Lucky to be in Bundi

Oct. 17-20.. Spent most of the day at the imposing City Palace museum, Rajasthan’s largest palace with balconies, towers and cupolas, towering over the lake. Our hotel has a comfortable feel, Escher like stairways with friendly staff, even if we did have to change rooms 3 times in 4 nights with each night improving on the room Uadipur has its usual charm of buildings and monuments, however to just observe the street life is entertaing beyond any movie or TV documentary can impress. A two hr.drive to Kumbalgarth fort, the world’s second longest wall after the Great Wall of China. Also Ranakpur a Jain temple supported by 1444 pillars of white marble, no two alike; I gave up comparing after 3 or 4. The village life seen on the way there and back had timelessness about it, the same scenes as my mothers old faded Kodachrome slides from almost 50 years ago.

Tonight we catch the Mewar Express bound for Bundy, a small village where Kipling moved to write.

Oct.21. We are in the Hadee Rani Guesthouse an Indian house with 3 rooms for rent, the place is 450 yrs old, but lucky for us they have up-graded the plumbing since then. The mother of the family is the cook and it’s the best Indian food yet, all for $12 a night.
Bundi is a truly Indian town, no tourist section but great street scenes.

Udaipur

Oct. 16. Ok, after a 9 ½ hr bus ride to Delhi, taxi to airport and flight to Udaipur. We got lucky and got a room at the Jagat Niwas Hotel, a heritage building. Lots of fireworks tonight but tomorrow Diwali begins and the main intersection in the old city is ready to go.

Shimla and back again.

Oct. 15. Nadine, the brave soul that she is and myself are leaving for Rajasthan tonight and Kris leaves for Manalli tomorrow morning. Outside they are hanging lights and preparing for Diwali.

Oct 13. Road blocked above Nako, the had been working a week on trying to move a boulder 40-50 feet high that had slid onto the road along with a continuing slide of rubble. We walked up the 6 k to watch as they finished drilling the rock, but just as they were doing this another slide came down the hill, as the 3-4 workers scrambled for cover the drill and hydraulic cables were bent and buried. As the dynamite crew, a guy with a rolled up red fuse and another guy carrying a beat up cardboard box. One guy threw the sticks up to the others feet as he stuffed the sticks into the drill holes. They had the boulder drilled on three sides, attached the fuse and actually lit it with a match, then ran like hell for cover, about 2 minutes later the explosion was impressive but only 1/3 of the rock cracked off and slid down the face of the cliff. So the road was still blocked and we were out of luck! We decided to return to Shimla and hoped Nadine was still kicking.

Oct. 12. An overturned Tata truck on a hairpin blocked all traffic including the school bus, so all the uniformed kids, walking up hill added to the color of the morning. The military type tow truck, using a big pine tree as a pulley to pull the truck back onto its wheels so we could finally pass. Met the Spiti river and up the valley and following the cutouts in the mountain for the road until we reached Nako. A nice Buddhist goat herder village, prayer flags on every roof, next to the satellite dish and solar panels! Watched while the locals gathered and the young girls brought the goats down from the high country, this area is famous for the Pashmina wool.

Oct. 11. Kalpa and a great lunch of egg curry. Again music and laughter, this time women threshing the grain with long sticks and having what looked like a great time. Not unlike our group effort of pounding mochi at home at new years, only without the Saki!

Oct. 10. Great hotel in Sangla, overlooking the river and the locals humping the straw down from the higher valleys for the winter animal feed. Up to Chitkul at 12, 000 ft. More dancing and drums in the village, this time 15-20 women dancing in a celebrating the “Phulech “festival or flower harvest festival.

Oct 9. Sangla valley, deep gorges, apple orchards. If you ever see apples from Himachal Pradesh try them, great red and juicy.

Oct 9. Sangla valley, deep gorges, apple orchards. If you ever see apples from Himachal Pradesh try them, great red and juicy.

Oct 5-7. Stayed in Shimla and Nadine has decided to stay, Kris & I have a jeep with driver for $12/day. We will go for 10 days follow the Sutlej River, into the Lingti, Pin & Spiti valleys. We left Nadine at the Willow Banks hotel just as a bout of Delhi belly hit her. She told us to go so off we went with “Bobby” our driver, the next 7 days while on the road reminded me of Mr. Toads ride. This guy had competed the last few years in the “Raid de Himalaya” Rally from Shimla to Srinagar and no cars ever passed us. Tata trucks and sheer drops with no guardrails were just another day in the office for him.

Oct. 4. We left Delhi 7:40 am going AC second class changed trains onto the narrow gauge railway (Toy Train) at Kalta and arrived Simla at 7pm. We met an Indian family on the train into Simla Sam the father was in his late 30 and very bright and informed in regards to politics, religion and finance, his wife is a teacher, he works for the government in defense, he has worked for the UN in four African countries. He was very interested in the “west” and how the family unit is perceived and how we take care of our elders. He is a Christian and a true believer in his faith. His wife’s brother is a software engineer for Microsoft. Narrow cliff hugging roads in the dark so unable to get a feel for the place. There is a definite vertical feeling to Shimla.

Catching up in Delhi....

