My Week in India, Pt. 2

DAY 5, Monday, 7 September 2009

I left off with our relaxing night in Jaipur. The next morning, our driver drove us up another mountain nearby to see the Jaigarh Fort, which due to it's (scenic) mountain location has never been conquered in battle. We walked around the fort for several hours to see the nice architecture, gardens, and the world's largest cannon located there.

Me standing on a bridge at the Jaigarh Fort.

World's largest cannon, complete with a tacky tin-roofed housing.


After we got our fill of the fort, we headed back down the mountain to see the Jal Mahal, literally meaning "water palace" due to the fact that it sits in the middle of a lake. Pretty cool.
Me trying to take a tacky picture. Didn't work. But that's the Jal Mahal.


Next, we went to see a textiles factory where traditional Indian clothing, blankets, scarves, etc. are made. After watching some things being made, I decided I would try on some Indian paijamas (traditional clothes, not sleepwear) and really liked the way they fit. So I had some tailored for me and now I own some. Unfortunately, I did not buy a turban. That night, we went in to get Ayurvedic treatments. This basically consisted of receiving a light massage with oil to help relax me, improve the flow of my circulation, and clear my mind. It was very nice.
After our treatments, we felt very calm and decided it would be best to go to bed early.


DAY 6, Tuesday, 8 September 2009

We slept in a bit and, feeling quite refreshed, headed for the holy city of Pushkar, a much smaller and less congested place than anywhere we had been yet. When we got to our hotel there, we ate a good lunch, changed out of our riding-in-the-car clothes, and went to set up a camel desert safari. We found out that one of the packages included a night's stay out in the desert, and even though nobody else really seemed interested in doing this, I thought it would be a great opportunity and signed right up for it. Then we did a bit of walking around Pushkar to have a look at all the temples there. We also were were pretty excited to see the holy lake there, but were a bit disappointed to find out that the thing had dried up during the dry season. Oh well. We finished our day by trying an Israeli restaurant in town, which served up some great food.

DAY 7, Wednesday, 9 September 2009

This day was by far the most memorable of the days we spent in India. We started it off by waking up at 5:00 am in order to be able to hike up the mountain to see the sun rise over the city from above. We got a bit lost in the city, and since it was 5:00 in the morning, there weren't really any people to ask for help. However, thanks to Andrew and I's superior masculine navigation skills, we found the foot of the path up to the top of the mountain. When still at the bottom, Andrew was foolish enough to challenge me to a race up to the top. Though the guide book said it takes an hour or more to climb to the top, Andrew made it in 25 minutes, and I made it in 20 (funny how pride speeds things up). We got up there just as the sun was rising over the top of the mountains opposite us, and the views from up there were simply breathtaking (or maybe we were just out of breath). We stayed up there for 2 hours, basking in the glory of being on top of a mountain and enjoying the company of some very funny monkeys. We even got a chance to meet some locals and talk to them for a while.
The sun rising over the mountains and Pushkar.

Some monkeys sitting on a tree hanging over the edge of a cliff, overlooking the valley down below.

Making some new friends at the top of the mountain.


After a much more slow-paced walk back down the mountain, we headed back to our hotel to take a much-needed nap. We woke up, ate lunch, walked around and did a bit of shopping (the candy store was the only thing that piqued my interest), then got ready for our camel safari. I was so excited! We walked over to the place, got on our camels, and headed out of town into the desert. Not surprisingly, the desert in India was still pretty dirty and smelly, but it was still fun.
Me on my camel. I'm not mad at all, so I don't know why I look like that.

Sunset in the desert.

After about 2 hours of riding around, we stopped at the dinner/camp-site and chilled for a bit while the guides made a traditional Indian dinner. We ate, then Andrew and the Danielles headed back into town in the dark while I hung out with one of the guides for a while. He was really nice, and asked me all sorts of questions about living in the U.S. and American politics. My favorite one: "How did Bush get re-elected for a 2nd term? Nobody even likes him." Haha.
Finally I got really tired and he handed me a blanket to sleep on. I will never forget looking up at the stars in the Indian night sky right before I fell asleep, thinking about all the different things that had to happen in my life over the past few years to got me to that single moment. Needless to say, I had a huge smile on my face.

DAY 8, Thursday, 10 September 2009

I woke up in the morning with sand in my mouth, wondering how many bugs had crawled on me while I was sleeping. Still, I had a pleasant view of another sunrise to look at and I was happy.
First thing I saw when I woke up.

After breakfast, I got back on my camel and rode back into town. I went back to sleep for a bit longer, then we got ready to take a taxi to nearby Ajmer, where we caught a train back to Delhi. Though the train ride was 6 hours long, nothing really that exciting happened. We all read/took naps pretty much the whole way. When we got back to Delhi, it was nighttime so we found a hostel to stay in for the night. We were pretty much exhausted by this point, so we all went to bed early.

DAY 9, Friday, 11 September 2009

This day pretty much consisted of us going to the airport, flying back to Dubai (thankfully with no emergency landings in Pakistan), catching a bus from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, and telling the same stories over and over to all of our friends.

This concludes my narrative of my trip to India.


In other news, we began "meetings" at our own schools yesterday. We got lost on the way to ours because nobody actually bothered to look at a map before we left, so it took us 2 hours to get there (with a nice trip out into the middle of the desert along the way). Our principal and all the teachers seemed friendly enough, though everything seemed to be pretty disorganized (imagine that). But we kept our chins up and tried to make the most of the situation.

Well, I'm tired, so good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt