Camel Safari Day 2

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Remember all the complaining I've done about other nights?  How uncomfortable, cold and loud it was in the various hotels?  Disregard all of that.  LAST NIGHT WAS MISERABLE. 

First: I haven't been that cold ever.  Two blankets, extra socks, a sweater, scarf, and Marco's body heat just weren't enough.  Second: Something stung me or poked me in the finger and left a little dot of blood liked I'd been jabbed by a needle.  It woke me up with a start and of course I immediately thought 'Scorpion' or something scary like that.  I still have no idea what it was, though, because Marco and I couldn't find anything under the blanket.  Third: I haven't been that uncomfortable ever.  I rolled over every 30 minutes because that's how long it took for whatever body part my weight was resting on to feel bruised.  Sitting up to adjust the blanket I almost cried out because every muscle in my back felt cramped up.  Fourth: I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, which required traipsing around a dune through the freezing night and awkwardly positioning myself in the pitch black, no doubt making enough to be heard by anyone I awoke when I got up.  Fifth: I had to move the dog that found us yesterday at dinner because at some point he had laid down on the blanket and usurped all the space for my feet.

So I wake up shivering, sore and sleep-deprived (every time I had to roll over I would wake up), and for about 15 minutes I just can't be bothered to leave what little extra warmth the blankets are providing.  Who would have thought I'd need my winter coat in the desert in India?  However, when we're finally able to drag ourselves shivering out of bed, we're rewarded with quite a large, interesting breakfast.  Toast, hard-boiled eggs, jam, tomatoes, chai, and fruit.  We sit and chat for a while, enjoying a small morning fire and giving the dog small scraps of food (although it seems that he's still pissed at me for moving him last night because he literally turns up his nose at the piece of egg and toast that I hold out for him).  Babu and the boys soon have our camp packed up, though, and before we're fully warmed up it's time to mount back up.

Yesterday, when we got back on our camels after the water-break, I noticed that my saddle was tilted a bit to the left.  It made riding pretty awkward, because without a stirrup it felt like I was going to fall off the side of the camel.  So I tried to shift my weight more to the right and lean over a little as well, which I'm sure you can imagine was a treat for my hips and back.  I didn't enjoy the afternoon as much because of this, and now that we're seated and setting out, I have a feeling this will be a problem again today.  But at least I've managed to shake my crabby, pre-dawn mood and I have to say that THERE IS NOWHERE ON EARTH I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW.  Seriously.  I feel amazing.  I've got this ridiculous grin on my face and I keep looking over at Marc, smiling like a crazy person, silently communicating either 'This is great!!' or 'I'm totally high, man!!' 

I couldn't care less about what message he picks up, though, because I'm in my own world here.  I've got my iPod on and am listening to my 'Take Me to India' playlist.  So far I've had Air, Andrew Bird, Badly Drawn Boy, Beck, the Beatles and as the uber-relaxing soundtrack to my ride. The sun is slowly warming me, there's a gentle breeze coming from the west, the desert is an infinite but inviting wasteland in every direction, and I'm riding a friggin' camel.  In India.  In December.  With two totally hot guys.  TOO FUCKING COOL.  There is no way I will ever find myself in this scenario again, so needless to say I am lapping it up like the cat who found the cream.  The only thing that is keeping me from being totally content is the saddle; it's tilted again and I'm starting to get a twinge in my left hip from shifting my weight.  And it's not going away.  In fact, it seems like it might be getting worse.  Oh, no...

While the first hour to hour-and-a-half of our ride this morning was one of the most peaceful and enchanting things I’ve done in India, the final two hours couldn’t have been more tortuous. I’m in serious pain here, wondering whether I’m doing serious damage to my left hip, fighting tears and taking little sharp gasps every now and then as needles shoot through my pelvis. At some point several months ago I developed a very slight ache in my left hip that would only show up during my long races. I’m fairly certain it’s due to the fact that I hate to stretch and typically go out running pretty cold. But whatever it’s from, today it is really flaring up. I’m trying really hard to ignore it, but the minutes are dragging on like hours and I finally tell Marc that I can only ride for 30 more minutes before I'm going to have to get off.  I force myself to hold back the tears and try to shift my weight to a more comfortable arrangement, but I can't find anything to do to make it feel better.

