Bundi / Monkey Town

Hey folks! I’m writing from the comfort of Bundi. It is another relatively small town with little to see or do, which makes it a great place to lay low for a few days. I am staying in the penthouse suite at the Lake View guesthouse – a ridiculously fancy room which has been a welcome relief from the room I stayed in last night – a budget option where the sink drained to the floor and the water did not run. Still, it had a comfy bed and a relatively quiet night. Speaking of, the first class train car was little more than a normal car divided into compartments – same windows, same cushions, and sadly no meal. Still, it got us here in one piece. I was only hoping for a little luxury, which in India – relative quiet and solitude counts.

The plan for the next few days is to lay low in Bundi and plan the next few weeks. I am hoping to meet Grant here, who had been interested in some of the same spots I’ve been considering. Also, I’ve decided to stay for a few weeks at an ashram to jump start my yoga practice and possible attain oneness with the universe. Left on the sightseeing list are Varanasi for the Ganges madness, Kujoraho for the sexy temples, Darjeeling for the ‘toy train,’ and the north of India for mountains, the Golden Temple of the Seiks, and the ashram.

Bundi has been a good crash pad, not a whole lot going on other than a small grotty lake and an abandoned palace. But there is good food (we took a cooking class!), and plenty of rooftop cafes from which I have enjoyed the 80 degree sun and breeze. Here are some photos of Bundi - the town and dilapidated splendor of the palace. Thanks for reading!

Tiger Town, India

February 20, 2011
I’m writing from Sawai Madhopur, just outside of Ranthambore National Park. After Jodhpur I continued east to Ajmer and the small Brahmin town of Pushkar, a longtime ex-pat haven with little to do but sit around and take in the hippies and German tourists. I had something like the flu for a few days there and did more sleeping than anything else, and was not terribly attracted to the city – it is a ‘holy’ city, where devotees take a dip along the ghats and pray in one of dozens of temples. It is also, like perhaps many holy places, overrun by opportunists taking payments to pray for a families happiness, or giving a good luck flower to put in the lake, only to ask for a significant charge for the right to do so. There was far more begging, and far more signs in English than I’ve seen anywhere else in India, including Delhi. It was a fine place to be laid up as I was more interested in waiting out the time than I was in wandering around. I did enjoy a few walks outside of the town, but mostly I just slept and felt lousy. I did have a small insect run-in (Cliff bar, ant colony), and a malaria scare (head cold, one mosquito) but otherwise the stay was fairly uneventful. Pushkar is a bus ride away from the nearest train station in Ajmer, and on the 19th I hopped the train to Jaipur, where I ate lunch at the Pearl Palace – the hotel I had stayed in before – before taking a thoroughly enjoyable train ride into Sawai Madhopur and Ranthambore.

The sun was setting as the train drove south and I had a front row seat – I took a number of photos of that, one or two of which turned out. I had noticed that Radiohead had released their newest album on a Times review, so I listened to ‘In Rainbows’ on the train. The last trainride Radiohead I listened to was a duet of Thom Yorke and Bjork from ‘Dancer in the Dark,’ which I heard on a train into Salzburg in 2001. ’15 Count’ knocked me out – and I felt like I was going where I ought to be going at just the right time. It was a welcome feeling after the flu in Pushkar.

Almost immediately after arriving at the Tiger Resort Hotel in Sawai Madhopur, I met Chris and Christine, with whom I hoped to share a tiger safari the following morning. I was excited to see them and catch up – we shared dinner and early this morning (6AM) we set off to go tiger spotting.

The ‘safari’ was relatively uneventful – as in, no tigers. We heard warning calls from deer, but did not see anything hunting. We did see some lovely wildlife including spotted deer, wild boar, peacocks, and lots of magpies and monkeys. The vegetation was fun to see as well – and the landscape of the park was stunning. Unfortunately we were not allowed out of the jeep at any point, so photos were limited to quick stops and jerky snaps on the extremely bumpy road. I tried to capture the rock formations around the 10th century fort in the center of the park, along with some of the ‘walking trees’ – so named for their dropped roots. It was disappointing to not see a tiger – I considered it my one shot at seeing a tiger in the wild, but the trip was worth it to me.

The hotel in which I am staying – the Tiger Resort Hotel, is swanky; it reminds me of the resort in Tunsia a bit, and it is a comfortable spot for a night or two – even though it is well beyond what I’ve been paying (25$ rather than 4 or 5 per night). There are many other tiger seekers here, and I found a train buddy for the trip to Bundi tomorrow (in addition to Chris and Christine – who are also going there!). I will be riding first class with Jessica, a woman from Holland. It will be my first train journey in first class, and I am looking forward to it. Apparently we get a lunch! Here are some photos – after the photos, I rant for a while about the desperate international situation. Enjoy the photos!

