Richard's Travel Blog

About the first thing you find out when you get to Udaipur is that that the James Bond movie “Octopussy” was filmed on location here. I haven’t seen any old Bond movies in a while, and I don’t remember one from the other, but if you remember it or want to see some sites, maybe rent it. This isn’t really a four day town for me, and I’m in day three with nothing much else to do, so maybe I’ll watch “Octopussy”, which is showing in almost all the hotels and guesthouses.

About Udaipur. It’s called the White City for a couple of reasons. One is that when the king from Chittor moved his Mewar kingdom to Udaipur, they worshipped the Sun God, and whaite symbolized that deity. Another reason I heard was it’s called that beccause the Moghuls never took it, so it remained pure, that is, white. Anyway, it’s billed as the most romantic city in Rajastan. That doesn’t mean it’s the most romantic city in the world, at least as far as i’m concerned, but it would be a nice place to walk around with your sweetheart. There are lakes with views in many directions, cozy restaurants, sunsets over the mountains, lit up buildings at night, and little lanes like Naples to wander through.

This is the view at sunset from the rooftop restaurant at my hotel.

The next one is from almost directly across the way, toward the City palace, which is to the left from the above picture, so the south from the rooftop.

Here’s the view from the rooftop.

I’m getting kind of burnt on palaces, but there are some nice things in this one. they did a lot with tiles, mirrors, glass, and jewels.

And here’s a shot of a courtyard facade, which my photography did not do justice.

As I’ve said, the women dress in spectacular colors here. The best was at a program I went to with dance, music and puppetry.

It was a nice show. Below, the guy in the alcove playing his horn. The guy on the left on the floor is playing some kind of drum, and the woman is playing a squeeze box. The woman obviously is dancing with a pot of fire on her head. They actually do this in various areas of Rajastan. I have loads of pictures of different exotic dances. Soon I’ll burn a couple of CD’s and send them home.

There are three or four nice gardens in town. Here’s a shot of a courtyard in one of them. One lone lotus is blooming in the left foreground.

Hmm. I guess you can’t see the flower.

As I said, Udaipur is supposed to be romantic. I guess I can go there. There’s a little sitting area in my room, like a window loveseat. Here is the sunrise from there, with a big HIndu temple. If you can’t nuzzle your sweetie to this, well….

I ‘m off to the Pushkar camel fair tomorrow on the night bus. Talk to you from there if there’s a connection.

Chittorgarh (Chittor) was the site of a Rajput kingdom until, after three defeats by the Moghuls, it was moved to Udaipur. It’s a stop on the tourist route through Rajastan because of the size of the fort there and for the historical significance. One interesting bit of history is that each time it was defeated, the last of the army rode out in orange robes to be killed by the enemy and, in traditional Hindu fashion, the women committed suicide with deaths of their men. On the last occasion, 13,000 women and children jumped into the firepit as their men were cut up to the last man.

Below is a model of Chittor in a museum in Udaipur. The fort itself is probably a couple of km long, so it’s not that photogenic from a distance. Within the fort are several large temple, more smaller temples, and official royal buildings. Much of it is now a park.

I presumed the zigzag course up to the front gate was switchbacks to get up the hill, but I was told it was so elephants couldn’t get up speed to ram the gate.

Below is the tower of victory. It’s about 100m high, with intricate carvings.

Other than that, there’s nothing in Chittor.

It’s been about a week since I was in a place with high speed connection, but here in Udaipur it’s all over town. I’ve been in Rantembore National Wildlife Park and the cities of Bundi and Chittorgarh. Ranthembore is reputed to be the best place in India to see a tiger, so I went on three three hour safaris in an open bus. We saw one tigress and her three cubs on one of the safaris. Here is proof, even though I couldn’t get the shot off in the moment she was in the sun.

She just walked with her cubs along the side of the road, and we backed up as she went.

There are also loads of deer, boar and birds. I got a quick glimpse of a black leopard and a long distance look at a crocodile. There are also bears and antelope, but I didn’t see any. It’s not exactly the Serengeti. I was hanging out with a French gal who had just been to Kenya. I guess it’s great for wildlife there.

