Barbara's Travel Blog

Day 2 in Jaipur

For my second day in Jaipur, I hired a rickshaw driver for the day, so I wouldn’t have to deal with as much of the begging and pushy salesmanship I encountered the day before. It was a relief to be able to get in the rickshaw and zip past the throngs of people, though at intersections there are always beggars approaching anyone with white skin to ask for handouts.

In the morning I visited the Amber Fort, which is really more of a palace, built by Rajasthani royalty in 1592. The fort was pretty cool, but with so many forts in India, they’re starting to all blend together. I did like the hall of mirrors, and the queen’s garden was an oasis in the middle of the desert. (FYI, the fort's name comes from the person who built it, not from there being any Amber in the fort.)

More than anything though, the grandeur of the fort made me wonder about the living conditions of the rest of the population at that time. The more I travel around India, the more saddened and discouraged I am by the pervasive poverty. With more than a billion people in this country, and such disparity between the haves and have-nots, I can’t foresee circumstances changing any time soon.

After the fort, I went to visit an aura reader that Joe and Lori had visited the day before. Joe in particular had a really impactful experience, and I was curious to see what he might say about me. A lot what he told me was personal information that I don’t really want to get into on my blog, but I’ll say simply that it was a profound experience. I didn’t tell him anything to start with, he just hovered his palm over mine, then asked if my Mom is a nurse or a teacher (she’s a nurse). He went on to tell me things about myself and my Mom that were very specific and accurate, and gave me insightful advice about my career and relationships.

Today I’m headed to Goa, where I am tentatively planning to spend a few days in the capital city, then move on to one of the southern beaches.

In the pink city

On the train from Ranthambhore to Jaipur yesterday, I ran into Jeff, an American I had met on one of my safaris, and his dad, Chuck. They were heading to Jaipur as well, and decided to stay in the same hotel as me. When we arrived, we found Lori and Joe from Canada, and Lisa and Mark from Washington D.C., all of whom I’d met in the train station in Agra, where we spent a few hours together waiting for our delayed trains. All seven of us headed out for dinner and drinks last night before Lisa and Mark caught a midnight train.

Our hotel, the Pearl Palace, is a gem, with a cute rooftop bar, artistic decorations, funky furniture, and wi-fi (for a fee). And all for a mere 400 rupees a night (less than $10). Right now I’m camped out in the Internet room on a couch that looks fit for a king (or in this case a queen).

So far I’m liking Jaipur much better than Agra, thanks in large part to the great hotel and my new group of friends. But like all Indian cities (at least in my experience thus far), it is noisy, crowded, hectic and demanding. My patience with Indian cities is starting to wear thin, so it’s a good thing this is my last city before I head to Goa, land of small towns and lazy beaches.

I did have to laugh last night though at a conversation Lori, Joe and I had with our rickshaw driver on the way to dinner. His name was Han, and he was particularly interested in me, since I am single and American. He said he likes to meet American women for drinks and dancing, because they are more “open-minded.” I said, “You mean more willing to sleep with you, right?” To which he replied, “Exactly.” We couldn’t help but laugh, and hey, he gets points for honesty.

I spent this morning exploring what is known as the “pink city,” so named because virtually all of the buildings in the old city (a walled-in area that contains the palace and lots of older buildings) are painted a dusty pink. I think I blended in pretty well with my surroundings there, what with the fact that my version of a tan is rather pinkish, and I was definitely coated in a layer of dust after walking around there for a few hours.

Among the more interesting sights of the old city were the city palace, which is both a museum and a living palace that is still inhabited by the royal family (and their red-turbaned guards); Jantar Mantar, an unusual observatory filled with giant, bizarre instruments used for calculating time and tracking the positions of the sun and stars; and Hawa Mathal, a pink sandstone, honeycomb structure that was built to enable the ladies of the royal household to watch the goings-on of the city without actually stepping out into it.

Unfortunately, as always, the rickshaw drivers, shop owners and beggars wore me down long before I lost interest in the sights. There are so many fascinating things to see here, but it often feels like a monumental effort to do so.

When monkeys attack

For the last few days I’ve been at Ranthambhore National Park, in the Rajasthan region of India. The park is part of the Project Tiger program, and is where you are most likely to spot a tiger on safari in India. Apparently some of the parks in the country, some even with “tiger” in their name, have experienced such extensive tiger poaching that they have none left at all. At Ranthambhore there are currently 36 tigers, spread out over 1334 sq km.