And, finally, I would be remiss and not entirely myself if I did not shoot my mouth off a bit regarding the latest round of events in the Arab world. Egypt was all over the news for weeks (though much moreso on National press than the Pioneer Press or Strib), and seems to be on a track to secular self-governance, provided the military lessens its grip on the economy. I read a great deal about Egypt, both because of my interest in social revolution and because I had just been there and know people in country still. A bit of news that struck me, posted in Al Jazeera English online magazine (which I HIGHLY recommend), was that CNN did a poll of US citizens to gauge awareness and opinion regarding the events in Egypt. Opinion was predictably divided along party lines, with more ‘conservatives’ voicing concerns about the uprising and more ‘liberals’ supporting the overthrow of our ally Mubarak. What struck me was that Egyptians were paying attention to how much we paid attention. This shouldn’t have been a surprise – we have been funding Mubarak and the Egyptian military since they recognized Israel in 1979. IMHO, this might be behind some of the concerns (voiced by Beck et al) that Cairo 2011 is just another Tehran 1979 – where populist sentiment quickly turned vehemently anti-American and anti-western (and not without cause, Mossadegh). Cairo has not turned anti-western; indeed everyone from Suleman to the Muslim Brotherhood has acknowledged that maintaining peace with Israel is important to Egypt’s future. But I digress – Egypt noted how much (or little) their revolution registered on our Neilsons – and the rest of the Arab countries will be no different. I can’t begin to understand the complexity behind the US’s official position (we support (FINALLY) the dissidents in Iran but call on Bahraini officials to create reform? Why so slow to let go of Mubarak?), and I have not agreed with much of it lately. I can however, pay attention and start conversations about it. I assumed travelers would be finger on the pulse concerning global politics but most of them are so unplugged that they are just catching up on Egypt. There are currently significant uprisings (often accompanied by repression) in almost ALL arab countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq and Iran) – my limited knowledge of history cannot turn over a more wide-spread series of major changes other than the 1989 fall of the USSR, or the concurrent revolutions in the US and France in the late 1700s. Somewhat ironically, Morocco was the first country in the world to officially recognize the US in 1789. Perhaps, in our way, we can return the favor. Thanks for reading!

Jodhpur

February 15, 2011
I am in the surprisingly colorful city of Jodhpur, the Brahmin city of Rajasthan. Much of the old city is painted with indigo, so it is, like Chefchaouen, swimming pool blue – indigo also serves as a natural insecticide (and is much more pleasant that the insecticide used in building materials near Bikaner; cow dung and urine mixed with plaster). The city is lovely, and the old city relatively calm with narrow streets and consequently fewer cars. It still has the flavor of India (a mix of exhaust, urine, burning garbage and burning dung patties used to heat peanuts and such on the street), but it felt more like Jaisalmer than Jaipur (which is a good thing). It, like every other city in Rajasthan, has a fort on a massive rocky crag which houses an impressive palace with monuments, stories and battle scars.

A few bits – the orange hand prints are from the widows of the maharaja who died in 1847 or so, they made their hand marks on their way to the funeral pyre – yikes! The monument in the wall with the wreath is from a guy who volunteered to be sacrificed to appease the gods – the fort took a hermits home and he cursed them with a water shortage. The guy volunteered to be buried alive in the foundation of the fort and is still there. Dead I assume.

The city of Jodhpur itself is pretty big, 800,000 I think, but the old city is windy narrow streets and lots of colors. I tried taking lots of photos of doorways and the like to give a sense of it all. The blue is beautiful, rich, and there is something almost supernatural in the way it is indiscriminately applied to all kinds of surfaces. Sorry for the non-sequitor here but it thunder-stormed here yesterday! A full our rain storm complete with thunder and lightning! It both alleviated and intensified my longing for Minnesota. I was chatting with Grant from Missouri who agree about missing weather (any weather really) – and it was so great to have something dramatic to compete with the honking horns and shouting vendors. What a great thing – a thunderstorm. I was sleeping on a rooftop mattress waiting for a bed when it rained, so I was dry but somewhat in the middle of things. It was a fabulous experience.

Here are some photos of Jodhpur, an attempt to capture some color:

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As everywhere else in India (and most everywhere else it seems), it is really hard to capture the combination of smells, honks, smiles and friendly or begging people following me around. I guess I can say that it is as insane as it sounds, sometimes much more so, and that so far as I’ve seen it gets to almost everyone. At the same time it is a way to live like Seward or NE Mpls is a way to live. I am adjusting to being here, having a much easier time bumping into people (this is the single biggest advantage of the Lonely Planet), and when Mom suggested traveling in Italy a week later (giving me another week in India) I was excited at the prospect. I would not have anticipated that two weeks ago. Thanks for reading!

