India - Part 4
Hello Everyone
Firstly, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. It's nice hearing from home when I'm so far away from everyone and everything.
So, since I last wrote, we've spent 5 days traveling around Rajasthan. On Saturday we drove about 5 hours to Jodhpur aka "the blue city". Many of the buildings in the city are painted a periwinkle blue colour, which gives a very pretty effect when looking over the city. Apparently the blue colour helps keep the buildings cool and the bugs out. I don't know if I buy that - if it were true, I would think there would be more blue cities out there. But it looks nice at least.
When we arrived we went to....take a guess.....another fort! I wasn't super excited, however I ended up really enjoying it and it's my favourite one so far. There was an audio tour with it, which was spoken by someone with a British accent (so it was understandable) and was quite well done. The palace within the fort was in use until the 50s so some of the rooms were still decorated. It was nice to see decorated rooms as opposed to some of the others which are empty and more ruin like.
As I am still being hassled regularly to be in people's photos, I decided that I would start telling people there is a cost to take my photo to deter them. "Want my photo? Ok, 20 rupees." But guess what..... people are willing to pay!!! Pay for pictures of me - the worlds least photogenic person. I could start a little business. I'm going to have to up it to 100 rupees per picture.
The next stop was Jaisalmer which is another city a few hours west - in the desert. There was another fort here, but this one had a little city within the walls; people live in the houses within the fort, and there are shops and restaurants. Reminded me a bit of a European walled city/fort. We had a really nice day getting lost in the side streets and looking in the shops. We all got turbans (for our upcoming camel safari) and endless "camelfalge" puns were made.
Alcohol has been much easier to find out of Jaipur. In Jaisalmer there was an "English Wine Shop." All the Brits in the group were pretty quick to discredit it on the basis that English wine is terrible. But it turns out that by "English" they mean "for English speaking people" and by "wine" they mean "alcohol." It was mainly Indian liquor and beer but they did have some wine (which was OK).
We've found that English signage seems to get funnier and funnier as we've gone west. Fair enough, English is their second language, but you would think they would have an English speaking person proof read the wording before having a giant neon sign made. We passed a hotel the other day called the Decent Hotel (which made me laugh in itself - no need to hype it up, call it as it is) which had, in huge florescent letters under the name, an advertisement for good food and "minral watre." Also seen was a sign for toilet pepper, sandwitches, Jwerllery and so on.
Ive also noticed that Indian people have two favourite expressions: "it's ok" (or "is ok") and "I know." Ironically, these are used when things are not ok, and when they don't have a clue what you are talking about. For example, our driver hit a cow in the road. We were moving slow and didn't hit him hard, but we still hit him. No worries, "is ok, is ok." Similarly when getting a rickshaw and giving the address to see if the driver knows where he is going, a response of, "is ok, I know," actually means he has no fucking clue.
Anyway, on Sunday night we had dinner at what can best be explained as the rooftop of someone's house. It's a long story how we ended up there, but the result was that a few of the girls had to help the guy cook, as it was just him cooking for 10 people. They said the kitchen was horrifically dirty. It's a miracle none of us got sick.
We stayed at an interesting hotel in Jaisalmer. It looked castle like, and had a beautiful lobby. However, if the lobby was the castle, our rooms were the dungeon. My room had no window and green lighting. On Monday morning, the plan was to wake up at 5:30 to go see the sunrise. I decided that I don't wake up at 5:30am on my birthday, so skipped this and slept in. However when my roommate left, she didn't lock the door as she had left the one key with me in the room. After she left I had just drifted off to sleep when I was awoken to sunlight on my face. Given the green light/windowless room situation, I was confused. I rolled over to find the door open and a man from the hotel standing in the room over the bed. Needless to say I was startled. I asked, "may I help you," and he got quite startled himself and quickly left. So then I got up and called out, "excuse me - what are you doing? Do you need something?" to which he responded, "Is ok, is ok." No sir, is not OK. I thought maybe he was planning on robbing us, but when my roommate came back she said they were asked to leave the room keys at the desk when they left. Apparently there was some confusion when she tried to explain that the room key was with me in the room, so i think he didnt understand and was coming in to get it.
Monday afternoon we headed about an hour out of Jaisalmer to do a camel safari. I really lucked out - it was such an excellent way to spend my birthday. We took the camels out and watched the sunset over the dunes - such a great experience. Of course, even in the middle of the desert, there was a beggar. Strangely, there was also a guy selling beer. Can't buy it in a lot of restaurants, but can get it in the middle of the desert. It was some regional brew made in recycled beer bottles from other brands. It didn't kill us, so that was good. We then had dinner at the base camp, which included some dancing and music. They had also organized a birthday cake for me, and everyone sang, which was nice. We then took camel carts back to the dunes where we setup camp for the night. The beds were surprisingly comfortable - proper bed stands off the ground, which were padded with a thick rollaway mattresses. There was also big comfy covers, which were needed because it actually got quite cold over night. We had a camp fire, drank the "english wine" we had brought along and sang songs. When we finally went to bed it was absolutely awesome looking up at the stars. Couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday - it will be hard to top.
