Jodhpur and Surrounds

We set off towards Jodhpur not too late in the morning, we were to stay 2 nights there, so we could move at a bit more leisurly pace. Jodhpur is known as the Blue City because many of the houses are painted blue. Originally the Brahmins were the onely ones allowed to paint their houses this particular color, but in recent times it has become unrestricted and more universal. But I get ahead of myself.

We didn't go into Jodhpur proper the day we arrived. We met our guide, and he took us to some villages in the surrounding areas of Jodhpur to visit some of the local crafts people. First we visited a potter. He had a very large kiln in the yard, but I didn't get to ask him how he covers it up. I'm actually curious to know. It is obviously fed by a fire which can be stoked through the hole on the bottom. It is obviously not too high temperature clay he uses as the iron doesn't melt in the kiln, which it could for a high temp firing.

His son demonstrated the wheel they use for making most of their pots. It is basically a big flywheel mounted on something which allows it to spin. It is not held horizontal, but has to be spun up with a stick and while doing that managed to keep it from wobbling. Once it is spinning well, it can be used for several minutes to make a pot. He was able to throw a pot in the space of about 2 minutes.

After he made a couple, I was convinced to give it a try. While I had used a wheel in my parent's pottery shop when I was a teenager, it has been many years. And the one I used was motorized and high up enough to stand at. Both my attempts were flops, but it was fun to try.

In the area around Jodhpur, there is a long standing tradition amongst some of the villagers of using Opium. It can be consumed in several ways, but one of the traditional ways to consume it there is by making Opium Tea. So our next stop was the house of an elderly man, his daughter and granddaughter. They demonstrated, or rather he demonstrated, how to make opium tea. He also demonstrated on me how to tie a turban, which can start at 9 meters long and go longer. They were very gentle kind people and genuinely open and friendly with their home.

Our final stop that afternoon was at a Dhurry Weaver village. This gentleman showed us the process for weaving them, and explained the different types of wool, silks and cottons they used. He also explained how the village had been set up by the government to promote the handicrafts and create a co-op for the weavers to get better incomes. We bought a couple of lovely dhurries from him for the house.

We ended the day with going to our hotel, which was another converted palace(Rohet Garh). This one was the nicest of them all. It was very homey. The owner lives in part of it, and he met us (and I suspect most of the other guests) in the garden at tea time just after we arrived. As I said the place felt very comfortable while being a very nice hotel. It had the nicer qualites of a B&B combined with a 4 or 5 star hotel. The hotel was all lit up at night, in preparation for Dhiwali. As such it was like walking out into fairy land.



The next day we made a tour of the royal crematorium, and the fort and palace. The royal crematorium looks imposing as you come to it, until you find out the cremations didn't take place in this building. The large building is a monument built by one of the kings of Jodhpur so that his mother could look out the window and be reminded of her husband who had been cremated there. You could go inside the monumnent, where there were pictures of all of the Kings of Jodhpur, plus a space for worship. All kinds of people come to worship here. Many people come and tie a knot in a a handkerchief or piece of fabric or thread on the chain dividing the insides of the hall. They make a wish for something good, i.e. a child, and then once the wish is granted, they come back and remove the item. It is a nice spot with a small lake, and a nice view when it isn't hazy, like the day we were there.

From there we went to the fort proper. The fort is high up on the hill, even after you park the car. This time we rode in an elevator up to the fort. It is walkable, but the elevator saves a lot of time. The rock was hand carved to make a shaft for the elevator some years ago. Inside there were a lot of items used by the Maharajas of the time. This silver palanquin was particularly interesting. Notice the human face on the lion. Again there were many rooms of sliver and gold. Very fancy digs for the these royals.

The view from the fort was stunning, albeit a bit hazy. You could certainly see why it is called the Blue City. And when we exited the fort, here was a camel waiting along beside all of the two wheelers parked by the entrance to the fort.
After visiting the fort, we visited a textile warehouse where they had seven floors of different kinds of textiles from floor to ceiling.


Then we went to the city market are and visited the clock tower. Since it was just before Diwali, the market was crammed with people. There were many side streets and alleys. We went through a few of them, ending up at the clock tower. We saw people selling clothing, running open air barber shops and dental clinics (have your tooth removed on the street anyone?), trinkets for Diwali, and anything else you could think of. And of course children passing the time...

Camels Ho!!

I had reservations about this camel ride thing. I've never been tremendously comfortable on a horse, though I can ride one. I'd heard about people being bitten by camels, I heard they had bad breath, and many other stories. So, needless to say, I wasn't entirely sure about what was coming. Fortunately we all had reservations for the camel rides too, but more about that later.