Twenty minutes later, it occurs to me that we ate lunch around this time yesterday and that there’s a line of trees creating a pleasant patch of shade a kilometer or so ahead. Aladdin says we’re stopping for lunch there, and I don’t think I would have been more excited if he’d told me I won the lottery. As my camel goes through the 3-point descent that I’ve finally figured out, I endure a last few spasms of pain. Getting off lights a fire in my hip and walking around with a straight face is barely possible. Have I pulled something? Knocked my hip out of its socket? Should I do some yoga when we stop? Maybe seeing a doctor is a better step.  Apparently the boys have acclimated to their camels because they say they're feeling fine.  Guess this is what I get for teasing them yesterday.  My poor camel flat-out collapses once I get off and I completely understand how he feels.  Here are the 'before' and 'after' pictures:

Babu lays out some blankets and says this is where we will be picked up by the Jeep again in a few hours.  He starts to make lunch and the three of us practically throw ourselves on the blanket for a rest.  Aladdin brings over some freshly cut papaya and I just tear into it.  The dark orangish/pink fruit is delicious and I have to stop myself from eating the rind as well.  Piece after piece after piece, oh man, it's the tropical taste of the beach I never went to this vacation.  After slice number 8, I decide to stretch my hip and go for a walk.  Hobbling away with my camera, I stop to take a picture of our camels vainly searching for grass in front of a distant hill.  There is another one of the stone markers that I saw yesterday, and for a brief moment I can hear the 'Indiana Jones' theme song as I fantasize that I'm the first person to discover it.  In my trusty Michigan hat, I think 'No doubt this is the key to finding the Shroud of Turin...but how am I going to keep it away from the Nazis?!'  Dun dun dun dun...dun dun dun...  I look around for Sean Connery, but my imagination isn't that good.

When I find my way back to reality and the camp site, lunch is ready and I sit down to enjoy the last batch of Babu's delicious chipati.  I must have eaten about five pieces before I'm full and the guys eat even more than I do.  Since we've still got a couple hours to kill, we all sprawl out on the blanket and open our books.  I'm loving the book Marc gave me, Shantaram; Marc's reading a John Grisham novel and Marco is reading a history book.  It's totally quiet and totally relaxing, except for one thing: the sun is getting higher and higher and hotter and hotter.  Slowly, piece by piece, we're starting to get rid of our warm sleeping clothes.  A sweater here, shoes there; eventually Marco's shirtless, I've changed into shorts and a tank top and Marc's in a wife-beater.  Eventually, Marco can't seem to take it anymore and goes for a walk.  Marc and I keep trying to slide the blanket into the shade, but it's futile; we're back to fighting sunburns (him) and sweat (me).

When Marco comes back from his walk, he mentions that there were some peacocks a little ways away and that I can probably find them if I walk along the treeline.  That's all I need to hear, so I grab my camera and head that way.  Soon enough I do see them, although they're incredibly skittish.  A male and two females are strutting around, but as soon as I move in closer than thirty feet they run around a bush and further into the woods.  At first I try to follow them, since I haven't been able to take a decent picture yet, but when I give up and turn around to go back I notice a small monument with a sidewalk running alongside it.  It seems like a tomb; there is fabric covering it, though, fluttering gently in the wind and giving me small glimpses of the marble structure underneath.  I'm arguing with myself about whether it's okay to take the fabric off for a photo when I hear shouting drifting down in the wind; I'm going to guess that the Jeep is here.  Well, I guess that settles that.  By the time I get back to our picnic site the car is loaded, so I hop in and we roar off to the hotel.

It's only after we're on the road that I realize I royally screwed up: I never took a picture of myself on or with my camel!!  What the heck was I thinking?  In fact, I barely have any photos of myself the entire time, despite having taken a dozen of the guys.  I'm sure at some point in my life I'll have another chance to ride a camel (this wasn't my first experience, anyway), but it would have been nice to show people (i.e. mom).  As soon as we arrive back at the hotel, we say goodbye to each other and go to our rooms for showers and a nap.  We're all utterly exhausted and agree to meet up later to get food.  Unfortunately, the hot water isn't working any better than it was before, so I keep it as short as possible--fighting flashbacks to the horrors of last night--and read a while.  You couldn't pay us to leave the hotel tonight, so we meet at the rooftop cafe to eat and watch a so-bad-it's-good movie with Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas. In short, it's a really chill evening spent in the company of good friends while enjoying good food.  It's the perfect way to end an exciting but exhausting few days, and if there was any doubt left about whether I should have come to Jaisalmer or not it's definitely gone now.