Besides that, it’s pretty there.

Then I went to a really nice city of about 80,000, Bundi. It is the most tourist friendly place I’ve been yet in India. Well, maybe Leh was more so. Anyway, they’ve had town meetings to teach everybody how to behave. there are no hotel touts, beggars, or hard sell. The shop keepers ask once if you want to come in. Everybody greets you. The kids are great. The rooms are what we usually expect. There are lots of sites to see. It’s nice, I’m telling you.

This is the view of Bundi Palace from my balcony. I’m definitely living large compared to other travels.

View of Bundi from the palace. The buildings in this part of Rajastan are painted blue. Udaipur is called the Blue City. OH, I had a good time here. Even the hotel was loads of fun. We were all one big gregarious group. AND, there were five other Americans there. that was a shock. One couple was on a 5 1/2 year motorcycle tour of Asia. What stories you hear. Another gal was a 70+ year old retired teacher from Tucson. Tough cookie, that one.

At first this looks like there is a window on the right, but it’s a 300 year old mirror. This palace is famous for it’s murals.

I went on a couple of tours while I was there. One was a Jeep tour with an Australian couple. Mostly that was educatiopnal. We went to the guides home village and some other villages. He talked for hours about the intricacies of the caste system, which about 80% of the Hindu population still ascribes to, which means 60% of the population of India. I’ve been needing some prolonged time with someone to get the basics, and this was my first opportunity. We even went to a village of people who had been been booted out of their home villages because they married outside their caste, for love bless their hearts, “like donkeys” to the conservative Hindu.

Typical looking village lane.

Â

Blacksmiths.

Many cows are made up for Diwali. At least the horns are painted, usually blue or green.

Water buffalo doing what they do best.

Waterfall about 30 km from Bundi. I didn’t go out there with the Aussies. I went on the back of the guide’s motorbike. Siva is the most worshipped deity around here. There is a temple below this fall. In there is a very old linga, or stone penis of Siva’s. That’s nothing new, as there are linga’s everywhere. but the sadhu (holy man) in there asked us to feel up in this arm-sized canal in the stone and see what we can feel. Well, they have yoni here too, which are vaginas. I figured right next to the linga must be this yoni, so I thought I felt a cervix and said so. Wrong. The guide and the sadhu, especially the guide, blushed and said they are cow udders. Ever seen a dark Indian blush? I’m sticking with cervix though. I think they cleaned it up.

I had to throw in one more of Bundi’s ancient attractions. This is inside what’s called the Queen’s stepwell. This one was completed in 1699. There are several in bundi. They are deep baths, fed by wells. You take staircases down into them. They are something to see. You can’t see down in there, but it goes two stories more down, and used to be filled to different levels, according to the season and the queen’s desires.

And last but not least…

…Need I say more?

Tomorrow I’m leaving Jaipur and heading for Rathambore Wildlife Preserve to look at tigers, then looping around south through Bundi, Chittorgarh, Udaipur and Ajmer before going to the camel fair in Pushkar Nov. 2-4. There’s sure to be internet connection in Bundi, Udaipur and Pushkar, so I’ll be in touch.

Today I final took in the sites of the old city, called here the pink city, after the color of the old buildings and the subsequent color of choice for buildings here. there’s the usual palace, museums, a couple of Hindu temples, other old buildings, and an 18th century observatory. It was interesting, but tiring. Here are some pictures.

Note the basic short distance taxi in the foreground. At least they don’t pull it by foot, like in Laos.

As you can see, the women dress very colorfully here.

With these instruments, they could chart movement of the stars, predict celestial occurances and tell time.

With this huge sundial, they could tell time to within 20 seconds.

And finally, I’ll throw in some elephants in make-up at Amber fort.

