North Tour!

North Tour, North Tour, North TOUR!

Not the same effect as MAGIC SHOW MAGIC SHOW MAGIC SHOW (great words yelled by yours truly in Jaipur).

So my North Tour was not as eventful as the whole South Tour in an Exchangers minds but I defiantly saw some cool places, learned some cool stories, and well was hot hot hot! (Normal temp, was around 40+ c not f for the American crowd and no I cannot convert…. I have been here too long… wiki it…). So let me continue, North Tour, around three weeks of pure bliss of traveling around India, seeing the sites, and of coarse the most cliché thing in India, the famous or infamous which ever way you look at life (half full of half empty kind of deal), THE TAJ MAHAL! (more on this latter…).

So we left Pune and traveled to Mumbai then from Mumbai we went to Jodhpur and there begin the first part of the adventure!

Jodhpur- The Blue City

My observations of this city were a bit well different from other places I have traveled to in India. It was first of all, HOT, bring the more or les beginning of a desert that is Rajasthan, there was sand and not dirt and it was sweltering, also it seamed to be in the middle of NO WHERE (little did I know… as always more to come…). Also it was strange that this being India (a really really population dense crowded country), No One was around! Another cool thing, which in the end just seamed like just one more, was that where ever you went in the city the HUGE fort on the hill/cliff top was looming around (don’t worry there are plenty of pictures…).

Places visited:

Umaid Bhawan: palace for the Marajas (kings, or Royalty of the city). Now divided into three parts, a museum, a 7 star hotel owned by the Taj hotels, and one of the Royal living quarters of the Jodhpur Royals.

Note: The city of Jodhpur has today an active Royalty, that govern the area, like a real prince and king and all that good stuff (more to come).

Market of Jodhpur: The best part about the North in my mind, and well in my parent’s wallet, was the amazing shopping! Geared towards tourist (because not many people really lived here), shopping shopping and more shopping, to your hearts content! Also bargain bargain bargain! Like a true American! This city is famous for mojories (Indian Elf Shoes) and tye and dye (yes, lke scout camp, they claim they invented it, not too sure about the claim it does look a little bit different and also less hippie-stoner-esq).

Meherangarh Fort- high on a chiseled out cliff built into a hill is this HUGE fort (they call it a fort, we would call it a palace sounded by military). Millions of rooms (literally a million rooms) every room carved into rock, with vast views of the blue city (it is called this because he Royals asked the people if you were a Hindu to paint your house blue, and well the town is more or less all Hindu, so there is a lot of blue houses, the Royals still ask people to do it today as a sign of respect). All the rooms had various uses and royal matters, the normal ones like court, armory, carriage rooms, waiting rooms, sitting rooms, and drawing rooms, and then more unusual ones like “pleasure” rooms (there were 40 pleasure rooms, I did not ask?).

Note: like I said the Royal family still is active and real in Jodhpur and well on the way in, in comes a Jeep followed by another Jeep into the fort when we are waiting to collect our audio tour, and then after the jeep come an armed jeep, and we are like, this is mean we had to walk a half a km up a huge hill to get into this crazy palace, and in comes people in Jeeps, then in comes a big car and the car stops and the palace like freezes for a minute, everyone stops and looks at this car, an armed guard gets out of the car and gets back in, with enough time to get a look of the cute guy in the car, who 20 seconds later we were told was the prince of Jodhpur (an eligible bachelor). He gives Prince Harry a run. J

Monkey Gardens: a garden that was INFESTED with monkeys, there were EVERYWHERE! It was crazy! We did not go for the monkeys though, we went for the cenotaphs (places like the great pyramids where they were erected for people who died and now there are no people buried there). The place is an Indian Heritage site but sadly it is not well kept, but still real neat. They look like temples but they are not that’s about it. Also on the same site was a high fort were the heads of the army could go to and watch the real fort from the north most vulnerable side to watch for invaders and such. Also there was a temple under the high fort so they could pray to ward off invaders. The temple was well a big cave like thing and PITCH BLACK, which was somewhat funny because I did not have a torch and just walked right in, not stopping to think that this could be like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom… Don’t worry no snakes or rats that I saw, well it was pitch black?