Sept. 27. Breakfast and the a taxi, bags thrown on top luggage rack, to Victoria Terminus, Sleeper train to Aurangabad, arrived 11 pm. Driver waiting.

Sept 28. Tourist office in hotel made reservations to fly to Delhi on Jet Lite, good for us because India Airlines just went on strike cancelling all flights from Delhi. Hired a driver to take us to Daultabad Fort & Ellora caves, I hope I can send some pictures but they won’t do them justice. Returned for dinner in the hotel restaurant, dark and quiet, we were the only ones in the place, it looked a little sketchy at first and we cautiously ordered from the only menu in the place. What a treat, the best sweet corn soup in the world, garlic nan, tandori chicken, chicken kentuki and iced Kingfisher beer. All served to us by 2 guys lurking around our table.

Sept 29. Decided not to do the 3 hr. one way drive to Ajunta caves, instead visited Panchakki (water wheel/pools. Ghrishneshwar Temple (Jyotirlinga Shiva Temple), Bibi-Ka-Maqbara (Mini Taj Mahal). Aurangabad is a really Indian town, very dusty, dry but not as uncomfortable as Mumbai. No high-rise buildings and no actual downtown area.

Sept 30. Up early and to the airport, modern, clean, huge for the amount of people there. Jet Lite flight to Delhi took 2 hrs. No driver waiting for us, so a pstood in line and pre-paid for a cab. A little confusion waiting at curbside then finally a driver who spoke English gave us another wild taxi ride to the Hotel Grand Godwin, (Arakashan Rd., Ram nagar, Pahargani 91-11-23546891). The confusion and chaotic scenes of the streets gave away to the quiet, air conditioned lobby. Water on a silver tray while we checked-in hit the spot. The circular stairway, marble floors, Mahogany doors and beautiful jeweled miniature paintings on the wall; all were a surprise for $25 a night each.

Oct 1. To the Red Fort in the morning, impressive outer walls but signs of ageing and lack of upkeep. An aging palace and royal gardens within, at one time housed the Peacock throne which we saw in Teheran in 1978. Walked down Chandni Chowk street, what once must have been an easy going avenue is now a scene to behold: Sikhs carrying swords, knives and spears walking in the neighborhood of a temple. A gaggle of cycle rickshaws with a large blue box instead of a seat, on the side is painted Bishop Church School. Six children inside the boxes with their schoolbags thrown on top. Bullock carts unloading grain and flour. All of this with crumbling British landmark buildings peeking through the noise and moving flow of traffic and humans.

Oct 2. Mahatma’s birthday today, a national holiday. So when we arrived at the Gandhi museum we discovered that the gates were robed in garlands and closed! As were the museums, so much for our culture day, at least the traffic was a little subdued.
Tomorrow we are catching a train and then bus to Shimla, it’s the high season there and we had to call 4-5 places before finding a room. It’s at the top of the town which is on the side of a hill, the walk up will be interesting but the view should be great, I’ll let you know.

Fish Market strangers

Sept 26
Difficult to sleep, still adjusting to the time change of 15 hours ahead of home or Hawaii time. So after about 4-5 hours of actual sleep we all gave up and at Kris’s suggestion we got up and jumped in a Taxi by 6:30 am. Headed towards Sassoon Docks to check out the fish market! We had read how it’s in a sensitive area, shipyards etc. and military installations nearby so we knew that picture taking was a risky business. So the few pictures do it little justice for the impact it made. Thousands of people doing this every day is mind boggling. We were caught up in the frenzy of activity; men, women and children all seeming to have great purpose, goal and drive to get there faster than the next person. Women balancing great tubs of a variety of fish on their heads, men straining with wooden carts, ropes over their heads with ice and great loads of shrimp. Ancient wooden boats with no modern equipment or tackle tying “Kingfish” (about 6 ft. long) by the tail and roping it up to the docks. We were the only westerners there and what struck us is how everyone is so much in their own world carrying out their daily task. I wonder what the few people that noticed us and took the time to focus on us thought? There is no way that they could understand the world that we live in and little chance that we can truly understand what their day entails.

This afternoon we took the boat ride out to Elephanta Caves. Glad to be back in the AC room and ready for dinner now that our laundry is back from the dhobiwalla’s.

Hot & Humid

Sept 25
The first day spent trying to get used to the unbelievable heat, humidity, the crush of people and amazing odors. We are staying just behind the Taj Hotel at the Diplomat, comfortable, 24 hr. room service, Wi-Fi, AC, and hot water. What more could you ask for?
Trying to catch-up with this and having some difficulty up-loading pictures so will keep trying.

1st. Day

Sept. 24, jump ahead a day.
Our flight went smoothly, besides a bag falling out of the overhead and hitting Nadine, scratching her forehead and the plane dropping about 100 feet over Greenland!

Our driver was waiting so had no problems, otherwise would have been mobbed by the hustlers. The initial drive in a 3rd world environment is always a wake up call to where now acctually are. This guy had real skills with his horn, however clipped a pedestrian with his side mirror, but did stop to appoligize! Kris was waiting in the room for us, was so great to see him.(hope to have him post some Goa pictures) Had a late dinner and to bed about 3am, time being all screwed up.