Pushkar

The next day we drove to Pushkar. On the way we saw a lot of people walking on the side of the highway, some carrying flags, so we asked Rajeev where they were going. He said they were walking to temple. Oh, cool, how far is temple? About 150 kilometers. WHAT?! How long does that take? About 3 days. WHAT?! He said they only do it once a year, but still. I can’t think of anything I would walk 150 kilometers for, so I have to admire them for their dedication. But if for some reason I did have to walk 150 kilometers, I’d be like, I call NOT carrying the flag. I bet that job gets old really fast.

One of the temples we were supposed to go to that afternoon was closed, so we just looked at it and then walked around town the rest of the day because the streets were too small for Rajeev to drive on. That’s the only reason he doesn’t drive us to certain places.

While Katy was stopped looking at bangles, an Indian girl came up to me and said hello and asked my name and where I was from. I was like, oh, someone finally wants to talk to me without trying to sell me something. But then she grabbed my hand and started drawing on it with henna! It would have been fine since Katy and I had been wanting to get that done anyway, but she sucked at it. I yanked my hand back and made her friend wipe it off me before it stained my hand. That’s really the only thing I don’t like about India so far; I feel like everyone is trying to get money from me. Even when people wave, I feel like if I wave back they’re going to be like, “that will be 50 rupees for the wave.”

Since we were tired from our short walk around town (we’re so used to being chauffeured), we decided to get a rickshaw to take us back to our hotel. We were barely in it for 5 minutes and we got a flat tire. I guess the guy’s rickshaw couldn’t handle two big boned American girls. So in the time we waited for him to get it fixed, we could have walked back to the hotel but that wasn’t the point.

Jaipur

On Friday we were supposed to visit Red Fort in the morning and then go on to our next place, but when we met Rajeev in the morning he asked us if we had seen the papers that morning. We said no and he told us that there had been some violence the night before between the Muslims and the police and that it wasn’t safe for us to be in Agra anymore so we would have to skip Red Fort. He said some people were killed and that we should leave Agra as soon as possible. He also said Agra is a little more dangerous because it’s in a state where there a lot of Muslims and that once we got back to Rajasthan it would be safe again because it’s all Hindu.

We got on the road again and it took about 4 hours to drive to Jaipur. Rajeev is really good about stopping for tea and coffee and toilets but Katy and I know it’s because he wants to have a cigarette.

We got to Jaipur late in the afternoon so we spent the rest of the day shopping. Jaipur is famous for gemstones so Rajeev took us to his favorite place. I bought pendent made out of tender opal. At the gemstone place, we met a girl from New York who had just come from a textile place where they do block printing and said she got a great deal on a bunch of fabric. So we went over there next and picked out some fabric to have stamped and eventually made into curtains or something. I also bought a cut bedspread which is a piece of fabric with cut out designs on it overlaid and hand stitched onto another piece of fabric. Because it’s all hand done, depending on the intricacy of the pattern, it takes about 20 days to make.

After shopping we asked Rajeev his suggestions on where we should go for dinner. He said he would take us to a place with good food and a dancing baby. In actuality, the restaurant had dancing ladies, not a dancing baby, but it was still very entertaining. They danced and balanced stuff on their heads and even stood on a bed of nails at one point. And Rajeev was right, the food was also good.

Back at the hotel that night we had our first experience with an aspect of India that we would soon realize is very common: random power outages. The first one happened before we went to bed and didn’t last very long so it wasn’t a big deal. The next one happened around 2am and we both woke up sweating. But the thing was, the power was only out in our room. We went down to the front desk and they couldn’t fix it so we had to sleep in the room next door until our power was fixed. Not a good night’s sleep.

The next day we went to Amber Fort, a little ways out of town. Rajeev dropped us off and we hired a guide to take us around. All the major tourist sites offer audio guides for around the same price as a real person, but if you have 2 people it’s usually a better deal to get the human guide. And audio guides can’t take pictures for you.