We set off for the desert. Wait a minute, I thought we already were in the desert. Well yes we were, but this is the 'real desert' with lots of sand and camels and sand and more camels and sand and border security guards because it is so close to Pakistan. We ended up being about 100Km from Pakistan if I remember correctly. It's about 40km from Jaisalmer. Along the way I start to see patches of sand dunes and a lot less vegetation. Then all of a sudden off in the distance I see two ladies riding on camels with one attendant along walking with them. I think how nice, how open, how people free. Surprising for India. We drove on a ways, and then we reached the point for riding off into the sand dunes on the camels to see the sunset. Now I had had an image of being 'out there' sort of lonely with the sun setting. Think again Bryan!! There were busloads of people getting on camels, and hundreds of them riding off into the dunes. This wasn't some private moment in the large expanse of the desert, it was almost a traffic jam out there in the dunes.

We got on our camels and started off with the three young boys who were the camel attendants. This is where it was important to have reservations as there were so many people trying for camels. We just got on ours and took off. Momentarily we were joined by a young man trying to sell us soft drinks at exhorbitant prices. He called himself Ali Baba--I think he was one of the 40 thieves myself. The funny part is that since we weren't buying right then, he wandered off for a moment and a man at least 10 years his senior showed up and tried to sell us the same thing. Guess what his name was. You got it--Ali Baba. As soon as he told us this the boy showed up and ran him off, it was amusing.

I had said I was concerned about riding the camels. Well they were docile, gentle creatures and much more comfortable to ride. While we didn't gallop off into the sunset, I did see young men coming back trying to get a 2nd customer. They were at a full run. The camels were much smoother to ride, and if you just sort of relaxed, it was almost like being rocked on a boat. No wonder they are called the ships of the desert. By the way, did you know they are very intelligent and can find their way across from Pakistan to India without a rider and get to just where they are supposed to go. They are used by smugglers this way, sent off with contraband across the desert.

We got out into the desert and got off our camels. Ali Baba was right there handing out drinks, and then demanding twice the price he asked for at the beginning of the ride, citing desert prices. I told him I would pay what he asked at the start, even though that was roughly 6 times the store price for the drinks. But there wasn't any store handy. Cindy as always made instant friends and they had to take pictures.

We sat and enjoyed the sunset. Beautiful experience even if we did have to share it with 500 of our closest newly found friends. Then we rode back to the car. Cindy and I shared a camel this time as one of ours had gone for a ride with someone else and not returned by the time we were ready to leave. Even this was comfortable, though I didn't enjoy it as something I had eaten earlier in the day had caught up with me and my bowels were distinctly unhappy.

We proceeded back to our desert camp. Supposedly this was camping under the stars. It was more like hotel rooms with canvas roofs. We had marble floors, running water, toilets and electricity in our tents. The next morning, feeling better I got up in time to catch the sunrise over the camp, and then enjoy a cup of tea with a lovely family from Kerala. We met them several times over the next few days in Jodhpur, and Udaipur. They were going riding in the morning and these camels were waiting for them.

Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is the most comfortable city I've been in here in India, I think because it is a smaller city, much of which is still very close to the old fort. It really fealt like a human city, not one overrun by cars yet. We had arrived the previous afternoon and declined the trip to the local park/lake in the afternoon. I suppose it might have been nice during the afternoon, towards sunset, but as it was, we got to see it fresh in the morning.

Where we arrived, my first thought was tourist trap. It looked like we would have to walk up a long walkway lined with vendors trying to hawk items we didn't want. Fortunately that wasn't the case. Along the way our guide bought a loaf of bread and I really expected to be feeding the ducks. As it was, we got to the lake and the guide explained that there were various locations along the lake shore for differnent castes and people. For instance the Brahmins had one section of the lake shore, another was reserved for the laborers like carpenters, etc.

He then explained that since the lake is a holy lake, even the animals living in the lake are holy, thus there is no fishing to eat. He got out the bread and started throwing it in the water, immediately there were hundreds of catfish swimming or should I say swarming along the lake shore, hoping to catch a morsel from our hands. The guide told us to be careful when throwing in the bread. He then recounted a story of one of his guests who had gotten so exhuberant about the teeming fish that she had her camera in one hand, and the bread in the other. And you guessed it, she tossed the camera in the lake. They did manage to retrieve it, but just imagine.