Diwali is the biggest holiday festival in India. Though it has Hindu origins everybody celebrates it. I’ve been asked a lot what Diwali is. There are short, medium, long and very long explanations. In short, it celebrates the triumph of good over evil. It takes place over five days. Day one, yesterday, celebrates Rama’s return to Ayudya from exile and fighting the demon, Ravenna. Search “Ramayana” for the complete story in Hindu mythology. Lamps are lit to show him the way home, presents are given and gifts are given. Day two celebrates Krishna’s victory over the tyrant Narakasura, another demon. Asura at the end of any name means demon, as in a-sura.  Day three is devoted to Lakshmi, Vishnu’s consort and the goddess of prosperity. Day four is devoted to the friendly demon, Bala. Day five is good luck day.

There are many stories to go along with all this.  Diwali is the “Festival of Lights”. It’s a long story, but basically in Hindu tradition, it was prophecized that a king’s son would die four days after his marriage at 16 from a snakebite. The bite happened on schedule. So the new wife piled up silver and jewels and lit candles to make it all sparkle. She then kept her husband up all night singing to him. the goddess of death came but was so taken with the sparkling jewels and lovely singing, she wiled away the night sitting on the pile, then left without taking the man. So, it’s now the biggest holiday, full of gift giving, lights (especially floating candles in little boats where there is water) and fireworks, sparklers and firecrackers or small bombs. Everybody’s family gets together. It’s like Christmas.

  Another reason for the symbolism of lights is celebrating Laksmi’s emergence into the world. One version of her coming into being is she emerged from a lotus floating on the primordial sea of chaos, bringing the world into existed, bringing light into the world, so to speak. For Hindu’s this story is equivalent to the biblical “Let there be light”. hindy stories are myriad, often contradictory, which is not a problem for them. The other way she came into the world is from a lotus growing from the navel of Vishnu.

  So, the way I spent last night was sitting on the roof of my hotel, where there is a 270 degree panorama of the city, drinking whiskey with a bunch of the guests and the hotel staff. We listened to thousands of firecrackers and bombs, like the old M-80’s, go off, and watched the most fantastic night of fireworks, by far, I’ve seen in my life. It started at 7 PM and was still going on at 1 AM when I put in my earplugs and went to bed. There were thousands of skyrockets and flares all around, near and far. It was incessant. The hotel guys and a couple of guests set some off from the roof. It was something else.

These look like Hubbel telescope pictures, don’t they? I love my camera.

Greetings. I’ve been in the capital of Rajastan, Jaipur, for three days now. The first day, my travelling companion until tomorrow, Beatrix, and I went to a bazaar in the old city. This area is called the Pink City because originally the walls and many of the buildings were of pink sandstone. What’s left of those buildings from the 16th-18th century are crumbling and pretty dingy. But that pink/rose color is definitely the paint of choice all over town, when it isn’t a kind of purple. India is too poor to keep things up as would be nice, but they try. One can understand why, with people literally starving all over the place.

Anyway, back to what I’m doing… Yesterday we hired a taxi to drive us around all day, mostly looking at the forts from the height of Mughal power, the early 18th century.

There are three major forts near Jaipur. This one is Jaighar. Normally I have little interest in too many forts, but these are pretty nice. We managed to spend about 3 hours walking around them.

Below is a typical old Hindu temple. This one in Amber town is from the 16th century.

After looking at the forts we walked around in the nearby town. there wee several of these temples, and one Jain temple. Jains have a good heart. Look them up on the net. The taxi driver was a nuisance. He kept following us around, wanting us to go to shops and restaurants where he gets something for bringing people in. Both of us have been around way too long to have any of that, but he still tried. They are especially persistent in this country with pitching whatever they want. Between them and the beggars, I can see why people often go away mad. I look at it as a practice opportunity. How you feel about stuff is a window into what really makes you tick. Controlling yourself when you can’t control what you experience can be an effort.

This is not an uncommon site here. Camels are used for many things, including plawing and hauling. there will be many more camel pictures as i’m going to the anual camel fair in Pushkar early next month. There will be trading of course, but also races, beauty pagents with the camels all trussed up and dressed in their finest, and other stuff I’ll tell you about when I see them. I hear they don’t eat them here. I wonder if that applies to this place during this time. Pushkar is the beginning of the wilder western part of Rajastan.