The park is gorgeous, with dramatic ravines, rocky cliffs, wild jungle, lakes and rivers, occasionally dotted with crumbling ruins. A massive fort sits on top of a bluff, standing sentinel over the massive park. In addition to tigers, the park also has caracal, leopards, jungle cats, hyenas, foxes, jackals, sloth bears, spotted deer, sambar deer, Indian gazelles, bluebulls, crocodiles and 300 species of birds.

I was fortunate enough to have tiger sightings on two of my three safaris. On my first day, I saw two 8-month-old tiger cubs (which are much bigger than the cuddly, hold-in-your-lap size I had imagined), who were lurking in the grass while their mom was off on a kill. It was fantastic  to see them in the wild, and I was amazed at how well they blend in with the grass. I did manage to capture one with my camera, though from quite a distance.

My second sighting was on my third safari, when we saw an adult female lazing around in the shade of a tree. It was a better sighting than my first in that we were able to watch her for about 20 minutes, and got to see her stretch, roll around on her back, and bat the air with her massive paws. The down side was that we were watching through several bushes, so it was impossible to get any photos of her.

Almost as interesting as seeing the tigers was watching the vehicles jockeying for the best views. When a tiger is spotted, word somehow spreads through the park like wildfire, and all the jeeps and canters in the area rush to get a peek. (A limited number of vehicles are allowed into each of the parks five sections at a time.) Thankfully, the tigers are used to the vehicles (which must remain on the dirt road), so they don’t pay any attention to the excitement their presence generates.

Other animals I spotted during my three safaris include monkeys, spotted deer, sambar deer, peacocks, baby crocodiles, bluebulls, birds and an owl.

All of the animals were quite docile, except for one monkey that we saw at the end of my second safari. We stopped at a security gate on our way out of the park, where a large black-faced monkey was sitting nearby. He seemed mildly curious about us, when suddenly he leapt onto the jeep, lunged at a three-year-old girl, and reached down into the bottom of the jeep for a bag of snacks sitting below her. I have no idea how he knew the snacks were there, and the whole thing happened so fast we had no time to react, but afterward the park staff did managed to get most of the snacks back, and even made the monkey do a couple tricks in exchange for an orange. Needless to say, the girl was quite traumatized, and afterward for several minutes all I heard from her was upset-sounding Hindi, occasionally dotted with “monkey!” in a sniffly voice. Thankfully no one was hurt, and I laughed when later that day I heard the story from another traveler – apparently word gets around outside the park too.

The Taj Mahal

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but only one word truly captures it: Breathtaking.

More photos at http://babas.typepad.com/photos/my_gap_year_4/.

Agra: Not my cup of chai

After barely 12 hours in Agra, one thing is clear: This city and I do not get along.

Things went reasonably smoothly this morning – the hotel driver was waiting to pick me up at the train station, the hotel allowed me to check in at 8:30 in the morning, and I had a pleasant enough lunch in the hotel restaurant.

But as soon as I stepped foot outside the hotel, I discovered that Agra stinks. Literally. Like sewage. It smells vaguely like sulfur, but by comparison the sulfur we have in the U.S. is downright pleasant. Or maybe it really is sewage. I don’t know, and I hope I don’t find out.

Worse though were the rickshaw drivers (both motorized and bike-powered) hounding me with every step. I was walking a mere 200 yards to an Internet café, and was hassled by at least a dozen different drivers trying to get me to use their services. Initially I would politely say no, or explain that I was just walking up the street. But they kept insisting that they needed the money, and that they could wait for me, or take me later, or tomorrow. I got so fed up with one guy that I actually yelled at him, but it made no difference whatsoever – he just kept it up. If the walk had been 400 yards, I probably would have decked him.

After the madness of the streets, I decided to ease some of the tension with an Ayurvedic massage at the hotel. Now, I’ve had massages all over the world, and among them I’ve certainly had my share of bad ones. There was the scary Russian lady who pummeled me like a side of beef in Washington; the obviously untrained Vietnamese woman who swished her hands back and forth and drew squiggly patterns on my back; the bizarro Italian mud massage followed, literally, by a hose-down. But I’ve never had to actually tell the masseuse (female in this case) to stop touching me you-know-where.