After the lake, we drove up to the fort entrance which is on a large hill overlooking the rest of the city. Jaisalmer fort is one of the largest in the world, and about a third of the residents of the city still live within its walls. You can see the actual entrance at the right of the photo. A large section of the actual palace had to be restored after a recent earth quake, and work is still going on. It is built with interlocking stone, no mortar. On the way in, there are a lot of vendors trying to hawk local arts and crafts, hats, cameras, camera accessories, and other things, but most of them were really friendly and not overly pushy.

Inside we saw not only the palace, from the outside, but we also visited a Jain temple. The Jains were very influential and wealthy along the Silk Road in India. This is one such location. The temple is beautifully carved and well maintained to this day. There was work ongoing inside one of the temples cementing the idols in place. The idols were beautiful, and if you know what to look for, you could tell them apart. They pretty much all looked similar to me. I found the carvings more interesting actually. This one was pretty popular, seems to be touched by many people. The place was very busy with tourists coming and going all the time, with intermittent worshipers coming too. Outside I got this picture of the ticket taker at the entrance. He was kept very busy with people coming and going into the two entrances of the two different temples he had to monitor both doors. But he did it with aplomb.

After visiting the temple we wandered around the fort a bit. The guide explained there is a tradition when someone in the family is getting married. You paint the invitation/announcement on the wall of the house for all to see. We saw several such announcements while wandering around in the fort city, and even outside the fort. This makes it easy, you don't have to worry that someone will come along and say, "you didn't invite me" as it is posted for all to see. He even explained how you can tell by what is painted whether it is a bride or groom to be. After wandering the city, and looking down on the walls to see the ammunition left for dropping on enemies (round stones all along the walls), we walked out of the fort and visited a silver smith. They had some truely lovely modern and antique pieces. We picked up a couple of nice items, and then headed off for lunch at "On The Rocks" for a delicious lunch with a nice view of the fort.

After this we vistited some of the Havelis of Jaisalmer, where we got to see the former prime minister's house and several others. They were incredibly carved out of stone. One house was done in a fashion by two competing architects so that both sides of the house were carved similarly, but always different too. Strong rivalry there. We got to go inside one, where there was a store on the second floor, selling artifacts to maintain the house for tourists to see. Truely facinating to visit.

Then it was time to leave Jaisalmer for our excursion to the desert and Camel Rides.

Rajasthan, onwards to Jaisalmer

The next day was a travel day again. Our itinerary had us going to Jaisalmer, and then doing some sightseeing. Since Maya was still recovering we decided to take it easier on this day and just do the traveling, we could see a lot in one day and didn't have far to go the next evening. Also we were staying at Gajner Palace, and really wanting to just relax a bit and enjoy the environs. It was truely a beautiful place, so peaceful on the lake.

Since we had less to do, Mr. Sing informed us we could leave later in the morning. Since I usually wake up early, and Cindy abnormally woke up early, we both had the opportunity to do some early morning photography. We also walked through the Gajner Palace grounds. Behind the maintained portion, was a large garden which was overgrown, all bounded by the lake. Further into the there was a small hill with a bungalow on top of it. We climbed up and it was unfortunately rather trashed, it would be the perfect place to have weddings or celebrations. It could even be used as a sort of private hideaway for newlyweds. On the way back there were parrots everywhere. And boy could they be noisy. There was a whole bunch of them in the trees just outside our hotel room when we arrived back from our walk. They were also bathing in the fountain. Then all of a sudden they disappeared into the higher branches of the trees. I noticed a maintenance man on the roof of the hotel which seems to have scared them off. They weren't bothered by us guests, nor the hotel staff walking back and forth to the various rooms with laundry, and housekeeping supplies. I guess they didn't like someone up above them.

As the ride to Jaisalmer progressed, the landscape changed. More rocks and sand, less dirt. There were mines of various sorts along the way as well. But the air cleared up. So it wasn't quite so hazy. There was hope for stars in the desert after all.

We arrived in the late afternoon just outside of Jaisalmer at the Fort Rajwada, a newly built "Fort" hotel. Fairly nice from the outside, but typical on the inside. Cindy and I went to the roof terrace for drinks at sunset.

Then we had a barbeque dinner by the pool. We saw the first of several "cultural programs" that occurred at various hotels we stayed at over the week there. This one was actually the best one, but both Cindy and I had left our cameras in the room and thinking we would see more, we were too lazy to go get them. Pity. Anyways, the two guys who were dressed as ladies and dancing were pretty good (this is typical in Rajasthan as in some parts it isn't acceptable for women to dance in public). The band, as it were, was pretty good to. I think we saw better in Jaipur two years ago, but still enjoyable.

