip an air-conditioned one. This contributed greatly to my enjoyment of the trip.

A guy from my guesthouse picked me up at the station and I had the experience of riding a two-wheeler with both my camera bag and my 50-lb. backpack (keep the core tight, move with the bike, and don't lean back). A mere two minutes later, we were at Milkman Guesthouse.

This. Place. Is. Awesome. Recommended to me by my friend Julia, I was attracted by the low, low price. Usually, a dorm bed is only 100 rupees, but I was paying 250 because it was festival time. Up several flights of stairs, the dormitory area has a friendly, funky feel, and is decorated with colored lights and hippie tapestries. Two turtles slowly roamed the area, moving around tattered backpacks and duffle bags. Outside, there is a grassy terrace, filled with potted plants. To accommodate festival patrons, this grassy terrace became an extension of the dorm, with 7 or 8 beds around its edges. I was on one of those.

The dormitory area is right inside that door
(you can see the stairs leading down to the rest of the building).

The restaurant in the guesthouse was cheap and tasty, and was a clear gathering place for the hippies and 20-something travelers that drifted in and out. In the mornings, bright sunlight shone through the windows, illuminating everyone's curd and muesli. In the evenings, the air was thick with the smoke of hand-rolled cigarettes. There was an air of camaraderie about the place-- one of those places where you could sit down and start a conversation with anyone at all. I loved it.

Contentment.

Pushkar itself is a wonderful little city, and was totally refreshing next to my noisy experience in Jaipur. Many of the streets were too narrow for car traffic, so it was much more pedestrian-friendly. The lakeside ghats were beautiful and quiet, and the sunsets were framed perfectly between the line of the city buildings and the temple hill in the distance.

There are many stand-out memories that accompany me from Pushkar, but I will share a couple choice moments with you.

I met up one afternoon with Nicole and Ella (friends I had made in Delhi--remember?), and they invited me to join their evening plans, which involved meeting up with several of their friends and going to a Rajasthani cultural performance. I walked with them to their hotel and met the people we would be spending the rest of the night with. They had been pre-gaming (always a good sign) and, after changing into some warmer clothes, we all set off. 

We arrived at a tourist tent city. This is a pretty common feature of tourism in Rajasthan: people who want an "authentic" experience in the desert, but don't want to put up with the inconveniences that go along with "authenticity," will often book stays in these weird little gated tourist communities. You stay in a small tent (some of them are ridiculously ritzy), eat buffets in a large tent, and enjoy nightly cultural performances like puppet shows, dancing, and fire-breathing.

We were fairly early to the performance, so the dancers amused themselves by making us get up and dance with them. It was pretty fun in that touristy sort of way, and I worked hard to get myself into the correct mindset. The fire-breather was by far my favorite, less because of his skill and more because of his incredibly sparkly kurtha (we started calling him Sparkles) and for his amazing dance moves. This man could swivel his hips and pelvic thrust like no one else--and believe me, many of the drunk French tourists watching got up and tried to compete. Sparkles thrusted them right out of the arena.

After a little puppet show-watching and dancing, we got our dinner. Our host, a man who had gone to a school that rivaled Woodstock, was fairly drunk and was sitting across the fire from me. He looked at me over his chapati and said, "Katherine, I am very fond of you." Wow, what a nice guy. I thanked him and he stared at me some more and confessed, "I think I am falling in love with you." I had no idea how to react to this news, since we had only known each other for an hour and a half, so I said, "Wow, well, that's sweet of you to say…" 

This man was probably one of the most harmless drunks in the history of drunks, so I wasn't concerned for my immediate safety, per say, but it was quite shocking, when we were dancing with the performers, to see him stumbling towards me with zombie arms, whining about how he wanted to dance with me. What ensued was an elaborate game of Keep Away with Nicole, Ella, and myself on one team and Drunk Love Zombie on the other. Needless to say, due to his condition, we were able to successfully keep away.

The only problem came when we needed to go home. Both our host and his friend were drunk, and we had all driven here in a jeep with a stick shift. That was a problem. None of us knew how to drive a manual. Another friend in the party had driven a manual before, but wasn't very confident in his abilities. After he accidentally drove over a small tree while reversing, we decided to test our luck with one of the drunk Indians. So, with four white people in the back and two Indians up front, we set off.