Then tonight I took a shower, which was actually quite pleasant, except for the fact that the tub wasn’t draining very well. Little did I know that the tub is connected to a drain for the whole bathroom, which was clogged, so all my shower water was backing up through the main drain into the bathroom and my entire hotel room. By the time I got out, my room was a 1-inch-deep lake, and very soon a hotel staffer was pounding on my door because water was seeping into the hallway. I had an entertaining minute of him yelling at me to open the door and me yelling back that I would do so as soon as I could get some clothes on, which for some reason he couldn’t seem to grasp. Or perhaps he didn’t want to. Anyway, after a half hour the staff had the drain unclogged and the water cleaned up, and I was just relieved that I hadn’t left any of my belongings on the floor.

Tomorrow I plan on waking up early to go see the Taj Mahal at sunrise, but I have to say I’m a little nervous – I can only imagine what else Agra has in store for me.

P.S. After my trip to the Taj Mahal this morning, I can only say I dislike Agra even more. Inside the grounds of the Taj Mahal everything was peaceful and enchanting, but outside I was harassed by vendors and rickshaw drivers, plagued by swarms of mosquitoes, saddened by sick and mangy dogs, disgusted by huge piles of camel dung, and assaulted by countless foul smells. I can’t wait to get out of this city.

Sensory overload

This week was my last as a Cross Cultural Solutions volunteer. On Thursday Ben (who completed his program at the same time) and I packed up our bags and returned to Delhi to complete our final exit interviews.

Leaving Dharamsala was bittersweet… I’m sad to leave behind my volunteer friends and the staff, who have been like a surrogate family for the last six weeks. At the same time, I’m excited to be traveling and seeing new places again, and a little relieved to get away from the madness that has reigned since the new volunteers arrived. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye to one of our new roommates, who snapped at me the morning I was leaving about cleaning up my mess in the sink before I left. In truth, the drain was clogged with stinky cheese that some other volunteer put there – but I guess she’ll find out who’s really making those messes when I’m gone.

Ben and I opted to take a car/train combo instead of the overnight bus ride from hell, which allowed us to travel during the day, see some of the north Indian countryside, and visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in the state of Punjab. The temple is the most sacred shrine in Sikhism, and Sikhs from around the world come there. The temple was gorgeous, and it was fascinating to the sheer number of people there participating in worship, holy bathing and other rituals.

The trip was enjoyable, but also a shock after the relative peace and quiet of Dharamsala. As we drove into Amritsar, I felt completely overwhelmed by the noise, pollution and crowds. The traffic was intense (to put it lightly), and everywhere I looked I saw chaos. And did I mention the noise?

Thankfully, our train trip was a pleasure after that craziness. We were delighted with the meal service (snacks, tea, and a multicourse dinner in tiny trays), and there were even outlets to power our laptops. And as always, I was amazed and delighted with the porter service at the train station. It’s astonishing that you can pay roughly $1 and have a guy hoist your excessively heavy bags on top of his head and carry them wherever you like.

Ben and I spent Friday running errands all over Delhi, then had our CCS exit interviews and goodbye dinner. Unfortunately, from the exit interviews it sounds like the Delhi volunteers had a much different experience than we did. They were very negative, complaining about the rules and restrictions and schedules, while Ben and I were like some sunshiny commercial for international volunteerism. Somehow over the last six weeks we eased up and became very laid back and slower-paced, so it felt almost like an assault to encounter all their negativity. Thank goodness I chose Dharamsala!

This morning I made my way by train to Agra, where I plan to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow. This will be a busy week of travel around the “golden triangle” region of India, then next week I’ll head south to Goa for a couple weeks of R&R on the beach.

Thanks again to everyone who has been following along on my blog and sending me notes of support. It means a lot to hear from friends and family back home, as well as the new friends I’ve been making along the way. Best wishes to all of you, wherever you find yourself at the moment.

Note: I've added a new photo album for the remainder of my trip: http://babas.typepad.com/photos/my_gap_year_4/.

Preserving Tibetan culture

Today we visited the Norbulingka Institute Center for the Arts, which is dedicated to preserving ancient forms of Tibetan art. Students are required to study for a minimum of six years to master art forms like statue making, thangka painting, applique and tailoring, woodcarving, carpentry and metal craft.

While there, we had a chance to observe students and employees painting and sewing, visited the temple, and waited out an intense rain storm in the center’s store. I was tempted by everything there, but sadly the prices were way out of my range.