Nothing clears up a cold faster than being around 2 cute boys

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All right!!  It’s 8am and I’m up, at ‘em and eager to get out of the hostel.  Apparently that label-less cocktail of drugs cleared out my system very well because my headache and fever are gone, there’s a hell of a lot less pressure in my sinuses and I can walk up the stairs to the front desk without wheezing or stopping!  Today I will be the queen of small victories if I can feel good enough to make it from the dorm up to the restaurant, from the hostel to the touk-touk, from the touk-touk to the fort, from room to room in the fort into another touk-touk, a restaurant, and back to the hostel.

I don’t think I’m going to take any more of those pills, though, because quite honestly it scares me that there’s no brand or label on the packet and because I was tripping balls by the end of last night but without the pleasant feelings that normally go with it.  Just to illustrate how bad I thought it had gotten, I sincerely thought I hallucinated the guy who moved into the dorm while Marco and I were at dinner last night until I woke up and he was sitting on his bed stroking his long, wiry beard, staring at the wall and rocking gently back and forth.  Now, while I’m glad I wasn’t off-my-rocker high last night, part of me wishes I had dreamed up someone this bizarre.  This guy was two feet away from me the whole night while I slept…

When I run upstairs (I can run again!) to ask about laundry services, I find a definitely un-creepy guy: Marc!  Perefct!  And he’s already had an interesting morning himself: the train arrived at 4am, at which point he came to my hostel and asked to stay in the dorm; they said it was full (blatant lie, by the way, there are 2 empty beds down there); he went to the other hostel I had considered; also told it was full; has the touk-touk take him to a random hotel then argues down the exorbitant, couple hundred rupee bill demanded by the driver.  I’m not surprised that he’s finished his breakfast by the time I get dressed and get up to the café; ridiculous Indians make me surprisingly hungry, too.  I guess my stomach knows getting some of their good food in me will automatically make me willing to deal with them for another couple of hours.

I introduce Marc and Marco, who almost immediately alienate me from the conversation by talking about cricket, living in London, traveling for long periods of time and countries they’ve been to but I haven’t.  Thanks, guys.  But no worries, I’m having loads of fun drinking the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted and picking onions out of my tomato omelet (where the hell did those come from?).  Although to be honest, I’m pretty content to listen to them talk because their accents are easy on the ears.  Marco’s got a very smooth, polished, well-bred English accent that makes me picture the rolling hills of the British countryside.  Marc’s voice, on the other hand, is more of a drawl that’s bright but a little rough and brings to mind sunny weather and beers on the beach.  I may or may not smile into my omelet every now and then when one of them says something in a way that’s particularly, albeit inadvertently, sexy.  Eventually, I force us all to bring our attention back to the guide book and we discuss the short list of sights.

We decide to head to Mehrangarh fort, Jodhpur’s finest attraction.  We cram into a small touk-touk, in which the driver somehow found the room to stuff decorative chrome, pleather, stickers and dashboard ornaments.  Our little car struggles with, but eventually takes us up, the 400 foot hill that the fort sits on, overlooking the Blue City.  Three hundred rupees is a pretty steep entry price, but the fort is huge and the views of the city alone might be worth it.  As we listen to the audio-guide and wander from room to room, I casually bounce back and forth between Marc and Marco, enjoying hearing how their reactions to things are similar or different.  The colors of Rajasthan are of course on display in every room, as is the wealth of the Marwar line: gigantic elephant howdahs (seats); gold and silk palanquins (shoulder carriages); knives, swords, rifles and daggers; throne rooms; miniature, hand-painted masterpieces of art; ornately painted courtyards; jewelry and heavily embroidered silk saris and turbans.  I doubt the bats sleeping on the ceiling of one of the stairwells are antiques, though.

When we leave the museum and walk further up to the walls of the fort, we’re rewarded with incredible panoramic views of the blue-washed buildings that lay hundreds of feet below us.  Far off in the distance, barely visible in and tantalizingly hidden by the ever-present smog, sits the gigantic palace I intend to visit tomorrow.  Further along the wall, past the cannons, sits a white temple with lines of colorful flags blowing in the wind.  Despite the idyllic situation of this rather small temple, Chamunda Devi has a bloody history: last year 250 people were killed and 400 more injured when worshippers, during a Hindu festival, stampeded into the temple when it opened.  The scary thing is that I can picture this happening; rides on trains and buses as well as visits to temples and stores have shown me that Indian people enter and exit almost everywhere the same way: through force.

At this point I think we’ve seen every part of the fort we can possibly see, from the cannonball dents that Marc doesn’t quite believe are all from cannonballs to the throne they use to crown each maharaja (the current lord was crowned at the age of 4 on the death of his father).  We take a short walk down the hill towards town to see Jaswant Thada, the memorial to maharaja Jaswant.  This large, white marble cenotaph has a good view of the city and fort, but, after 3 weeks of seeing so many similar structures, is just another white marble cenotaph and I can’t be bothered to take my shoes off to see inside.  Besides, the grass under the shade of a tree is calling me to sit and rest and stop pretending that I’m not getting tired from all of the walking.  Soon enough Marc confesses he’s tired, too, so we go get veg thalis for lunch.  These are basically sampler platters: a large silver tray with naan/roti/parantha in the middle surrounded by several little cups of different foods.  I chose dhal, veg curry, boondi raita, jeera rice and a few other veg mixes I can’t remember the names of anymore.  Not the greatest I’ve had, it tasted like cheap ingredients, but the dessert was like an Indian take on a donut and not bad despite being served sitting in sugary water.

The boys have errands to run so I’m going to take a nap at the hostel then get back online.  I sleep well for a couple of hours –actually a good hour longer than I intended—but have trouble finishing what I wanted to do online.  It takes me an incredibly long to type up a blog post for a day, sometimes 2 or 3 hours!  When I started to feel sick about a week ago I got off-track and didn’t have the energy to put down what had happened for several days.  I have spent all of my spare time yesterday and today making up for it, but I’m finally finished.  And what’s even cooler is that I was able to upload a photo album for my Delhi shots onto Facebook!  I’m not sure why, but it really feels incredible to know that I’ve finally been able to share SOMETHING from my trip.

But all too soon I’m out of time for the internet, again.  Marc has bumped into a couple of girls he knows from home (how that happens in India is beyond me) so Marco and I are going out to dinner by ourselves.  The restaurant is on the roof of a very nice haveli that has been turned into a hotel.  Marco, all class, is impressed by the large brass knockers on each door and decides to try one out before dashing up the stairs.  Very mature.  But he manages to keep a lid on his inner ten-year-old and we have a nice candle-lit dinner looking up at the fort—oddly not lit up—and Jaswant Thada, glowing an incredibly bright white from the floodlights around it.  I decide to try a lemon honey lassi (the real chunks of curd made it like drinking very watery, thin, sweet cottage cheese, in a good way) and govind gatta.  This is the dish that kicked my ass when I had dinner at Ambrai with Marc in Udaipur, but I’ve made them promise to keep it mild so I can actually taste it this time.  And despite my suspicions that it was better at Ambrai, it’s quite nice, as is the company at dinner and on the slow walk home.  Marco likes to tease, but I can give as good as I get and at least he leaves mocking my accent to my other favorite Brit, Bhavesh.

I’m sorry Marc and Marco are leaving me tomorrow; these guys have been a buoy of normalcy for me as well as amazing company these last few days.  It’s tough to know when you meet someone whether you’ll still be able to stand them hours later and I’m really glad we seem to get along so well.  Although, I guess I should have expected it because over the whole trip I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that 99% of the people I’ve met have just been incredibly cool.  If you think about it, though, most people traveling the world alone and on the cheap probably have similar interests and personalities and thus would make good friends.  Shared traits of the poor world traveler: can stand a certain amount of physical and mental discomfort; like to try new things; extroverted and adventurous; have a solid sense of humor and a lot of common sense; laid-back, level-headed and flexible; can always find something to entertain themselves; curious about the people and things around them.  Does this sound like you?  Then you would probably do fine traveling the 2nd and 3rd world alone.

And alone is definitely what I will be tomorrow, but that’s okay, I’ve got work to do.  I’m going to update my blog and finally ADD PHOTOS!  I’m excited to share the images I’ve been capturing so that people will finally be able to see exactly what I’m talking about in my posts.  Any skill you see, though, is due to my kick-ass camera, not any skill of my own.  Hopefully you can enjoy them, anyway.  Signing off from Jodhpur.  G’night.

Eleven days left, an auspicious number to be sure

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All hail Rajasthan! In the Land of Kings (at least in their own minds), everyone is vastly proud of their state, a sentiment repeated to me about a thousand times today. Aishani isn’t in the cabin when I wake up, but her aunt and uncle help me make sure I get off at the right station. I’m sorry not to see her round, baby-ish face (she’s adorable), but I’m not sure how to communicate to her family that I’m sorry I missed her and will remember her for a long time, so the sentiment goes unsaid.

