Jan and Ellen's Adventures in India!

We had a 6 hour train ride to Ajmer, and then 45 minutes to Pushkar. What can I say about Pushkar.... This is very holy city for Hindus. The temple of the God Brahma is located here. Again, this city is surrounded by mountians, with large lake in the center. There are many ghats around the lake. These are like platforms around the lake and are used for devotions and religious bathing. You can walk around the lake but you can not wear shoes. We walked down to the temple of Brahma, removed our shoes and saw many Hindus giving offerings of sweet candies and flowers to the priest there for his prayers for them. This is very important for Hindus and they do make special pilgrimages there. Otherwise the city is very touristic. We had a fun camel ride through the town , we stopped to rest the camels and had some chai. That night we all had dinner at a farm house with a local family. There were many dishes of traditional indian food, some very spicey! Lots of naan. Rice pudding for dessert! We even had beer that was snuck in, as alcohol is forbidden in Pushkar! Best of all it was my birthday, and there was a real birthday cake, which we shared with the family members. Great fun!
The next morning we had to head to the train station at about 6pm, for our overnight train back to Delhi! That was a trip! 6 berths in a cabin. You share your cabin with the Indian families. I don't really think anthone slept that well. There were lots of early morning cell phone calls! We arrived in Delhi about 5 am and headed to our hotel. Well we covered a huge amount of territory in a short time! It was great! Learned so much about the Indian culture, and popele, ate lots of great food, and travelled with a bunch of nice people! Waiting for the next 14 hour plane ride!

We were lucky enough to stay two whole days in Udaipur. This city is called the "venice of India", it's beautiful! The city is surrounded by mountains, with a huge lake in the center. Centered in the middle of the lake are two hotels, the Lake Palace and another, I cant remember the name right now. Anyway, one was built on an island, and the other was actually constructed in the lake. Of course, they weren't always hotels, they were summer palaces for the marharajh and his family. The streets are loaded with great shops and restaurants. The city is a bit touristic because it is such a great destination. Actually, Shakira was performing one of the nights we were there at one of the lake palaces. This was arranged by a very rich business man. SAdly, we didn't get invited. That night we had dinner at a rooftop restauarnt and couild hear and see the lighting and festivities going on from there. There were lots of lights, and a huge floating swan, and giant colorful ballooons floating above the palace!

Being it was a great place to shop, we did, at the local market. It was fun! We also attemded a cultural dance show. The performers were amazing. One woman danced with a few metal pots on her head to start, and finished with about ten pots on her head! NO, she didn't drop a one. The costumes were beautiful, lots of bright colors, and many sequins which sparkled in the light. The performance was held in a very old building which opened to the outside, so this added to the atmosphere of the dancing. It was great!

Every city had its palace and this was the best! Huge, lots of marble, beautiful rooms, lots of mirrors, inlaid tile, and the royal family stills lives a half. Quite amazing. That evening we took a cable car up to the top of a mountain. There is a hindu temple up there, but we went for the beautiful view of Udaipur, it's surrounding mountians, lakes, and the sunset. We all really enjoyed Udaipur, and could have stayed longer!

Well, its been a while since we blogged. There was really no reliable access to internet or we were just too tired, or busy to type. Actually getting ready to head home, so I'm back tracking!

After, camping we headed to Castle Bijaipur. It really is a castle that was owned by the Maharrajh and is still owned by the same family. Of course, we were greeted with the traditional crysanthmum lais and a drink. The rooms were beautiful. All marble, expansive bathrooms, and the grounds were lovely. They had a very large garden, with citrus papaya, and many rose bushes. The was also a nice pool, which we had dinner around that night. We took a village walk and left early the next morning.

Hello again! Trying to catch up again. This is a much better keyboard, so all errors I take personal responsibility for!

We stayed at very cool lodge near the Ranthombore Park. Lovely plants and foliage, dinner outside and some great drummers. We all loaded in a Canter, which is a large jeep, seats about 16 people. You ride to the park and try to spot the elusive Bengal Tigers. Unfortunately there are only about 35 left in that park. You drive around for about 3 hours, there are very strict rules and you must be out of the park by 5:30. We hadn't seen any tigers, but had seen some birds, lots of different types of deer, and crocodiles. The driver was heading towards the exit when one jeep drove by and said they had seen a tiger! Our driver turned around, hauled butt and drove like a madman to find that tiger! It was crazy fun! But, no tiger!
The next day we headed off to a town named Bundi. A great small town with a wonderful castle/ fort. It's famous for the wall paintings in certain rooms in the castle. Bundi is also known for its step wells. These were nothing like I pictured in my head! The step wells are huge underground water systems, they have lots of sculptures, elephants in particular and a very large stair case that lead down to the water. Very interesting architecture.
The next morning we were up at 6 to catch the local train to Bassi. There were a lot of soldiers on the train and they were very curious about the foreigners (us)! Taking photos of us , they wanted to see our money, wanted to buy us chai, all this communication without speaking each others language! It was great!
From the train we jumped on to some jeeps and headed off to our campground. The camping facilities were interesting. Very large tents with in suite bathrooms, they were situated on a huge lake, so there was quite a view. Some of us hiked up to fort, some of us just slept! Later we had dinner and drinks outside at sunset, sat around the fire pit and just enjoyed a quiet evening.
Just thought you all might like to know about our traveling companions. Our tour leader is Raj, a native Rajasthani, we have two young girls from Switzerland, a German guy, a couple from England, and 3 other Americans from the west coast. Overall, a nice group of people to travel with! Signing off for now, going to try to add some photos right now!

Hello to all! Working with a crazy keyboard! Lots of dirt dust. Key board sticky! Help!

So, we had a cool jeep ride through village to Rajasthaan Fort. this is a 500 yr old fort owned by a Maharagh. Before dinner we haddddddddddddd a village walk. Thre locccccccccccccccccal people were curious about the foreigners. The kids were really cute anddddddd were amused by the photos; we took of them. We had some chai and headed back. We had some warm beers on the; roof and watched the sunset. Got cleaned up with cold showers, then dinner. We had a great dinner with traditional mussssssssssicans! The ladies all dressed up in Saris and the guys; wore turbans. The power went off a few times, but all was good. It was lots of fun!

Next was a long ride to Jaipur. First stop was the Amber fort. It was beautiful and had a huge wall that reminded us of the Great wall of China, There were elephants in the courtyard that the tourists could ride. We didn't. We had a guided tour thru the palace, it was very interesting. We headed off to our hotel, a heritage hotel that was lovely. After we settled there we headed to the bazaar. The bazaar sells everything and everyone was shopping. We went to the lassiwalla and tried lassi's that were served in clay cups. Yummy, it's a drink made of yogurt and sugar. The next day we went to the old City Palace. The palace had a nice display of clothing that belonged to the royal family and a great collection of weapons. Later, we walked about 3km got a little lost and found the home of Jaipur's most famous potter. His wife and daughter still run the pottery shop and we bought a couple of small pieces. The most fun, was our trip to the Raj Mandiv theatre. We got to see RA-one! A bad bollywood movie starring India's most famous star- Sharouq Kahn (sp?). It was great fun! We will catch up later, this key board is killing my fingers!