Tuesday was a long driving day as we made our way back towards Jaipur. The highlight of the day was definitely waking up in the desert and watching the sun rise. I loved it - would have loved to spend all morning there.Tuesday night we arrived in Pushkar, which is where we spent the day Wednesday.
Pushkar is a religious city on a lake, with over 1,000 temples. We visited two. In one of the we kind of got forced into taking part in a prayer. We were heading down the steps to look at the lake and a bunch of students of the temple grabbed each of us and gave us a plate of flowers and coloring and rice. It would have been disrespectful to just toss the plate, so we had to go through the whole prayer ritual, which ended up being about 10 minutes long. Mom, they made me pray for my family, so I prayed for you. I knew you would really appreciate it. Anyway, when it was over, I got to dump the contents of the plate in the lake and they put a red dot on my forehead. They then asked for money (donations) at the donation hut at the top of the stairs. I figured I would give a small amount since they guy did go through the whole prayer ritual with me. But get this - they wouldn't take my money as it wasn't enough! They said "no, not enough. We only take donations above xxx rupees," so I said fine, and walked away. Sorry mom, I dont know if that means my prayers for you are void.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, which was filled with stores and restaurants. The view over the lake was really quite nice, so we stopped a few times. We had lunch in a place recommended by some of the other volunteers who had been to Pushkar before, which was really nice healthy food - non Indian. I had toast with real cheese, sundried tomatoes and olives. Such a treat as I'm getting quite sick of Indian food. I'm dyingggggg for a cheeseburger and a cider.
Yesterday was back to work at the orphanage. I only have a few more days of work left. It was a pretty hectic day, but we did succeed at finding out a bunch of the kids names. One smart little girl (Adina) figured out what we were asking and went around naming everyone for us. Unfortunately, it's hard to remember all the names, as they are all names we aren't familiar with. But we know a few now at least. There are two new kids in the mix - no idea where they have come from.
This weekend coming up is Diwali (Indian christmas or the festival of lights). All of the buildings have put up christmas lights and Sunday is the big day. We are having a party here at the house, which should be interesting. An alcohol free party - I think that's an oxymoron. On Monday/Tuesday we are going to the Taj Mahal and then Wednesday is my last day of work before I head south. I am starting to get a bit restless here in Jaipur so I'm looking forward to getting out on my own for a bit.
That's all for now. Thanks again for the birthday love.
S
Firstly, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. It's nice hearing from home when I'm so far away from everyone and everything.
So, since I last wrote, we've spent 5 days traveling around Rajasthan. On Saturday we drove about 5 hours to Jodhpur aka "the blue city". Many of the buildings in the city are painted a periwinkle blue colour, which gives a very pretty effect when looking over the city. Apparently the blue colour helps keep the buildings cool and the bugs out. I don't know if I buy that - if it were true, I would think there would be more blue cities out there. But it looks nice at least.
When we arrived we went to....take a guess.....another fort! I wasn't super excited, however I ended up really enjoying it and it's my favourite one so far. There was an audio tour with it, which was spoken by someone with a British accent (so it was understandable) and was quite well done. The palace within the fort was in use until the 50s so some of the rooms were still decorated. It was nice to see decorated rooms as opposed to some of the others which are empty and more ruin like.
As I am still being hassled regularly to be in people's photos, I decided that I would start telling people there is a cost to take my photo to deter them. "Want my photo? Ok, 20 rupees." But guess what..... people are willing to pay!!! Pay for pictures of me - the worlds least photogenic person. I could start a little business. I'm going to have to up it to 100 rupees per picture.
The next stop was Jaisalmer which is another city a few hours west - in the desert. There was another fort here, but this one had a little city within the walls; people live in the houses within the fort, and there are shops and restaurants. Reminded me a bit of a European walled city/fort. We had a really nice day getting lost in the side streets and looking in the shops. We all got turbans (for our upcoming camel safari) and endless "camelfalge" puns were made.
Alcohol has been much easier to find out of Jaipur. In Jaisalmer there was an "English Wine Shop." All the Brits in the group were pretty quick to discredit it on the basis that English wine is terrible. But it turns out that by "English" they mean "for English speaking people" and by "wine" they mean "alcohol." It was mainly Indian liquor and beer but they did have some wine (which was OK).
We've found that English signage seems to get funnier and funnier as we've gone west. Fair enough, English is their second language, but you would think they would have an English speaking person proof read the wording before having a giant neon sign made. We passed a hotel the other day called the Decent Hotel (which made me laugh in itself - no need to hype it up, call it as it is) which had, in huge florescent letters under the name, an advertisement for good food and "minral watre." Also seen was a sign for toilet pepper, sandwitches, Jwerllery and so on.