As I exit, it occurs to me that this is the quietest station I’ve ever seen. People aren’t pushing and shoving, they’re waiting their turn. There are men with signs trying to pick up guests of their hotel. The rickshaw tout who approaches me is so quiet I don’t even hear him the first time, and he quotes me the price my hotel said I should expect to pay. As we drive through the street, almost no one is “horning please” and whole streets are empty. I’m sorry, did we leave India somehow?

When I walk into Hotel Udai Niwas, I’m welcomed by the manager with a cup of chai (this drink will never get old, I swear) and he describes the range of rooms he has available, starting with 1000 and a great view and going down to 300 next to the reception desk. I choose the latter, but since they haven’t cleaned it yet I go upstairs to eat breakfast on the rooftop café and wait. The restaurant has 3 terraces, one above the other. The bottom two have benches, pillows and pretty lanterns while the top level is an open-air eating space with a killer view.

Ohhhhh, man. A girl could get used to this. The panorama of the lake and city is romantic and beautiful. The houses around are called havelis, and for a second the stippled contours they give the horizon remind me of Greece. The lake is only about half full, but what’s there gently washes up against the city banks and lake palaces and gently rocks the boats that glide along the surface. Directly in front of my seat is the enormous City Palace and far in the distance, on top of a mountain, the Monsoon Palace gives only hints of its grandeur through the haze.

I spend a good while on the rooftop talking to a couple of Brits who have just arrived as well. They’ve stayed here a few days and plan to go horseback riding and trekking into the mountains on top of the typical touristy activities and I feel a twinge of jealousy again for people who either have more time to spend in India or are better able to narrow down their agenda than I am.

Udaipur is the only city I’ve been to in this country where air quality and visibility improve as the day goes on. In the morning there was the same layer of hazy smog that blankets every other city, but by noon you can see for miles across the lake. The shine of the sun on the water is blinding, and every time I catch a glimpse of a view I can’t help but smile. In the middle of the Rajasthani desert this is a beautiful sight; I have always been happiest when living near water and Udaipur is like a shot in the arm.

Yes, I reallllly like Udaipur.

Not just for the scenery, though, but also for its architecture. The havelis are typically white-washed and decorated with paintings, colored glass and other bright touches like colorful shutters. The laundry hanging out the windows like banners add even more. But white isn’t the only paint they use; the buildings are a multitude of gentle hues of blue, purple, green and pink. Overall, they’re in much better shape than the buildings in other cities, and there’s very little construction going on; it’s kind of sad that this is one of things I notice as I walk around.

One thing you also pick up on as you wander the narrow lanes of Lalghat neighborhood is that there are a lot of artisan’s shops with handmade crafts like shoes, toys and marionettes, cards and paintings, journals, shawls and tapestries, home goods…it goes on block after block after block. There are also some amazing contemporary art galleries and impressive modern tailor shops, showing that this city caters to wealthier clientele than others. There are art and cooking classes, and I wander into one of the many European bakeries that line the street, Café Namaste. I order a piece of date and walnut pie, and try to stretch the pleasure for as looooong as I can. Oh, god, it’s warm and delicious and I think I will have to come back tomorrow.

I am getting spoiled in Udaipur.

Udaipur continues to blow your mind as you walk through the City Palace, its museum, and the neighboring temple. Inside a stunning courtyard with several (working!) fountains, you can lie on the grass, look at more handicrafts, eat at the outdoor café, book a boat ride (can’t wait for that) or people watch. The museum is an endless maze of beautiful paintings, colorful glass mosaics, brightly-hued and richly decorated rooms, narrow staircases, balconies with views of the lake and slightly-creepy mannequins and fake horses. I haven’t had this much fun in a museum since I was a kid! Seriously, I’m practically running from room to room to see what craziness the Mewar family came up with next!

Oh, man! And there’s ANOTHER beautiful view of the lake! I don’t know if I can leave!!!!!!

After I’ve worn myself out in the museum and gotten a snack at Café Namaste, it’s starting to get a bit late in the day. I want to go to Sunset Point further south on the lake to watch the sun go down and I need to start heading that way. When I arrive I find there are benches looking out over the lake and I’m happy to sit a while, snap a few photos and people watch. A father and his two sons get on a camel that’s been sitting nearby and another little boy gets a donkey ride. Kids play on the slides and jungle gym in the nearby park.  A group of elderly people poses for a photo in front of the lake. Couples hold hands and watch the sun go down. It’s quite relaxing here.