This is a temple complex just east of Jaipur. There are areas for worship of several different deities, though Rama and Sita are the most popular, as far as I can see. This complex was built at the site of a hot spring. You can see in one of the pictures people ritually bathing at the temple ghat. The other pictue is staken from the second floor of the building you can see beyond the ghat picture. This was an unexpectedly nice place. I was surprised. Beatrix knew of it as the “monkey temple” because of the thousands of monkeys around. Little did either of us knbow it would be so nice. The monkeys are around and even fed in respect for Rama’s monkey god comrade, Hanuman. the original temple was a small cane. In there is the original rock painting of Hanuman from the 15th century.

As Tennessee Earie ford used to say, “Bless their little pea pickin’ hearts”. A nit doesn’t stand a chance around these fellows.

Like, I’m really not that busy.

This isn’t such a good picture. It’s hard to take a picture inside without using the flash, but I wanted to publish this anyway. It’s a lovely, 10 ft statue of the Bodhisattva of compassion, here and elsewhere named Avalokateshvara. In China she’s known as Quan Yin. A Bodhisattva is a being who have attained enlightenment but declines Buddhahood to remain in the world to benefit it.

It’s time to move on. I’ve relaxed, seen what there is to see, and made a friend. If I stayed on, it would be to learn something, take a class, sit, work in a clinic, something. But I think it’s time to go. Rajastan is calling. Getting from here to Jaipur directly is a little hard to do, but i’m trying. It’s hard to do anything around here over the weekend. My German friend, Beatrix, decided to stay on for a while, and we’ve decided to go to Jaipur together. We’ll know tomorrow the best way. Jeez, she wants to take a government bus for 10 hours to Delhi. that’s one step up from a chicken bus. I-I-I dunno. There may be seats on the direct train, but we won’t know till the morning. Anyway, we’re out of here no later than Tuesday.

This is Beatrix. No, we’re not doing anything.

Like I said, I’m not that busy around here anymore. Mostly I’m just walking around, looking at views from here and there, and reading. I’ve got a book on Hindu mythology. The stories from the Hindu classics are quite entertaining. What vivid imaginations people have. The ways they describe expanse, time and grandeur paint quite a picture of their image of the universe.

I may write again tomorrow. if not, I’ll write from Jaipur.

Monastery in McLeod Ganj.

   The weather is really bleak around here. If it isn’t storming, it’s windy, cold and dark. It looks like it’s almost nighttime out there, It’s a good day to blog.

   Despite the weather, I’ve been able to do something every day. Like, yesterday my German friend and I went to Dal Lake. It’s a holy lake for the Hindus, though for the life of me I can’t figure out why they would then throw garbage in it. It was nice enough. Basically, we had a nice walk in the woods. We also walked by and around a mid-nineteenth century Christian Church, grounds and cemetery from when the Brits had hill stations around northern India. That was about a 4 km walk. Then we went down to Dharamsala, where she wanted to shop for some silk material. We didn’t do that because it started pouring rain. So we had lunch and took the bus back to Mcleod Ganj.

As you can see, it’s really dreary, even when it’s not raining.

   Anyway, the day before, we went to the Norbulinka Institute, not to be confused with the monastery where the Lama Karmapa was. There are lovely gardens there, a very nicely maintained Buddhist temple, and fine art workshops. You can buy this artwork, furniture and crafts at the store there. Some of the things take months to make.

This is what’s called a thangka. It’s an elaborate painting of Tibetan deities. You’ve seen them, I’m sure. I wish this was a better picture so you can see the detail and effort involved. This man has been working on it for four months. It’s almost done.

This man is applying thick lines with a kind of syringe on a drawer which will go in a chest, which is in parts nearby. Here’s a close-up of the side.

And here are some people making a carpet at a “factory” on town.