I was also finally able to learn about the Panchen Llama, whose picture we’ve seen all over Dharamsala over the last six weeks. As the tour guide told it, the Panchen Lama is equally important to the Dalai Lama. When the Dalai Lama left Tibet for India in 1959, the Panchen Lama stayed to look over the Tibetan people. He became part of the Chinese government, but was too pro-Tibet, so it is believed the government murdered him. He was then reincarnated as a baby, who the Dalai Lama officially recognized as the Panchen Lama six years later. At that point, the Chinese government kidnapped him and his family, and they have not been seen since. It’s unknown if he or his family are alive, but if so, he would be about 18 years old now. The picture of the boy to the left of the Dalai Lama is the reincarnated Panchen Lama. (Note: The guide’s English was a little rough, so my apologies if I’ve mixed up any of the details.)

On the way home the weather kicked it up a notch and began hailing. By the time we got to the taxi drop-off point, ½-inch balls of hail were pounding down on the roof of the van. We got the driver to drive us much closer to the house than he usually goes, then ran downhill to get to the house. By the time we got there we were soaked through, and my umbrella was bent from the hail. What a day!

More photos at http://babas.typepad.com/photos/my_gap_year_3/.

Lasting impressions

With only two more days in Dharamsala, I’ve started the routine where I think about everything as my “last.” My last time sitting on the porch in the sun looking out at the valley. My last time at the Internet café with the nutty owner looking over my shoulder. My last time watching Lucky the dog cuddle with his unnamed kitty friend.

This week I’ve also had a few Dharamsala firsts. On Sunday afternoon, the air suddenly filled with flying insects, so many that we started to get nervous. It turns out they were flying ants about to die; there’s a saying in India that comes from the ants that goes something like: “You get your wings right before you die.”

We also had our first birthday party since arriving here. Yesterday was William’s birthday (he’s the youngest son of the family that’s traveling for a year). We helped his parents track down a pizza place, and they found a bakery to make a couple cakes. It wasn’t quite up to the standards of pizza and cake at home (not least of which was the pizza with corn on it), but beggars can’t be choosers.

The saddest last of all came this morning, when I said goodbye to Anil, the northern India CCS director. He’s off to the U.S. for a few weeks to meet with the CCS staff there, and I’ll be gone before he returns. I’ll miss hearing his hearty laugh, pestering him to quit smoking, and gossiping on the sly with him.

Last hurrah in McLeodganj

This weekend the gods decided to favor us with spectacular weather for my final weekend in Dharamsala. The sun was shining all weekend, and we shed our jeans and sweaters for t-shirts and capris. Ayala, Ben and I headed to McLeodganj for the weekend to get in some final shopping, complete our three-day cooking course, and escape the madness of the now-crowded volunteer house.

Friday night we spotted posters for a “mega-concert” that was a benefit for a Tibetan women’s program. We knew the Himalayas were playing, but we were surprised to find it was actually a variety show – though it felt more like a high school talent show. There were ear-splitting Tibetan singers, a three-person circus act from New Mexico (slightly random), a Tibetan comedian (not particularly funny, since we don’t speak Tibetan), and several of our “favorite” American cover songs by the Himalayas. The best part by far though was during one of the Himalayas’ songs when a couple dancers come out and rocked the house with the most energetic dance performance I’ve ever seen.

Saturday was the final of our three-evening Indian cooking class with Mrs. Nisha. She runs the Taste of India restaurant in McLeodganj, and during the course she taught us how to cook about a dozen delicious dishes, including my personal favorites malai kofta, palak paneer, samosas and rice pudding. We got hands-on practice preparing samosas, so hopefully I’ll be able to recreate the magic at home.

Of course, no weekend in India is complete without spotting a few entertaining signs and labels. My favorites of the last couple days were the trash can sponsored by the Jedi Knights, and the drinking water bottled by a plywood manufacturer. Because nothing says clean water like plywood.

Fire me up

Life around the house is getting a little easier each day, though there are still certain - ahem - personality differences to work through. Everyone perked up a couple days ago though when the weather started to take a turn for the better. A highlight was Wednesday night, when Ayala brought out her fire-dancing paraphernalia and performed for all of us, followed by another Ben Ross original concert. Very cool!

More photos at http://babas.typepad.com/photos/my_gap_year_3/.