As we swerved along the road, passing other vehicles and narrowly missing several people on bicycles, Drunk Love Zombie decided to turn on the car stereo. "All I neeeeeeed is a rhythm divine," crooned Enrique Iglesias. I'm going to die, I thought while Drunk Love Zombie sang along. I'm going to die to the sounds of Enrique Iglesias in a car accident at a camel fair. I covered my head with Ella's arms to avoid DLZ's attention. The song changed. Oh lord. "I dedicate this song to Katherine," slurred DLZ, and "Right Here Waiting For You" by Richard Marx floated through the speakers. "Oh…good," I muttered, wanting to sink into the seats. DLZ sang to me as we came back into town, changing the lyrics oh-so-cleverly to say "I will be right there waiting for KATHERINE" every time the chorus came around.

When we stopped close to my guesthouse, I quickly exited the car, along with Nicole and Ella, who volunteered to walk me home before a certain someone could realize what was happening. DLZ tried to get out to say goodbye; we firmly requested that he remain in the car. Thus endeth my most ridiculous night in India.

THE PINK CITY: Jaipur

Day One

As mentioned in the previous post, I had an early train. I made it without a hitch this time: no speeding through the early morning traffic or sprinting to my platform. This particular morning was very pleasant and relaxed, and I found myself on my platform before the train had even come in to the station, which is how I typically like to do things here in India. I chatted with some nice Canadian professors before napping and eating my "Meals on Wheels" breakfast.

Jaipur came into view around noon, and I set about trying to find a place to stay. I thought I had reserved a room at a hotel, but it turns out I had only done that in my mind, so I allowed my rickshaw driver to take me to one of his places. People advise against it, but I liked the guy and didn't know Jaipur very well, so I let him drive me around.

But let me back up a little to the moment that I first met my rickshaw driver. He was one of those persistent ones that was around from the minute I got off the train, asking if I needed his services. I am immediately put off by that kind of in-your-face business, and so I shrugged him off and went to try and find a more secluded area where I could pull out my journal and check the name of my hotel. I set my backpack down and looked up. Standing about three feet from me, there he was. I narrowed my eyes and continued my search. I felt him come a little closer and hear, "Madame, you need taxi?" I looked up from my journal and sighed loudly. "Eik minute, ok?" I snapped, using what little Hindi I knew to let him know that I wasn't just a clueless tourist. He smiled broadly at my attempt at his language and chuckled. "Ok ok, eik minute," he agreed, and moved away again. 

When I finally found the name of the hotel, I found him still waiting and I accepted his taxi service. I hefted my backpack onto my back and we walked away from the train station and toward the mess of auto-rickshaws in the parking lot. The first thing I noticed about the rickshaws in Jaipur were the fact that many of them were totally tricked out: bright colors, decals, flower garlands. My driver led me to his rickshaw. At first glance, it was clear that this was one of the flashiest ones: the inside was lined with red velvet, the seat was embroidered with a floral design, and there were huge speakers installed behind the passenger seat. "Welcome to my Indian Ferrari," he said, and he held out his hand for my bag.

The place I ended up staying, Sajjan Niwas, was a nice, if slightly earnest, "heritage" haveli (mansion) in a quiet area away from the busy Old City section of Jaipur. With a little help from my driver, I managed to bargain for free wi-fi on the condition that I didn't tell the other guests I wasn't paying for it. (If you ever go to Jaipur and stay at this place, don't tell the guy I told you.) It was a nice place with a rooftop restaurant, but it seemed like it was trying a little too hard to be evocatively "Indian". After a couple hours of unpacking and napping, I set out to explore a bit of the city.

My biggest accomplishment of that day, aside from buying my first Indian bus ticket, was seeing an awesome 360 view of Jaipur from the Minar. I can't remember what it's called (FIND THE NAME), but it's the tallest thing in Japiur, and the city stretches out from it in all directions. You can see the whole of the Old City, the newer sections of the city sprawling out around it, and the fort up on the ridge in the distance. It was a beautiful way to first see the city, and for only 20 rupees, it was worth the climb. The spiral staircase up to the top reminded me of a family vacation to Italy, during which my brother and I made our parents climb up just about every dome we saw.