   So, as you can see, I’m not just sitting around pondering my navel. In fact, after dealing with about five power outages and one place’s buggy computer, I’m going outside. It’s stopped raining for now. I haven’t even seen the main temple yet. Maybe I’ll make a run for that.

   Later….

 

 

It’s been over a month now, and finally I’m getting it about not having to be busy all the time. I left with something of an agenda to see as much of India as I could in my six months here. After covering great distances, looking at things then moving on, I’ve come to a place where I’m happy not being so busy and learning a little more about this one area. This is reflected in it having been a while since I last wrote. I was filling up my day and night with things to do. It was almost like home, where there is such a tendency to peddle faster just to keep up with everything we think we want. In the long term, my well-being depends on being out of the rat race and simplifying my needs and desires.

I really love being in a place where even the most casual tourist is trying to touch the sacred, to learn something new about the world and themselves. Despite the number of tourists, there is an atmosphere here conducive to improving oneself. I have doubts about what improving might even be, when I think about it, but if things seem better, I’m going to continue day by day to go with the flow.

That said, here is some travelogue stuff. I loaned my camera out, so I can’t add pictures this time, but I will later. HA!, depending on how compulsive I feel.

My days are sometimes a little busy, though I’m hardly getting an early jump on the day’s actvities. I still have a tendency to wake up early, but there’s nothing realy to do till 10. I read and have some chai, maybe a bite to eat. I’m kind of in the backpacker social circle again, so often I’m doing something the group has talked about. Many have been here for awhile, so they have good suggestions. More importantly, they have good ideas how to get it done. Sometimes it’s just a walk through the surrounding forest. Sometimes it’s something right out of Lonely Planet. Let’s see what I can remember…

Yesterday was actually busy. In the morning I went with a German woman I’ve been hanging out with to the Tibetan government complex. Funny, I haven’t even gone in the temple yet. I’m finding I’m not needing to see or sit in temples much. We went to the national library, or at least what they were able to get out of China. She was intersted in health care for the refugees, especially the torture victims. I was more into trying to figure out political realities. That of course is a big subjuct here. Ah, they have such hopes. Maybe in a future lifetime their wishes might happen to some extent. For now, we live in a world where commerce and power render a spiritually guided existence as little more than a quaint idea. Time marches on and modernization will be defined as material development and the pursuit of things which ultimately disappoint. Oh well. All we can do is be responsible, if we choose, that is.

It’s very casual at the governmet center. There’s no security to speak of, some Indian army at the open front gate looking bored. Inside, personnel are easily approached and very friendly. We walked into the office of the minister for refugee’s affairs. The young woman we first talked to said she was new there and she would find someone to answer our questions. The minister who was sitting at a computer in the back, not in a walled offece space, came out and spent about 20 minutes with us, answering questions it would have taken forever to research.

By the way, I don’t think I’m going to get to see the Dalai Lama. Unbeknownst to me, he was here the next morning after I arrived, but the public appearance was at 7 and I didn’t hear about it in time. Now he’s off to somewhere.

I did get a blessing from Lama Karmapa, the head of one of the four sects of Tibetan buddhism. That was special, to me. I went down to his monastery about 30 km from here for that a couple of days ago. You should have been there. There were maybe three hundred people sitting and waiting for him and his entourage of monks to come out. You could here a pin drop. No coughs, no voices, vitually no perceptible movement. There were maybe 20-30 babes in arms there. Not a peep. Even when people went up to him in line, it was so quiet.

Anyway, back to yesterday, after the library my friend and I went to the Norbulinka Institute. It’s a lovely place where there is an exceptionally nicely maintaned temple, beautiful gardens, and displays of the finest Tibetan, furniture, thankas, clothes, jewelry, etc.. The detail is amazing. Of course, it reminded me of Thai art. Some of these things take months, even years, to make. It is allowed to watch the work in progress. The beauty of the place was remarkable in a country with so little man-made beauty.

Ths is getting awfully long. Too much is too much. I thank those of you who have hanged in there this long. I’ll write again soon, and put in some pictures, though the pace of my picture taking has slowed too