As for the people we figured out by the second night in the city that they only came out at night and well were complete night owls! They came out when the sun came down and went in when the sun came up. For two reasons, the first being it was hotter then hell outside, and the second being that it was a festival going on that they celebrated at night.

Moving on to the Next city!

Jaisalmer- The Gold City

(If anyone has seen that awful American Teen Movie, EuroTrip, when they go to the city called Cran-sal-mare is pronounced similar to that and well it was a joke of ours and we laughed about it).

Observations- This is the real middle of NO WHERE! This is TRUE desert, sand is everywhere, you have to wear sunglasses or more or less you cannot open your eyes, it is so hot, you feel like your skin is melting, not very plesent. Not to mention we had to take a non-ac train the “5 hours” which turned out to be more like 7 and felt like three days to the middle of NO WHERE, because we got stuck in a sand storm the train was halted for ages! And well being non-ac you either keep your windows open cover your self in cloth and get sand in your everything or else you close your windows and die a very painful hot sweating death. No to pleasant, never want to do this again… Not to mention the train was infested with cockroaches there were hundreds of them they were everywhere! I pulled out my bag and they were crawling all over in the masses (when I opened my backpack they were crawling out of pockets I did not even know existed!). Gross… So back to Jaisalmer, the city originally was a trading city that was a bridge from Europe (more like Turkey) to Arabia to India way back when. Then when partition came along and Pakistan was created that whole idea was shut down, along with modernization of trading routes (camels became obsolete too). Now the city has very strong military ties, and being one big military base, because of its close proximity to Pakistan. But its other use as a city is a Tourist Trap, the people who were crazy enough to stay in this city after it was placed into India are into tourism and tourism only, what else do you do in the middle of a desert (cheat white people! Of course!). Also in this city just like the last way on a big hill in a HUGE Fort (a common theme, among these cities). To get around in this city we got to have big cars (suvs) because a bus does not really drive well in the sands along with suvs are way cooler (better ac) and altogether are just fun! Driving around in a big SUV caravan makes you feel important. As for the gold city, it is called that because EVERYTHING is made out of sandstone, which mixes with the sunlight to be gold in color, making you wish the tint on your sunglasses was darker.

Places visited:

Havalies: The mansions built for the wives of the Royals of the city. They are all large in size and built around a general roman like theme. They were many stories and built for many people, specifically the king would have many wives and the wives would have ladies in waiting and euchnichs (gay servants). They would have closed off exteriors but big open courtyards on the insides.

Note: this city had royals, now they listen to the Royals of Jodhpur.

Market- Having already filled up my suitcase in the first city… Well I took this chance to once again go serious shopping. This city is bargainers paradise you can beg and plead and well live by the four As-Argue, Antagonize, Annoy, Agree. The big thing there was really for us, PANTS, in India there is AliBaba pants, they are well um pants, and I will show pictures because they are well different but way cool! This market really struck me as a really traditional Indian Market or what a westerner would perceive with big colorful awnings, and crazy sellers of everything from mystery cookies to huge idols, and of course very colorful pants. If you need a better mental picture, just like Aladdin and the market in the Disney Film, I would put money on it that the film makers based the markets of the fictional city on the ones in Jaisalmer.

The Fort- Another big fort, this one was less of a palace (the other one was about the same size but all belonged to the Royals versus this one that was only a little palce and more of one huge city on a big rock. Most of the population lives in the fort, it has built up sandstone homes and hotels, shops and living quarters, and is also completely falling apart! The reason given for the fact that it is detonating like a slow bomb rocks, were falling on our heads is because of water usage, the palace was made for people to hike 20 km to find water. Now with water found underground the resource is always there, which is great, but causing the place to look like it was hit by an earthquake. So walking through the fort you get to see many things there are over 12 hotels, tons of shopping, and a ton of restaurants (two which made us crack up, one was called free Tibet, the other was killed Killa). In the temple we went to the

Jain Temples- temples for Jains (religion of India, they don’t believe in killing anything ever, they are full veg and don’t eat off the land (don’t eat things that grow underground), I am going to guess it is the next major odd religion cult in California). Where they have crazy carvings all made from one slab of stone, which it is just beautiful and WILD! You see stories and just about everything carved into this stone, I have pictures, but it does not make any sense in words.

