This is a girl named, Haley and her boyfriend Steve. I met Haley last year in South Africa - we jumped off of the world's highest bridge together and I was sitting in a cafe in Udaipur when she walked in with her boyfriend - it's such a small world.
Architecture in Udaipur
Sunset from the rooftop of our hotel in Udaipur
The view from our tuk-tuk ride through the narrow streets in Udaipur
Local boy selling bananas
A very typical scene in Udaipur
View of the lake in Udaipur and you can faintly see the women on the ghat bathing and washing clothes.
Our friends on the train to Rajkot
In my traditional, tailor-made Indian outfit on the train journey to UdaipurTranscending continents has been quite the experience - very unusual, inspiring and head-spinning. If I can conclude that Africa has embedded itself into my soul - then I will conclude, though it's only been 5 days, that India has rocked my world. The journey here went suspiciously smoothly. Upon arrival into Bombay, we quickly exchanged money and got ourselves a taxi to the Sea Shore Hotel - a funny name for a place that is not really on what I would label the sea shore - but that is India. Anyway, the taxi drive to our place was as expected - insane. When we met our driver - an elderly man - we were relieved. The thought was that he might drive a bit more cautiously and being 4:30 a.m., it seemed as if things would be, can I say, tame. As it turns out, I think that he was nearly blind and couldn't see much and therefore, honked his horn at any given object along the way and drove straight down the middle of the road. Luckily, having Africa to break me in to the roadways, I was able to laugh for most of the drive as I thought to myself, "Yep, now you're in India." As it turns out, his horn habits were not out of the ordinary, as this is how it works here in India. There are NO such thing as road rules - it's a free for all around here and to sum it all up in one word - it's complete CHAOS. You have the oldest school-looking cars for taxis (they're actually quite charming), tuk tuk taxis (3-wheeled vehicles, if you can call them that), buses, motorcycles bicycles and pedestrians all on the road together and when you arrive at an intersection - you just go for it. You are dangerously close to every other moving object (I'm talking inches here) and amazingly, it works. Don't ask me how, but it does. Our first hotel in India proved to be quite nice - it was 4 floors up and the guys who worked there dressed in bell hop uniforms which i found to be very entertaining. We had a decent room with air coniditiong (what a luxury!), TV (another unnecessary luxury) and a view over the bay. We took full advantage of our humble abode to catch up on some much needed sleep and to ease our way into India. I didn't think that I would like Bombay very much but I grew fond of its craziness and enjoyed the hustle and bustle. My time there was spent eating, sleeping, catching up on business and shopping - of which there is endless amounts of all of the above. I knew before I came here that the food would be my favorite thing and thus far, it has proved me right. You can eat the most delicious meals for around $2.00 and the street food is outstanding. Perhaps one of my favorite things is the endless amount of chai available at any time, anywhere. For just a mere 5 rupees (1/8th of $1.00), you can stand on any street corner and sip chai with the locals. After 3 days and 2 nights in Bombay, it was time to move on. The day before our last in Bombay, we were approached on the street by a guy who gave us his business card and asked if we'd like to be extras in a Bollywood film. We were quite intrigued - being that we just got "spotted." The shooting was to occur the following evening and he said he'd pick us up at 5 p.m. and the shooting could go until 5 a.m. We didn't feel very good about being whisked away to some unknown place for the entire night so we discussed it with the owner of our hotel, who informed us that it was legitimate and safe. He offered us another shooting that was to occur in the morning and would end in the evening. We decided to go for it but then after purchasing our train ticket for the following evening, we found out that we would not have enough time to make our train and opted to not become a Bollywood star - oh, the missed opportunities in life. I was feeling really confident about India and thinking, "What's the big deal about traveling in India. This isn't so bad." Well, I was about to get my world rocked soon enough.