Amber Fort was huge and impressive and our guide was good. On the way out, there were 2 guys playing flutes and snake charming a cobra. I was instructed by my mother to stay away from cobras, but how often am I in India? So Katy and I both got to wear their turbans and pet the cobra while it was mesmerized by the flute playing. During my turn I felt like it was swaying in my direction and looking at me weird so I petted quickly and got the heck out of the area.

Next Rajeev stopped so we could take pictures of the Water Palace. You can’t go inside because people live there I think. Then we went to City Palace and looked around. Rajeev took us back to our hotel to rest in the afternoon and then took us to pick up our stamped fabric. Having a driver is pretty nice…something I could get used to.

Agra and Taj Mahal

Sure enough, our driver, Rajeev, was there to get us in the morning. We loaded up our stuff and started driving to Agra, which would take about 4 hrs. It took almost an hour just to get out of Delhi. Slumdog Millionaire is pretty accurate when it shows the little kids coming to beg at the car window when they see that you’re a tourist. It’s sad but you have to just ignore them. One time when we pulled over to pay a tax or something, there were a couple guys with monkeys that would do tricks. We took a picture and they got pretty mad when we didn’t want to tip them as much as they wanted. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful and went by fast because there is so much to look at.

But just as I was thinking that all of the stray dogs do a really job of staying out of the street, the car in front of us hit one. Rajeev must have seem the traumatized look on my face, because he said “that’s why I don’t speed.” After that I started seeing a lot of dead dogs on the road. Sad.

Besides the dogs, a lot of times there will be cows on the highway…either in the median, walking in a lane, or crossing all 4 of them. Same thing with pigs and goats. I haven’t seen one single cat since I’ve been here though.

After we checked into our hotel, our first stop was Akbar’s Mausoleum, a giant sandstone and marble tomb that honors the greatest of the Mughal emperors. It was pretty but really hot so we didn’t stay long. We went on to the real reason anyone goes to Agra, the Taj Mahal. Our trip included a guide, so we picked him up and went to the Taj. It was kind of surreal to be there and it’s even more impressive in person. It’s made entirely of marble and has gem stones set in designs in the walls. Our guide was unenthusiastic but informative and took good pictures of us. He kept making Katy do this weird crossed arms pose but he never made me do it and we’re not sure why. I was glad though, haha. I don’t want all my Taj pictures looking like school yearbook pictures.

Since that took up most of the afternoon, we went back to the hotel for dinner. Before dinner we went up to the roof to look at the view. We thought we heard and saw people shooting off fireworks but they were pretty crappy. The next day we found out it wasn’t fireworks.

India!

We arrived in Delhi around 11pm. Customs took a long time and even though we arranged for airport pickup from our hotel, no one was there to get us. We found out later that their online reservations weren’t working. We got a prepaid taxi instead but didn’t get to our hotel for another 45 min to an hour. Even though it was so late at night, there was terrible traffic. This might be because there are almost no traffic rules; lanes are a suggestion, everyone drives on the shoulder and anything is allowed on the highway…camels, cows, bikes, rickshaws, trucks, families walking…anything. As crazy as it is, driving here doesn’t scare me. People seem to be pretty good drivers and aware of what’s going on around them.

Since our reservation was messed up, we actually got a better room than we booked and didn’t have to pay anything extra. We were exhausted so we ate at the hotel restaurant and went straight to bed.

The next morning, the brother of our airport taxi driver picked us up to take us around the sights in Delhi. There’s only one official tourist office in Delhi, the rest can sometimes be scams or overpriced, so we specifically asked him to take us to India Tourism Delhi. Well, we soon found out that practically every tourist office in Delhi is named India Tourism Delhi. And we procrastinated booking our train tickets so we wanted some advice on that. He took us one of those tourist offices but we eventually figured out that it wasn’t the right one. We left there and went on to sight seeing. Our driver took us to India Gate, the Ghandi memorial at the spot where he was killed (we saw his glasses), Parliament, and the National Museum. The National Museum was really badly lit and probably would have been more interesting if it had been air conditioned and I knew more about Indian history.