Next is Jaisalmer.

Rajasthan Part 1, on the way to Bikaner

We had been wanting to go to Rajasthan for a long time. Both Cindy and I were too busy to do the trip planning so we called a travel agent we use sometimes and asked him to put together a tour for us. Maya was sick the week before the trip, so we almost ended up cancelling, but in the end Maya went along and she recuperated along the way. We had seen Jaipur on our trip to Taj Mahal and Jaipur in 2008, so we skipped Jaipur, and started with Bikaner.

We didn't actually start in Bikaner, we flew to Delhi and then got in a car for a 6 hour drive to a horrible little hotel not far from Jaipur. Diwali is a busy time in Rajasthan, so we weren't able to fly to Jaipur which could have saved us a day in the car, but so it goes. The hotel, Gulmohar Sariska resorts, was a substitution since the travel agent had enquired about if we would have to cancel and our original hotel had then given our reservation away. This one was supposed to be better. The restaurant was just in the entry hall which was this large cavernous room, with poor lighting, the tables weren't particularly clean, and the food was average. The rooms were not well kept, the back door to our room didn't close properly, but you couldn't leave it open as there was no mosquito screen and there were monkeys ready to invade. We were really wondering what we were in for with this first night. When we got up in the morning, there was no hot water. Apparently the power was out and the geysers dont run on the backup generator.

When we checked in they told us we could arrange for a visit to the nearby wildlife park and it would take about 4 hours to see. Then we could start on the 7 hour trip to Bikaner. We declined the wildlife park, we've seen others and wanted to not have too long a day for Maya as she was still recovering from Strep.

We left the following morning early on recommendation from our driver Mr. Sardar Singh. He was really a good driver, very cautious, and a genuinely gentle soul. Unfortunately his english was not the best, so long conversations were not easy. He packed us in the car and we started off. I got my first photo of the trip of a truck we followed down this narrow road. I just loved the messages on the back of the truck. Not perfect grammar or spelling, but it gets the point across.


We soon discovered that one of the main reasons for the trip taking so long to Bikaner, was the road. As you can see it was one lane wide, if that, and full of potholes. So going 30 Kilometers took us over two hours. Fortunately most of the roads in Rajasthan were excellent and this was a true anomaly. As we were going further into Rajasthan and more into desert country for the first two days, it got hazier and hazier. To the point that I was truely concerned for our desert camping plans as we were to see the lovely stars from the desert. But more about that later.

Yes it is a bi-directional road and many times we had to pull over to the side to let some large truck or bus go by the other direction.

It wasn't quite desert yet, but the landscape was very different from what we are used to seeing in Bangalore.

Everything was very dry, hardly any trees. Along the sides of the roads, trees which had been planted were surrounded by protective walls about 1.5-2 meters high so that they could grow without getting eaten by the goats, cows, camels and other animals which would come to browse. We also encountered the first of many 'mini-buses' along the roads. These were large Jeeps. Usually the women would ride inside, and if there was room, the men would too. Here you see the men riding on the back because there are about 25 people inside. These were commonplace all across Rajasthan. Also Rajasthan is the first place where I have seen it common to ride on top of the larger busses. In south India I haven't seen that so much. 50Kph, or 30Mph wasn't an unusual speed for these jeeps with hangers on...

We stopped along the way at a water tank which is several hundreds of years old. It looks abandoned, but is used obviously for partying as evidenced by all the broken beer bottles. The driver told us it does fill with rainwater still and gets used when it has water in it.


Fortunately after a couple of hours the road opened up and was in excellent shape. So we didn't have to bounce the whole way to Bikaner. We had intended to make a side trip to Mahensar to see the Havelis there, but both the driver and the hotel had told us this would be a 2-3 hour diversion. So we looked in the guide book and found another town which had interesting Havelis as well. We stopped off there for a while, wandered around the town and saw the Havelis. Also got to start seeing the Rajasthani Women in their colorful dress. Some of the locals were absolutely beautiful, but I didn't dare ask them if they would stop for a photo. I should have.

And by comparison, the men dress very western for the most part. The one difference is there are a lot of turbans. This guy was proud of his donkey, but a bit shy.


We stopped along the road at a "tourist restaurant" for lunch. We had the experience the day before of having a tremendously overpriced meal at one of these stops and noticed that the Indians got a different menu. Well actually the same menu with lower prices (often by an order of magnitude). So we were determined not to be taken advantage of again. When we saw the prices being high again, we complained to the waiter, he talked to the owner and gave us a discount. At least the food was pretty good. And we felt like we'd gotten a better price, though still overpriced. But these places do offer a service, clean bathrooms and a place to stop on the long dusty roads.