Day Two

My hotel room turned out to be right next to some sort of important 24-hour meeting place for what I presumed to be hotel workers. They had a lot of important business to conduct, late into the night, outside my door. So, after a night of fitful sleep, I prepared to explore the Pink City. Here are the highlights:

City Palace. A beautiful series of courtyards, throne rooms, and fancy gates, with lots of cool paintings and a remarkable textile exhibit. My favorite parts of this site included the largest silver jugs in the world (they are just about as tall as I am and accompanied a Maharaja to London filled with river water from the Ganges); four intricately decorated gates that artistically represent the four Indian seasons: monsoon, winter, spring, and summer; the outfit of one of the Maharajas of Jaipur who supposedly weighed over 500 pounds (his pants were hilarious).

Gettin' the audio guide. I am quite the Smart Girl.

It doesn't look very big, but it's only an inch shorter than I am.

Jantar Mantar. The catchy title captures the whimsical nature of this astrological garden, a collection of weird-looking instruments that measure various things of astrological importance. I didn't get the audio guide for this one, and I am kicking myself now for it, because I feel that I missed out on a lot of cool information. Even without the guide, though, I felt like I was walking through a sculpture garden at an art museum. Marble and metal were incorporated to create endlessly interesting angles and curves, and everything--literally everything--had metric lines on it.

Hey! I found my sign!

Hawa Mahal. I had seen this from the outside the day before and told myself I wasn't going to go, but I managed to finagle a student discount composite ticket for 5 different sites, so I went to check it out. I'm really glad I did, because it was beautiful! Hawa Mahal means "Palace of the Winds", which sounds really fancy, and it was constructed so that the ladies of the palace could look out over the workings of the city without being seen. Apparently, it was a bad thing for women to be seen. (I'm just not going to get into that right now.) Regardless of how I feel about the reason behind the building, the architecture itself is a gorgeous 5 stories of stone screen work and stained glass. The whole complex is pretty open, so you can explore these cool little courtyards and arched hallways. I felt like I was sneaking around and discovering things that no one had found before, so needless to say I had a great time.

Those birds are alive and not part of the sculpture.

Albert Hall Museum. Another site included in the composite ticket, this museum is a beautiful building that I visited at precisely the wrong time. Every school group in Jaipur visited Albert Hall at the same time I did, and they were not a quiet bunch. Even though I was mildly interested in the exhibits, particularly the pottery, textiles, and musical instruments, I found myself almost running through the museum in an attempt to get away from the crowds of yelling students. Outside, though it was less packed, it was more obnoxious, because all of those students wanted to take a picture with me. I made the mistake of siting on a bench and trying to journal, and found myself surrounded by about 15 or 20 people trying to make some memories with the white girl. At first, I was totally annoyed and tried to wave them off, but in the end it was so ridiculous that I laughed and did silly poses with them. That situation was a prime example of how humor got me through India when I thought I was going to go crazy.

Day Three

With a head cold and a lot of blogging to do (what up, Smart Girls!), I decided to stay in on my third day in Jaipur. This was the first of my "do nothing" days, and I have learned to love them. Initially, I was a little ashamed to sleep in and relax: there's so much to experience and so many historical buildings to wander through and I'M GOING TO MISS EVERYTHING IF I DON'T DO IT TODAY. But I realized that that was a stupid mindset because it sets me up for failure right from the start. Health first. Sightseeing second. It seems like that would be a "duh" statement, but it's surprisingly difficult to rationalize when you're on the road and you only have so much time. 

So another big lesson that I've come to realize on this trip is that, no matter how many trips you take, or how many days you spend in a particular city or state or country, you will always be missing something. There's always something that someone did last year that's a total "can't-miss", and there's always that one monument or that restaurant or that national park. It's literally impossible to see everything. Initially, that thought sounds very defeatist, but if you look closer, you realize that's kind of the beauty of it. If it were actually possible to see everything in the world, if the number of wonderful sights and experiences the world has to offer could fit on a finite list, wouldn't travel lose some of its appeal? People keep going out because there's always something new, something that's changed. Trips are planned based on the mind-blowing experiences of friends and strangers and articles found in magazines. Wanderlust is so beautiful because it can never really be satiated. And, on the flip side of all this change, that historical monument that's been standing for several thousand years will probably last quite a bit longer, so you can always come back.

So, after a day of minimal effort, I made my way to Pushkar!