Eventually, though, it’s time to go and I reluctantly head back towards my hotel. On the way I stop for dinner at the tiny Queen Café Restaurant. There I’m waited on by an adorably tiny old man (who’s great at getting you to buy more than you had planned on). His equally adorable and tiny wife is in the kitchen making things from scratch. I order stuffed tomato curry (filled with potato, cheese and mint), and even though it takes very nearly forever to arrive it’s delicious. Add to that butter naan, vegetable raita and a pineapple lassi and you’ve got a crazy tasty meal.

I never thought I would consider Daniel Craig the best 007. I need to stop watching old James Bond movies. This occurs to me at about 10pm as I’m suffering through the movie Octopussy after dinner at my hotel. Most of the movie is set in Udaipur and it’s cool to be able to watch it while I’m here. BUT IT’S JUST SO BAD. Roger Moore is one of my least favorite (and least convincing) 007s and it makes me sick that Indians who watch this movie get this kind of image of white women. But then again my cold is back to kicking my ass, so maybe that’s what’s going on. Whatever the reason, I basically run down to my room when the movie is over and fling myself into bed. This is the softest mattress I’ve had in weeks and I want to be on it as long as possible.

BTW: Since I completely forgot about this until recently, let me take a moment to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! I love you and can’t wait to see you soon! XOXO

Still in Rishikesh and very happy about that

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You know I’ve never been much of a fan of porridge, but for some reason I can’t stop eating it this morning.  It’s not even sweetened, but I’m wolfing it down like it’s nectar from the gods.  The woman serving the food gave me a funny look after my third bowl, though, so maybe it’s time to stop.  But hey, I have a big day today and I’m trying to get my calories.  Bhav and I are going for a really long walk to find a waterfall described in my guidebook, and since it’s up in the hills it’s going to be an arduous uphill trek (both ways, maybe?). 

As we pass through the city I notice that Rishikesh has a couple of things in common with the other cities I’ve visited.  First, the merchants tend to clean their stalls by whacking their goods with a handkerchief tied to the end of a stick.  More like subduing the dust rather than getting rid of it, they try to beat it into a thinner, less-noticeable layer on whatever they’re selling, be it fruit, CDs or clothing.  Secondly, every building, and this is only a slight exaggeration, is either falling down or undergoing construction.  On a given block I can count the number of completed, fully-functional, landscaped structures on one hand.  This helps neither the noise, image or dust-levels of India and it just gets depressing to see block after block after block.  I’m not sure whether India is on the verge of rising into a first-world country or collapsing into the third-world.

Once we head north of Laxman Jhula, the houses and stores disappear quickly.  It only takes a few minutes to walk to the outskirts of town, where it would appear the wealthier families live.  Another few hundred meters later we’ve left Rishikesh altogether and are walking through the woods with the Ganges far below on our left.  We’ve finally found some quiet and the views of the river are spectacular.  It’s a  cool, hazy day today, so it’s a comfortable walk and we chat about parents, work, relationships (we’re in our mid-20s, so what’s more important than that?) and spirituality.  Bhavesh is a chatty guy with a good sense of humor, and we seem to have a lot in common so he’s nice company.

After walking for an hour plus, a local tells us it’s still 3 kilometers on.  Bhav and I exchange looks signifying “screw it”, turn around and discuss photography until we get back to Laxman Jhula.  At this point we both decide we can’t possibly be expected to walk any further without a snack.  On our way out of town we passed a funky-looking restaurant called Little Buddha that was apparently modeled after a tree fort but nonetheless turns out to serve yummy (and warm) pretzels and cinnamon rolls.  Reading the paper, we also catch up on the latest news from America (Tiger Woods cheated on his wife) and India (9 students drown when their school bus crashes, warring families kill 11 people, children have cancer and deformities from the Bhopal gas leak, universities are horribly under-funded, etc). 

In the afternoon, as Bhav attends his harmonium lesson, Kim and I head to a yoga class for women at another ashram and it’s nice to see that I remember a great deal from my classes in Chicago.  But the instructor, an Asian woman living here as a sadhu (person on a spiritual journey), sure lets you know when you’re doing something wrong.  I don’t think she has the words to correct us, so she basically pushes/pulls/twists/yanks us into position; I’ve learned to brace myself for some serious tweaking when I see her wool socks coming my direction.  It’s a nice taste of what I’ll be learning during the yoga course, though; I’m sure that after ten days of this Bhav is going to be crazy flexible and in great shape, and I’m a little jealous.