We also drove through a monkey garden where there are monkeys and cows everywhere. There was even a monkey eating a banana. Animals just roam free around the city. There are tons of dogs everywhere that don’t seem to belong to anyone…it’s really sad.

We decided we would just go to the train station to book our tickets. Our driver kept wanting to take us back to the tourist agency but we finally got him to take us to the train station. The day had been pretty stressful so far with everyone telling us something different and sending us around in circles so we were at a point where we just wanted to get everything figured out. They sent us over to fill out some form with the train numbers on it, and the guy who did it for us said it would be better to go to another place where they could book everything at once since we were doing the Golden Triangle loop. We said fine and our driver took us to a different place. We talked to a guy there and it turned out the train to Agra the next day (Thursday) was booked and the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays. That would have put us almost 3 days behind. The guy we were talking to suggested we hire a driver for our entire trip and said it wouldn’t cost very much more. Since the trains were booked, we didn’t really have a choice, and we also thought it would make for a more relaxing trip if we could go at our own pace and stick to one driver. The plan was for our driver to take us all the way to Jaisalmer, stopping at Agra, Jaipur, Pushkar, Udaipur, and Jodhpur along the way. After our time in Jaisalmer, he would then drop us at the train station there and we would take the 19 hr overnight train back to Delhi. Also all of our hotels, etc were booked with the trip so the only extras we would have to pay for would be food and admission into tourist spots.

I’m sure this was the first time where we overpaid for something, but really, it was still pretty cheap and seemed like the better option. So all there was left to do was hope there would actually be someone there to pick us up in the morning.

Back to Brisbane/Trapped in the Kuala Lumpur Airport

Unfortunately, skydiving day was our last day in Airlie. We had to go back to Brisbane so Jess could fly home and Katy and I could fly to India. For our day in Brisbane, we just ran errands and went to the young designers market on Southbank.

Because of stupid Lonely Planet, Jessica still hadn't had kangaroo or emu so we went out to a nice restaurant that was recommended by the owners of where we were staying. It was really yummy and a great last dinner in Australia.

Yesterday Jess's flight left at 11am but ours didn't leave until 11pm. Soooooo sad she left but we had a really good time. Katy and I got our flight to Kaula Lumpur last night and had a pretty bumpy ride. I didn't sleep well and the flight really wasn't long enough to make up for it. We got into KL at 5am this morning and don't leave until 6pm tonight. It's been a looooong day. I'm glad I got the time to catch up on the blogs I'm behind on but even doing that has been kind of exhausting since I'm half asleep while I'm writing them. Only a couple more hours here, then 3 1/2 more to Delhi.

Since we only have 2 weeks in India, it will be pretty non-stop but I will try to update as much as I can. And only a month until I'm home! So weird!


Sorry about the pictures screwing up on the last few posts...I will try again later

Last couple days in Airlie

The day after the boat trip, Katy still wasn't feeling good so Jess and I had eggs benedict like always and then decided to take a walk to find this restaurant that I read about in Lonely Planet. The book went on and on about how good it was and how it was their favorite restaurant in town, blah blah blah...and it was Australian cuisine so I thought it might have kangaroo and emu for Jessica to try. I sort of knew where it was, or at least which direction to walk, but we asked a couple different people who worked in the shops near by if they knew where it was. Neither of them were exactly sure but they thought it was a couple kilometers down the road so we started walking. And we kept walking and walking and asking people and walking. Finally we were in a grassy feild and decided to turn around. We stopped one more place on the way back and of course she knew where it was, it was really good but it shut down a long time ago. Awesome. This was NOT the first time Lonely Planet has done this to me. "Supposedly" they update their books every year but I have found more than a few instances when they haven't. When I get home and am unemployed with tons of time on my hands, I'm going to write them a long letter pointing out all their mistakes.