Ive also noticed that Indian people have two favourite expressions: "it's ok" (or "is ok") and "I know." Ironically, these are used when things are not ok, and when they don't have a clue what you are talking about. For example, our driver hit a cow in the road. We were moving slow and didn't hit him hard, but we still hit him. No worries, "is ok, is ok." Similarly when getting a rickshaw and giving the address to see if the driver knows where he is going, a response of, "is ok, I know," actually means he has no fucking clue.
Anyway, on Sunday night we had dinner at what can best be explained as the rooftop of someone's house. It's a long story how we ended up there, but the result was that a few of the girls had to help the guy cook, as it was just him cooking for 10 people. They said the kitchen was horrifically dirty. It's a miracle none of us got sick.
We stayed at an interesting hotel in Jaisalmer. It looked castle like, and had a beautiful lobby. However, if the lobby was the castle, our rooms were the dungeon. My room had no window and green lighting. On Monday morning, the plan was to wake up at 5:30 to go see the sunrise. I decided that I don't wake up at 5:30am on my birthday, so skipped this and slept in. However when my roommate left, she didn't lock the door as she had left the one key with me in the room. After she left I had just drifted off to sleep when I was awoken to sunlight on my face. Given the green light/windowless room situation, I was confused. I rolled over to find the door open and a man from the hotel standing in the room over the bed. Needless to say I was startled. I asked, "may I help you," and he got quite startled himself and quickly left. So then I got up and called out, "excuse me - what are you doing? Do you need something?" to which he responded, "Is ok, is ok." No sir, is not OK. I thought maybe he was planning on robbing us, but when my roommate came back she said they were asked to leave the room keys at the desk when they left. Apparently there was some confusion when she tried to explain that the room key was with me in the room, so i think he didnt understand and was coming in to get it.
Monday afternoon we headed about an hour out of Jaisalmer to do a camel safari. I really lucked out - it was such an excellent way to spend my birthday. We took the camels out and watched the sunset over the dunes - such a great experience. Of course, even in the middle of the desert, there was a beggar. Strangely, there was also a guy selling beer. Can't buy it in a lot of restaurants, but can get it in the middle of the desert. It was some regional brew made in recycled beer bottles from other brands. It didn't kill us, so that was good. We then had dinner at the base camp, which included some dancing and music. They had also organized a birthday cake for me, and everyone sang, which was nice. We then took camel carts back to the dunes where we setup camp for the night. The beds were surprisingly comfortable - proper bed stands off the ground, which were padded with a thick rollaway mattresses. There was also big comfy covers, which were needed because it actually got quite cold over night. We had a camp fire, drank the "english wine" we had brought along and sang songs. When we finally went to bed it was absolutely awesome looking up at the stars. Couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday - it will be hard to top.
Tuesday was a long driving day as we made our way back towards Jaipur. The highlight of the day was definitely waking up in the desert and watching the sun rise. I loved it - would have loved to spend all morning there.Tuesday night we arrived in Pushkar, which is where we spent the day Wednesday.
Pushkar is a religious city on a lake, with over 1,000 temples. We visited two. In one of the we kind of got forced into taking part in a prayer. We were heading down the steps to look at the lake and a bunch of students of the temple grabbed each of us and gave us a plate of flowers and coloring and rice. It would have been disrespectful to just toss the plate, so we had to go through the whole prayer ritual, which ended up being about 10 minutes long. Mom, they made me pray for my family, so I prayed for you. I knew you would really appreciate it. Anyway, when it was over, I got to dump the contents of the plate in the lake and they put a red dot on my forehead. They then asked for money (donations) at the donation hut at the top of the stairs. I figured I would give a small amount since they guy did go through the whole prayer ritual with me. But get this - they wouldn't take my money as it wasn't enough! They said "no, not enough. We only take donations above xxx rupees," so I said fine, and walked away. Sorry mom, I dont know if that means my prayers for you are void.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, which was filled with stores and restaurants. The view over the lake was really quite nice, so we stopped a few times. We had lunch in a place recommended by some of the other volunteers who had been to Pushkar before, which was really nice healthy food - non Indian. I had toast with real cheese, sundried tomatoes and olives. Such a treat as I'm getting quite sick of Indian food. I'm dyingggggg for a cheeseburger and a cider.
Yesterday was back to work at the orphanage. I only have a few more days of work left. It was a pretty hectic day, but we did succeed at finding out a bunch of the kids names. One smart little girl (Adina) figured out what we were asking and went around naming everyone for us. Unfortunately, it's hard to remember all the names, as they are all names we aren't familiar with. But we know a few now at least. There are two new kids in the mix - no idea where they have come from.
This weekend coming up is Diwali (Indian christmas or the festival of lights). All of the buildings have put up christmas lights and Sunday is the big day. We are having a party here at the house, which should be interesting. An alcohol free party - I think that's an oxymoron. On Monday/Tuesday we are going to the Taj Mahal and then Wednesday is my last day of work before I head south. I am starting to get a bit restless here in Jaipur so I'm looking forward to getting out on my own for a bit.
That's all for now. Thanks again for the birthday love.
S
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