After lunch we arrived in Bikaner and met our first Guide. He showed us the fort, the first of many, with its gold painted rooms, swing for Krishna, and many additions over the years. It was in relatively good shape, built along the Silk Road in the 15th Century, started by Rao Bika.

After touring the fort, we visited a camel research farm run by the local government. We learned that there are 3 types of camels in the area, one of which has curly hair. Also the best camel wool comes from the chin of the camel. We got to see them milk the camels, and I even had a taste of camel milk ice cream. Very rich, I have to say. Supposedly it is a bit salty, but I couldn't tell. Cindy had a coffee with Camel's milk.

We ended our day at a hotel which was a former palace on a lake, it is now run by the descendant of the former king of Udaipur who has a set of these hotels and other ventures to try to keep the heritage of Rajasthan alive and fund the things he needs to do in his "kingly" role.

Hong Kong

I'm behind on my posts. I realize now that I've made two trips to Hong Kong in the last 6 months and posted neither of them. The first trip was in June as I was on my way back to the US for Isha's wedding. I had a long layover (13 hours If I remember correctly). So I put most of my luggage in storage, and took my camera and took the train into Hong Kong. I rode all the way into Central. As it was still morning, and I had a lot of time on my hands, I thought I would walk up the peak. I had taken the Peak Tram up on a previous visit to Hong Kong years ago, and I wanted to stretch my legs, knowing I had another 10+ hours in the plane coming.

It was already hot and muggy. Most of the people I met along the way were joggers and much more active than I was in that climate. It wasn't much warmer than Bangalore, but definitely more humid. Along the way up I managed to catch a couple of nice shots of the buildings and harbor area. I did meet this one group of four young Filipino ladies who all wanted their picture taken with me. I obliged. I should have had one taken with my camera too, but didn't. It was kind of amusing--they weren't trying to pick me up or offer me anything, just photos. I'm used to people asking for photos in India, but hadn't experienced it anywhere else yet.

Once I reached the top, the views were really nice as the air was relatively clear. I walked 1/3 of the way around the peak, but my feet were getting tired and I thought I should take it easy. I had an Ice Cream at Haggen Daz and then took the tram back down the hill. After this I wandered around the harbor area, over to Kowloon and walked up Nathan Road and back. Then it was time for dinner and back to the airport.

The second trip was the end of a business trip to China. I arrived on a Thursday night, saw some customers on Friday, and then Saturday was joined by Maya and Cindy for the weekend. We stayed at the YMCA in Kowloon, right on the water. We had a Suite room with a view of the harbor. It was very functional, but also nicely kept and not too expensive.

Maya and Cindy arrived on Saturday around noon, and they were exhausted from the overnight flight so they rested for an hour or so. Then we went sightseeing in and around Kowloon. There was a drumming competition, with competitors of all ages. Mostly it seemed that families were there to see their children play, but I really appreciated this group.

Afterwards we went for a wonderful Korean BBQ dinner at a tiny little place in Tsim Sha Tsui (Chang Won Korean Restaurant at 16 Kimberly St.) They were jam packed, and had a line out the door. Fortunately we got there early enough we didn't have to wait for long. Excellent food.

Sunday we were going to go over to Central and look around when Cindy spotted the Big Red Bus Tour--she had been on one of their tours in Dubai. So we go tickets (a bit pricey), and started our hop on hop off tour of Hong Kong. It was nice to see it from the bus and get a feel for what is where. After a while, we hopped off and wandered around Soho, looking at art galleries etc. We ate lunch right next to the escalators that take people up to the mid levels. We also took the peak tram up to the top and walked around the peak, took us about an hour and it was a nice leisurely stroll. Lots of people were out. We saw butterflies, birds, lots of greenery, and it was lovely and clean.

On the way back to the hotel, we encountered a sort of eco display at the ferry terminal.

Monday we were supposed to go to DisneyLand before flying back home, but Maya decided she would rather roam a bit more around the city so we did so. I must say I enjoyed Hong Kong more than Singapore, but it is best when you're traveling with someone and not alone. I actually didn't take too many pictures on this trip, mostly because I didn't bring my better camera due to the previous week's business trip in China.

Halloween ??

I haven't posted Hong Kong yet, but I should. Just haven't had the time. I had to post this though. I noticed a new sign in our office building. I'm wondering if this is Halloween related, if they're afraid of some bad juju, or what?