Main Museum and the Palace part of the fort- Showed the palace and with a tour guide in your ears (audio guides described in India…). Show cased the living quarters and some of the court rooms where locals brought the Royals things (like chickens), No pleasure rooms this time, I figure the Royals in Jodhpur have enough for the Royals of Jaisalmer to share. Also I learned of some of the crazy romance stories about the Royals long ago. They are SCREWED UP! Such as this princess who was trying to find a husband went for a walk one day following the moon which lead her into the desert yet she kept walking and she came to a camp and this lake in the middle of the desert and there staying was the prince of a serious rival and he was preparing to invade the city, so she hooks up with him and goes back in the morning, and this goes on for a long time, months, when her father is preparing because he knows this kingdom will invade and the prince is holding off the troops, so one day the princess wants to bring her sister to show off “her man.” Btu she does not want her father to know, so she dress her up like a man, and goes to him, and she and her sister are just lying in his bed, and he comes in, and flips and is like “what are you doing in bed with another man!” So he refuses to every see her again and he gives orders to battle, so he sends his men to go and fight her kingdom and she goes back and then decides it is pointless so she wanders through the desert, and pretty much dies, and then he finds out during battle after the prince has pretty much killed off everyone that it really was her sister, and his princess is wandering through the desert he kills her father and he wanders through the desert and dies trying to find her. HOW ROMANTIC!? Not really… But that is what I learned.

Along with the practice of Saathi. Saathi is when women in well a long time ago when there husband died would put on their wedding dress and throw themselves into their dead husbands funeral pyare, to die (burn alive) with their husband. This happened and this happened quite often, well I mean people die. It was honor and the only way to get to heaven for a women, in my mind this is AWFUL! First of all your husband died, and now you have to jump on him ( a dead man) and burn yourself alive! You were not to scream because this could bring shame, so you were to quietly burn alive, fun fun fun! When this happened with kings, many times out of ten he would have more then one wife (anywhere between two and 365 (one for everyday of the year… as said by the tour guide in my ear) on average very rare would a king have one and sometimes he would have more then 365). So the wives would have to follow their lovers other lovers into the fire, which is indescribable uggh… That’s all I got. There was also another practice called Adjoher which was a mass saathi. This is before all the men went off to battle (the battles where they were 98% sure that they would not come home) they would build a big fire and all the women would walk into it for their husband. In Jaisalmer this happened 2.5 times. The half time was a little bit different but in my mind worse then a traditional adjoher. The story goes the king declared that everyone was going to battle tomorrow, and that everyone was going to die, so the wives have to go. So the king ordered all the men to slit their wives throats, so they could leave. Lovely! Enough history back to the sites!

Back to the Fort- The fort also had shopping and if the last bazaar was not movie enough for you this one was crazy, it had little allies and stall selling all the stuff you would want to find in India, which is all crap! It was junk junk junk! (I sound like my mother…) Alright but the shop keepers were the ones going, Madam come see my shop, it was very very stereotypical India, and they all sound like Abpoo from the Simpson’s. A SERIOUIS TOURIST TRAP! They would overcharge for everything! And overcharge really is an understatement! Needless to say we really did not shop here.

One this about Jaisalmer that was really amazing was the architecture of the place. I know I mentioned that it is the Gold City for the use of sandstone, but sandstone in Jaisalmer is so elaborately carved, its amazing! They do a thing called “Netting” which is where the sandstone is so thin (yet very strong and standing still the same after hundreds of years), it is carved into such intricate designs that it is about the same thickness as mosquito netting (for the scouts and campers, you know what I am talking about! Imagine peacocks, eagles, chuckras, and overall elaborate designs being carved into rock mosquito netting, it is amazing!).

More Cenotaphs! Not to fun, well the ride out (about 25 minutes going about 120-140 kmph this is fun!) was nice and ac-ized! But well being outside in the 110 f desert heat at 12pm was not to fun! Hot Hot Heat! These Cenotaphs though were the most fascinating of all the cenotaphs because they clearly showed the ideas of an era long gone. Such as they would show a man on a horse and then a wife next to the horse, and then they would show on another block to the side 7 more wives, I am guessing we know who he liked better, unless it was his mother. But it showed the effects of saathi because the dates of death would be printed and when 17 people all die on the same day well they died for a reason, so saathi!

