Udaipur to Kolkata

   Hi all. I decided to head back to northeast India rather than accompany Beatrice to the beach in Gujarat and on to Mumbai during her last week and a half in India. So here I am in Kolkata again after visiting a magnificant Jain temple 90 km north of Udaipur and taking the 1800+km, 40 hour train from Jodhpur to Kolkata.

   Udaipur is still a nice place to go. There are pictures on my blog entry about Udaipur last October when I was there before. It’s picturesque and the weather is relatively mild compared to the deserty regions of Rajastan. Here is the requisite shot of Lal ghat and the palace, one from down near the palace back toward where the first was taken, followed by another one at water level taken from one of the several nice restaurants which are nice to go to with someone you like.

That didn’t quite catch the ambience, but take my word for it, it is nice.

   I forgot to look up just how many pillars are in the 15th century Jain temple in Ranakpur, but it numbers in the many hundreds. No two of them are the same. I’m told one os not straight because they didn’t want to build a human thing as perfect as the gods. the game is to try to find the off-center one. I didn’t find it. It’s a forest.

I like any kind of Jain place. The restaurants, the guesthouses, the stores, the temples. They are all about cleanliness and purity. Cleanliness is something you really appreciate after about 10 minutes in India. Too bad they are less than one percent of the population.

   The bus ride to Jodhpur and the long ride to Kolkata were uneventful. I read a whole book, Barbara Kingsolver’s “Pigs in Heaven”. She’s a hoot. It was nice to read something full out American, with native slang and humor throughout. The foreigners reading this are probably asking, what’s a “hoot”? It doesn’t translate. See what I mean?

   My plan is to go up to Sikkim, that thumb of India in between Nepal and Bhutan, before the weather there gets too cold. I could have gone straight through Darjeeling in northern West Bengal (Kolkata is in the southern part of that state), but I need to replace a pair of glasses I lost on the train a week or so ago. Going around without an extra pair worries me. If I lose my spare pair, I’ll have to go around like Mr. Cool in my dark glasses all the time. This isn’t East Oakland and doing that at night is simply not done. Freakazoid in my attire around here would make me look even wierder than I am. My cover would be blown completely.

   I hope to leave Kolkata tomorrow, that’s if I can find a frame. The optician sent a man in a taxi to bring some more for me to look at. If I like it, I’m out of here if I can get a ticket. I need permits to go around in Sikkim, but I’ll get them in Darjeeling or the nearest broad guage railhead near Siliguri. Maybe I’ll bag Darjeeling for now and see it on my way back in 15 days or so when my glasses will arrive back in Kolkata from France. Travel, travel, travel. It’s what I do. Fortunately, a night in the train costs about the same as a guesthouse stay. I’m getting good at sleeping in trains. Rock me baby in the bosom of Abraham, kind of.

   Did Abraham have a bosom? That changes everything.

   I have a few pictures of me because Beatrice was with me to take them. Here I am getting knocked out by a kid in Khuri.

Here I am crashed out on the bed they made for us out on that camel camping “safari” into the desert.

And here’s proof I am indeed still a good eater.

   I’m just hanging out in Kolkatta. I took a few pictures of typical street scenes. Here is a laundry. I prefer these to the laundry services in the guesthouses, as they scrub the clothes on the sidewalk or slap them on rocks rather than just put them through a ridiculous India washing machine.

Here is the tea stall next to the laundry.  

Here is typical fine sidewalk dining next to the tea stall. 

In most of India you no longer see people powered rickshaws. Calcutta is quite poor and they are still a common mode of public transportation.

    That’s about it for now. I may be able to write from Sikkim if they have broadband.

   Be well, all of you.