Photos!

Good old sight-seeing (without sights)

Hello all, greetings from Jaiselmer, another town on the India Pakistan border. I have a few sights to catch up on since the last post. I’m afraid the photos will have to continue to go uncommented as blogspot insists on being html, or not, I have no idea, but the point is I have limited use of the tricks afforded by the program. Actually, at the moment I cannot upload images at all, so that will have to wait a bit. Anwyay, getting to it:

There are two sights unique (so far as I know) in the eastern world. The first is a camel farm, where camels are bred, raised, and generally kept for farmers or sold at action or to the army. The second is the rat temple. Which is a temple full of rats. First, the camel farm.

It is outside of Bikaner, with a center and outlying fields. The center focused on the research, breeding and birthing grounds. They serve and sell camel milk, ice cream, lassis (like a milk shake) and other camel related things. The studs were kept in one smelly area (they are in a high season and rutting, which gives a pungent order, like goats I think but much stronger). There are four kinds of camels, and they are researching the different qualities of mixes. We saw a maternity area of sorts where babies (after a 13 month gestation) age 1-3 days spent time with the females. The camels can walk around about 6 hours after they are born, and weigh an astounding 40kg at birth. We actually saw a birth taking place, men pulling the calf out of the mother and placing it in front of her, removing the sac from the calf, and helping it take its first breath. It was inspiring and beautiful - even suspenceful, the calf didn’t breathe for about a minute – the workers went about hitting its head and slapping its back legs until it was breathing, fast and short, in the sand. The mother, massive, finally stood and walked a step or two forward and nuzzled the calf before settling in the sand with it in front of her. Other calves bleating for mothers, the men standing back and watching the mother’s first moments with the calf. I have to say, that of all the young things in the world which enjoy ugly immunity for a period of time, the camel is ugly from day one. I could enjoy spending time with them, they are majestic creatures, capable efficient machines, but they are not attractive.

After the camel farm we headed to the rat temple, a drive outside of town. My rat-anxiety wasn’t enough to keep me awake, and I woke up at the temple feeling even good about going. I had been anxious at the prospect of wandering around a temple full of rats in my socks or barefoot (no shoes allowed, as always). The man gave us a history, what I’ll call the mythology of the place. So 14th century, Karni Mata, an incarnation of the god Durga, asked Yama, god of the dead, to bring the son of a storyteller back to life (selflessly I’m sure…). Yama said no deal, as the gods of the dead tend to do, so Karni Mata reincarnated all of the dead at rats, essentially taking the souls away from Yama. Worshipers believe that the rats are incarnated family or friends and bring sweets and milk to feed them. The temple is not ‘full,’ but there were a lot of rats around. The story of the place is that the rats no only no not leave, but that they also have never bitten anyone, and that the town has enjoyed immunity from the bubonic plague, and further that if someone suffers from the plague, they will be healed if they travel to the rat temple. The white rat (a white rat) is good luck, and an entrepreneur hoping to start would need to see a white rat to be given the go ahead on his plans. Married couples travel there to have their wedding blessed (we saw two couples, in full dress at the temple). Also, a rat crossing your feet is good luck, of course. (I would use similar language and consideration talking about the Jesus story, personally – I think it can be easy to turn one’s nose up at this story, so that helped me with perspective.) I made some short videos of the temple because the squeamish feeling (which was almost gone even in the ten minutes we were there) comes from the movement I think, and there was a lot of that).

Up next comes Jaiselmer, a city within and around a giant fort. It is calm in the fort, relatively quiet, and feels much less harried than the cities I’d been in (like Bikaner but a real city – Bikaner is also 800,00 people). I met up with Molly of the camel tour, and we wandered around the city for a while today having a gander at this and that. The absolute highlight for me were the Jain temples. (grammar question: highlight was jain temples? Highlight were jain temples? Highlights were jain temple? Anyway) These contained hundreds of intricately carved sandstone statues, 6,666 buddha statues (666?) and had incredible light and shadow. It reminded me of the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, carved by the knights templar, but much more impressive. I’ll post a few images of that at the end here, I’m thinking of going back even to see them again.

Today some internet time in the morning, Molly and I were thinking about renting a motorcycle, though I am sure we would either get lost or die on the road, so we are still considering. In health news the body is feeling better! That is a relief! And I’m consequently feeling much better about being here in general. I’m glad to finally post some sightseeing rather than navel gazing, though both in their time I guess. Hopefully photos will follow shortly. Thanks for reading!