That night we were going to ride about two hours out into the middle of the desert, towards the Pakistan Boarder (Border Patrol Time! T hey do do border patrol on camel back sometimes I was told). On the way we stopped at more Jain Temples like the ones in the fort these temples were the first temples in the world to use Mixed Media to build them, they used the sandstone and then they integrated marble into the temple designs, it looked a little awkward.

Desert Camel Safari! Or One big Photo Opt!

So we went on a camel safari! It was in the desert! It was hot! I took lots of pictures! We went to the sand dunes and did stupid things, like made sand angles (due to the missing of snow season), we rolled down HUGE sand dunes, we put sand in people’s pants. We did get to ride camels into the desert, properly this time vs. camel carts. My camel was name Arjun, as told to us by our camel leader. Our tour guides camel was named Michael Jackson… I don’t know what to say to that.

On the last day in Jaisalmer we were supposed to go visit the Indo-Pak border, but because of political issues and recent bombings we could not get there, which was quite sad.

Jaipur-The Pink City!

Magic Show Time! So we arrive in Jaipur and we are staying in this resort and traditional handicraft village for the state of Rajasthan. In the evenings we got to wander around and ride the “Big Wheel” (man powered Ferris wheel!). And watch a magic show. The magic show joke comes from me having to wake up a room of six sleeping people, by really loudly screaming magic show, it was a very heather moment, that should have gotten on film because American’s funniest home videos would have given me way more then a million dollars. This hotel also had some very interesting guest, some Indians on a honeymoon, about 7 gagallizion ants, 11 bamallizion flies, and well Norbert and Roberto the FIRE BREATHING DRAGONS (giant lizards) that lived happily in my bathroom. But enough complaining, other then them fire breathing dragons are scary!

Jaipur is Pink because of well the whole place is colored in this salmon color, the color of the royals of this city. So it is really erally salmon and uniform, something that you don’t seein many Indian cities. It was just like the main drag of Meqon, Port Washington Road, all Uniform but well this city has just a few more million become and Mequon really has not even reached 500,000 yet, so not really the same.

Places visited-

City palace- A palace that the royals still occupy, they are not as important as the Jodhpur Royals and don’t have a hott prince, so yeah. The palace you did not get to see much, they were some exhibits on textiles that were used; you would look at the cloths and really see both orient and Russian influences which would lead to some pretty funky fashions. A bunch of hookahs were show cased (which they would drink opium tea and do hookah for celebrations among the Royals). A huge armory with wepons pouring out in every which way, it was nuts, because they was no organization of anything! It was huge, and it was hot, so I did not stay to see the infiltration on my last name all over the walls (hehe). There were carpets under lock and key, and my guess was because they were flying carpets! That is the only reason you would keep carpets locked up, because they can fly! (Really I think it was because someone famous stepped on it, but that is just talk they really went flying on it over the Taj Mahel and were serenaded by a beggar! Also there was a painting that was over 300 years old that looked just like the monsters in the book Where the Wild Things Are, so that was funky. But one of the main things at the City palace are the giant silver vases that the once royal would carry with him on trips and long journeys and they were full of water from the holy river, the Ganaga. He would only bathe and drink this water, and if he was even offered something else I cannot remember if they were put to death or he was just really offended, whatever off with his head anyways. They are the biggest silver objects in the world still today.

Hawa Mahal- The Palace of Wings

This palace was made by a king for his Queens and Ladies to watch the processions on the main street (because the Queens and Ladies were not allowed outside). Has millions of little windows that all used to be colored stained glass so the Queens could see out, and then a black sheet would be draped behind then Queens and she would stand between the black sheet and then colored glass and viola the first tinted windows. Today the stained glass has all been taken, and in only one window is there ever any evidence that this is what went on. Also the place has no stairs, all ramps and the kings and Queens because there fashion was so heavy were rolled around on chairs. This palace is called the palace of wing because it has no foundations. The king wanted a flying palace, A palace on water, and a palace in the sky, and well we saw all three.