The next day was a big day because we were going skydiving!!! We picked the afternoon time so we could sleep in, but still woke up at a decent time so we could eat our daily eggs benedict early enough so we didn't barf all over our tandem buddies AND so we could have a couple little drinks to calm our nerves so we would REALLY want to jump out of the plane. After about 3 blueberry mojitos, we were quite excited about jumping. All that was left to do was check with the front desk and make sure we didn't have any messages from the skydiving people. Turns out, we did have a message and the message was that we couldn't go cause it was too windy! We were sooooooo sad. We spent the rest of the afternoon pouting because we were all ready to do it and cause we were half in the bag with nowhere to go. We rebooked for the next morning and tried to be excited about it again.

Conditions were good the next day so we were all set to jump out of the plane. But the bar didn't open until noon so we were forced to be all the way scared. The skydive people picked us up and took us out to the airport to get ready. Although they weren't required, we picked out awesome colorful jumpsuits to wear when we jumped. Then we met our tandem partners, Pauly and Dawsey, and they went over what would happen when we got up there. The plane we went up in was so small that it couldn't have fit one more person besides the four of us. I actually kind of wanted to jump out it rather than be flying in it. Of course the skydiving guys said the same stuff the bungy jump guys did; "We've only had a couple drinks today...I've done this at least 2 other times...What do these clips do?" Haha...not. Our jump was from 12,000 ft so we had about 45 seconds of freefall before the parachute. I went first...I kind of dangled on the edge of the plane for a couple seconds before he flung us all the way out. Once I jumped I wasn't scared at all anymore because it doesn't even seem real. It just feels like you're floating instead of falling. It was also A LOT different from bungy jumping...more than I expected it to be. And because of that, I can't really say which one I liked better. But overall it was awesome, worth the money, and if you've been thinking about doing it even a little bit, you should!

Whitsunday Sailing Trip

The boat trip we booked was kind of unique because instead of staying on the boat, we went out on two different boats with one day in between spent on one of the islands. The first day we took Reefquest out to the Great Barrier Reef where it docks up to a pontoon with all the diving and snorkeling stuff, a water slide, and a glass bottom boat. This was the big day I was going to try scuba diving again so I was a little nervous. But once they started explaining it, it already seemed like it would be a lot better than the last time. It was definitely the Kindergarten of scuba instruction...like, put just your face in...ok, now kneel down and breath. Very easy. So by the time I was actually all the way under water, I was used to it and it was easy. I really wish the other scuba trip had been the same way but I'm glad I got to do it eventually. My favorite sea creature I saw was the giant clams.

When we left the pontoon, the other boat dropped us off on Long Island where we would stay for two nights. Technically we stayed at a resort, but it was the backpackers part of it so there wasn't anything deluxe. And we were captive to their one restaurant which was overpriced and not that good. The island itself was pretty and it had a nice beach. We spent the next day there just hanging out...which seemed to go painfully slow because it's the resort's low season and there were only a couple other people there. I know, whaaa, we were stuck on a beautiful tropical island in paradise, poor us.

On the third day, we took there ferry out to Daydream Island where a catamaran called Camira picked us up to take us to Whitehaven Beach. Whitehaven is the most famous beach in the Whitsundays because it has pure white silica sand. It squeaks under your feet when you walk because it's so fine. Also, everyone who's been there will tell you something new you can do with it. I've heard you can make it into a paste and use it to clean your jewelery or brush your teeth...apparently it's used in some famous telescope lens...you can probably throw it up in the air and it turns into fireworks, I don't know, I'm not sure of all its magical powers. But I do know it was really pretty and the whitest sand I've ever seen. It would have been the perfect beach except it didn't have any palm trees.

Back to Airlie that night...