To celebrate having forced ourselves to stay in this country for another day, I take Bhavesh for hot ginger lemon honey drinks where Holly and I went my first night in Rishikesh.  Upstairs we discover an open-air seating area with an amazing view of the river.  It’s freezing, but when you’ve got something tasty warming your hands and a good friend to talk to you just don’t seem to notice as much.

Leaving Amritsar without my shoes, but with nice memories

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I woke up at 5:15 to meet David for breakfast before he had to go to the train station, but it turns out all they’re serving is chai (not that you can tell based on the noise level—they’re still banging away on those dishes like an Indian version of Stomp). After he left I went back to bed for about 3 hours, enjoying the warmth too much to get up. When I do finally drag myself out of bed, I spend a few hours journaling and organizing my pack so I don’t even really leave the dorm until 11 or so. 

The free bus to the station is going to leave soon, so I grab a window seat next to a very quiet, but curious, woman. When I unzip my bag she pulls it over with typical Indian regard for personal space and looks in. “Camera!” she says. I smile and agree. When I pull it out to take a photo out the window she pulls my hands close so she can inspect it more carefully. I guess her grunt is approval of the photo I took. Also on the way to the station: a billboard advertising for the Mr. Singh competition. That’s right, it’s a Sikh pageant for men! The photos are of a couple of pissed-off men in turbans and wife beaters with giant black beards and tufts of chest hair poking out; one other guy is in full sardar dress with a sword. I would go to that even if it were all in Hindi—it looks awesome!

We all push and heave our way out of the bus and I start walking towards the Mata Temple (which I think means Mother Temple). And now we get to another one of my favorite things about India: this is the first time I have seen a temple modeled after a funhouse. You walk up and down ramps, crawl into a “cave” (representing a divine mouth), wade through water, ring the bells, admire the murals of colored glass, pat the silver lion below the gold flag with a swastika on it… I can absolutely see this rolling into the county fair back home. As I walk past an altar, a priest calls me over and puts a large necklace of flowers over my head as a blessing and gives me a handful of raw sugar crystals to eat. So much for losing weight in India. This is a hoot.

I walk along the street for a while, thinking that Ram Bagh (a large park) is close enough that it isn’t worth haggling with another touk-touk driver. This gives me a chance to see more of the real Amritsar, away from the temple. It’s amazingly polluted and surprisingly dirty for a small town, and I think it’s safe to say the traffic is worse than in Delhi. But the people are nicer; they’re more apt to help if you need it and the vendors are less pushy and leave you alone if you say you aren’t interested. Overall, I’m enjoying Amritsar a lot more than Delhi, so far.

Ram Bagh is entirely uninteresting. A dirty park with very little greenery to speak of, I leave after about ten minutes and catch a cycle rickshaw to Sri Durgiana temple, my last stop before I return to the Golden Temple complex. It’s billed as the Hindu version of the Golden Temple, but I would describe it as more of a knock-off: it’s smaller, dirtier, and poorly constructed. I’m sure my guide books are telling me the best of Amritsar, but they also manage to make these places sound about 10 times more exciting than they actually are. All right, I give up. I’m going back to the complex to see one last sight before taking an afternoon nap and getting dinner before my train.

Jallianwhala Bagh is a park and memorial dedicated to the hundreds of Indians killed by British troops in the 1930s after they had gathered to peacefully demonstrate for independence. It is here that I start to get emotional again as I think about the injustice of the situation. Thousands of scared Indians were trapped in an empty space between buildings with only a couple narrow alleys to use as exits with soldiers firing thousands of rounds from the walls above them. Several jumped into the well and drowned trying to escape the gunfire. This is the main event that inspired Gandhi to start his campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience. I'm happy to see the memorial remains well-maintained and is being visited by dozens of Indians.

I kill a few hours eating dinner, getting online, backing up my photos onto my hard drive and walking through the temple complex one last time (still on the look-out for the person who stole my shoes, too). And suddenly it's time to leave Amritsar. The last two days have absolutely flown by and I wish I'd had more time not only in this peaceful city, but with the new friends that I've made. Oh, well, they'll be on Facebook.