Amber Fort- Outside the city past the palace in the water, there is the Amber fort, more or less looks like every other fort we have seen and you can only learn so much about their royals. By this time it was getting redundant. So here you were supposed to be able to ride elephants, but it was Ram’s birthday! Ram is a Hindu God, and in Jaipur a big Ram temple is located a top the Amber Fort. So no elephants. Just people, were everywhere! I have never seen a line with so many people in it, I would guess a few thousand were in line to see Ram’s Temple and give him offerings. It was crazy, and more or less a bad memory, because it was also hot, and huge, and a lot of walking in mass crowds.

Shopping- More shopping, this is more or less the last shoppers stop on our tour; the guys were starting to get pissed. This was the biggest shopping street yet, seriously for the tourist but with the persuasion skills and plenty of time on our hands, all we got was great deals! On everything from purses, scarves, turbans, more purses, bags, puppets, and jewelry galore! It was fun, and I defiantly broke the bank, and ended up buying a new bag as an edition to my suitcase. But we made some amazing arguing to get bargains. We have movies, it was just a hoot sometimes.

On to the most anticipated cliché city in India!

Agra- The worst city in India.

Agra is the worst city in India, it has a million people, it smells like poop (because all the sewers are open), it was not created to have so many visitors, the people are jerks, and well it sucks, never come to Agra, skip the Taj there are plenty of cooler places out there. DO NOT COME TO AGRA EVER! Let me repeat this for effect. DO NOT COME TO AGRA EVER! It is a shitty city. We did stay in a semi-nice hotel, we liked the hotel (except for the food, but McDs was across the street). So we were here the shortest amount of time possible, to see the Taj and leave. That’s what we did. We came at around 1pm and stayed at the hotel and then went to the mall across the street (oh I have a story, but hold on just a sec), and then the next morning we woke up and went to the Taj at 5am, and we left by one the next day, 24 hours.

Places Visited-

CCD-

India’s version of Starbucks, Café Coffee Day, it is a shitty version of Starbucks really and is just total shit, and expensive at that. We have all been there a million and one times in out respective cities so we knew what to order, and when we got the bill it was quite high but because Lauren was paying we just well ignored it. So a little bit latter when all of us met up, Ana and Laura (two German girls) were complaining how this guy at CCD tried to charge them over rs100 more! So I turn to Ellie and Lauren and I am like I know why our bill was so High, I am going to go get my money back. So I take Ana (who can be the nicest person you know, but she has the amazing ability to share the living daylights out of someone, possibly because she is about 6’2), So Ana and I proceed up to CCD followed by Lauren. And as soon as the guy sees us three storming the CCD he immediately looks like he is going to pee himself. Ana and I just let into him about overcharging foreigners and how this is racial discrimination and how he should never think differently about people who look funny to him. Because we all live in India, and frequent CCD this is going down, as a very bad event. The guys name was Rajendra, and we made him call his boss, who would not get him phone. But still the guy was nuts and we got our money back, the whole thing ended with me screaming at him to call his mother to tell her what he has been doing to the white kids. That was my Agra experience.

The TAJ MAHEL!

Cliché cliché cliché cliché cliché

Essentially the Taj Mahel is the most cliché Indian experience. End of Story. It is a big place where dead people are buried. It is questioned how much the guy really loved his wife and loved himself way more. Its pretty, it’s big and yes it is real. It is really photogenic, it attracts a million and one foreigners.

IT IS INDIA

I can get really philosophical and let you all into my mind, but well oh only for a few seconds. The place is uber photogenic, but at the same time it is one big well lie, I guess. It attracts people from all over the world, and it is just overrated. All the jewels and everything, it does not look any different from the big elaborate buildings, and what really ruins it, is that people think this is India. India is not yoga, meditation, hippies, and the Taj Mahel, India is not George Harrison running around in the 1970s (or whenever the Beatles were in India, not too sure on the dates and my fact checker is sleeping, also more on this latter). India is not a paradise for washed up 30 something corporate droids to come and find themselves. You won’t find anything in yourself that you cannot find else where in India, India has no lights where people can magically go, WOW, this is who I am. No! No! No! People do bathe here (generally more then once a day too), they all wear normal clothes (ok sari’s are a bit like Togas, but they are still clothes!). Nameste is just a word that means Hello, or Greetings. It has no peaceful meaning; really it is quite an un-peaceful word to think about it

(Because India is not a very peaceful country). So all you hippies or people who think it means something cool, like “all

The world’s children piss peace” or something crazy like that, IT MEANS HELLO! GET OVER IT!