After much contemplation about where to go next, we decided to head north and go to a beach town called Diu. We should have known when we booked the ticket when the woman at the counter said, "Why do you want to go there? I hardly meet anyone who goes there?" For me, this was a sure sign that it was something to see and the description in our Lonely Planet was enchanting. We got to the train station the following evening, with plenty of town. All of this was done after we got ourselves a tailor made India outfit. We went to the fabric shop and picked out our fabric and then went to the tailor and had him take measurements and in a mere 4 hours, he constructed 2 complete outfits for us - pants, dress and scarf and to my amazement, they fit perfectly! The clothes that the women wear here are stunning and the colors are dazzling - it's truly a sight to see. Back to the train station, we made it there and boarded our train for Rajkot - which was the furthest place that we could take the train - after which, we would have to succumb to the dreaded bus ride. We got ourselves a sleeper seat on the train - the train system here is extremely good and you can get trains just about everywhere. You have your choice of 1st, 2nd or 3rd class. We got ourselves a 2nd class ticket and it proved to be relatively good. We shared our small area with 4 other people - so there was basically 3 bunks on either side - top, middle and bottom. We lucked out and shared our space with a very friendly Muslim family whom we picked their brains about their religion and lifestyle and they kindly shared their food with us and proved to be great companions. The ride itself was not so enjoyable as the window would not stay closed and it was very chilly throughout the night - I did not come prepared for cold weather so i spent the night freezing my butt off and waiting for the almighty sun to rise. We were quite entertained on our journey - from random people coming up to us and asking to take their pictures with us - one woman just putting her small daughter on our laps and taking pictures to a Indian man who had dyed his hair red (this is a strange phenomenon here - you see lots of men with their hair dyed red and it looks very wrong) - to people parading through the train singing and playing instruments, to the guy who went up and down the train yelling, "Chai Masala", the sound of children crying, and the steady sway back and forth of the train throughout the night. In the rare moments that I actually fell asleep, these sounds were weaving their way into my dreams and I would wake up thinking, "Where the hell am I?" It was as if I had taken a hallucinogenic and been transported to some faraway land. That's the only way that I can describe it. So, back to the story - this is going to take awhile. So, we arrived in Rajkot and got a tuk tuk to the bus station - where we were abruptly reminded that we were indeed in India. All of the signs were in Hindi and therefore, unreadable to us. No one spoke English and if they did, it was very broken and we couldn't understand. We walked around in circles trying to figure out which bus to take while the masses of people were stopped dead in their tracks - both staring and laughing at us. We finally figure out which bus and it arrived and we jumped on. I asked a man sitting next to us how long the journey was to Diu ( we had been told 4 hours) and he told me that it would take 8 hours. Looking at the bus, I realized that we were not on a direct bus and in fact, we were definitely on a local bus which means that it stops each and every place that there is someone who needs to get on or off and it will take a very long time. Having been traumatized by the bus journeys in Africa, a discussion began as to whether we wanted to endure the bus ride and whether or not it might be better to just head north. We decided to be defeated and got off of the bus before it left and ventured back to the train station. Train stations in India revolve around standing in queues to get anything accomplished and we waited our turn. We decided to head to a place called Mt. Abu - a nice, serene place around a lake in the moutains. So, we got back on our train and headed right back to where we had been that morning - a city called Ahmnebad. We befriended a delightful young woman who helped us find the train and get a seat - which was a mission in itself. When the train arrives, people go in hordes and try to get on the bus all at once, the poor people who need to get off of the train can't even get off because people are practically trampling each other to get on and get a seat. Our friend took great care of us and got us on and reserved a seat. I spent most of the entire journey passed out on one of the upper wooden benches - during which time, Amanda told me that the train actually hit a railway worker and seriously injured him. Apparently, this is a common occurrence here in India. The accident delayed our journey a bit and we arrived in Ahmnebad at around 7 p.m. Once we got there, we stood in the delighted queue to try and reserve a seat to get to Mt. Abu. Upon finally arriving at the window - which is a feat in itself because everyone just pushes their way in and jumps in line - we found out that there were no seats availabe and were told to come back in the morning. Not pleased with the option of spending the night in Ahmnebad, we resigned ourselves to sitting on top of our backpacks and searching through the Lonely Planet for another destination and trying to figure out the train schedule - which proves to be impossible for even an educated person. We decided to try for Jodphur - a city further north and again, waited in the queue. We had several men wanting to help us figure it out and after arriving at the window, we wer again told that there were no seats and to come back in the morning. There was no way to buy a ticket ahead of time so we would possibly have to spend the night and come back in the morning only to find that there were no seats. Amanda was convinced that we would be in Ahmnebad for the rest of our stay in India and I was considering the options in my head - the most obvious one for me was to get myself to Delhi and catch the next flight back to Zanzibar. We resigned back to our backpacks and searched and when I looked up, I realized that we were now surrounded by 30 men who were just sitting and staring at us - as if they had never in their lives seen a white person. It was harmless but uncomfortable, to say the least. I've never been stared at so hard in my life and I think that my face must have been bright red as I didn't exactly know how to react to such a scene. I was well informed that this would happen in India but I guess that you can never be prepared. At one point, Amanda just stood outside the queue and yelled, "Help, somebody please help us." It was all in good humour and it worked - people helped us. Then, something miraculous happened - just when we were thinking the worst - I spotted two white women. Unreal. I asked them where they were going and they said Udaipur -and they recommended a place to sleep in Ahmnebad for the night. Then after that, we spotted another white person - this time a guy and we asked him where he was going and he said Udaipur. We read up on it in our trustly guide and it sounded splendid. We decided to give it one more go and stand in yet, another queue, and this time, we pushed our way up along with all of the other savages. When we arrived at the window, the guy looked at us and shook his head. It had now been 3 hours since we arrived and I can't count how many times we had begged for a ticket out of Ahmnebad. We told him we wanted to go to Udaipur and miraculously, he had seats for us - sleeper seats even. The joy overtook us and we literally jumped up and down screaming with glee - not an easy task with
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