India is a country, a big country with over a billion people. One billion people, almost none of them united, or unified in any way. They are crazy they don’t start dancing in the street, they are living their lives, when the crazy foreigners come here and are trying to find a little piece of themselves among one billion people that are trying to live their lives in a country that is really hard to live in! You are chasing the wrong dreams! You are cliché and the Taj Mahel is the coming point of Indian Lies. It is big and it is beautiful, and most of all it is real. But it is not India. It is a rip off. They charge Indian’s rs. 20 (50 cents) to get into the place to see what all the foreigners rave about; it cost a foreigner rs. 750 ($18.75). I am not good at math but I do that is NO RIGHT, also racial discrimination, its unmoral in so many ways, it makes me want to Puke. I saw it, I wore a sari, I looked at the other Amerian tourist who must have forgotten to put on pants that morning (because skirts are NOT THAT SHORT!). It somewhat ruined the whole thing for me. Taj Mahal is a cliché for something that does not exist, that’s my take.

Getting out of Agra (thank god!).

Took a bus to Delhi, and as soon as you reach Delhi you get to meet up with a very good friend of the people of Delhi! Delhi Traffic! Where it takes over an hour to drive 1.5 km! Wahoo! Three hours for about 5 km! What a fun way to spend your time! Not to mention it could only get worse, because the next day was the Olympic torch race, which means security security security! This would be the closet that the Olympic torch would get to Tibet; Delhi is not that far from Tibet. This means PROTEST TIME. So Delhi as a city is big, it is fairly metro, it has a metro, it has the worst traffic I have ever seen. It is daunting and a bit scary, not sure why anyone would ever want to live there.

Things seen:

From Afar on a Bus: Parliament, The Presidents Estate (which is about 1000 times the size of the White House), India Gate, a few other places, and a giant Hanuman (the monkey god in Hinduism).

Actually got to get out and look around:

A famous mosque, the largest in Asia (outside of the Middle East, obviously). It was really pretty, and had swarms of these flesh eating birds, something funky was going on there, so who knows. They had this huge pillar that you could climb up and see amazing views of the city, it was quite a hike up and not worth how much they charged you but the city views were really amazing.

Gandhi’s Memorial In Delhi, where Gandhi’s eternal flame is going strong since his death in the 1940s. Very similar to JFK, though I would not compare the two.

Lotus Temple- This was one of the things I really wanted to see in India. I find it more fascinating then the Taj Mahel. It really is beautiful. It is a temple for the Baha’I faith, which is a very odd religion. They believe in embracing all religions and meditating on what you believe is right and moral. Also that religion should never cause fights or problems in the world. It was created by a former Islamic and it is really fascinating. They has a lotus, a giant lotus, which inside is a meditation hall, which is just fascinating I believe the 2^nd or 3^rd most visited religious place in the world, after Mecca and the Vatican. It has a very similar style to the Old New York PanAm terminal at JFK Airport in NYC. It is just amazing. I don’t have much more to say about this.

We went to a mall after this to stay out of the ways of the riots, because well Delhi was just NUTS. There were only about 14000 protesters, from all over the world. But the number that astounded me was the number of security personal, it was just crazy! 21,000 armed security members were patrolling the area of Delhi where the torch was going to be, to make sure that the torch (which should be a sign of peace around the world) would not be unlighted. It was a little crazy, just a tad, if you could fathom this, because even being there it was very hard to believe.

Bye Delhi, HELLO COFA Land and the best part of the TRIP!

We left Delhi to take a bus to Rishikesh. The Beatles put this city on the map when they came to India. They meditated at one of the many ashram’s in Rishikesh, which is on the Ganga (the Holy River). They were reported to have written the White Album in Rishikesh, along with other songs, which were found in the Magical Mystery Bus (or is it tour?), and well other hits.

We did not go here for meditation or to be Holy or anything like that, though some of the exchangers needed their sins washed away, which we all ended up doing. We came here for one reason and one reason only, TO RAFT! Two days white water rafting down the Ganga. Best time of my life.

Come back in two days for more Info, well thinking that you got through all of this, i know it is a lot, but you now know everything, whoot whoot!