South Africans in India - Part 1: Mumbai and Rajahstan

In 2010, for the Summer, I went with my girlfriend Aurora to India. I've always been interested in the country, and have never been to the Asian continent. Aurora had been to Thailand and China, and was excited to go with me to India. We're both pretty dirty hippies, and I figured we'd probably survive the trip physically. We bought the tickets in June, leaving on Oct 10, and coming back Jan 21. Along the way, we broke up every now and then, but usually there would be no way for Aurora to get home without me, and she would change her mind :)

India is a hell of a country. I mean that in all positive and negative ways. I recommend the experience to anyone, but it is tough. It is a land of extremes and contradictions. They have a booming economy, but more poverty than sub-Saharan Africa. They invented the kama sutra, but follow strict Victorian prudishness. Cows are holy, but basically neglected. The spicy food isn't very spicy. There is more traffic than anywhere on earth, but it accommodates everyone. The famous spirituality of India is nowhere to be found but in your own commiseration with the situation. It's beautiful and filthy, in turns.

I think this picture is a good metaphorical introduction to travel in India. I expect you're all familiar with concepts of surfaces, depth and light:

This trip journal is more or less transcribed from notes, so it has lots of rubbish about the price of cheese and accommodation. But I suppose it is good info if you want to go yourself.

I present... an impossibly long 100 days of India, distilled through the decidedly thrifty aspirations of South African travellers.

Mumbai

Day 1

Aurora and I arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) with a booking for Hotel New Bengal, just 500m from Victoria Terminus, or VT or CST (an impressive 'British Raj' era gothic train station deep in the south of the peninsula). We thought we'd be brave and do a complicated 2 part journey in rickshaws and trains, and save some rupees, but then it was raining, and we got a prepaid taxi.

My first encounter with the locals was when we left the airport, then seeing that it was raining, turned around to go back in to arrange the taxi, and two big men with machine guns stopped me. I somehow convinced them to let me through, with a display of confidence and bewilderment, and skilful repetition of the word 'taxi'.

It was Rs480 to go about 35km ($0.15 = R1.00 = Rs6.60) in a taxi. We gave a guy who lifted our bags 10 rupees, and apologized for not having the English coins he craved.

Almost immediately a child wearing nice clothing clung to our window reciting a rehearsed script aimed at winning candies. We chortled at how persistent she was, and gave her nothing. Hoo boy, I thought, this being our first beggar within a few minutes off the plane.

The drive back was our first vision of Indian driving, and we were not expecting it to be so bad. You hear stories, but you still think in terms of bad drivers from home, cutting you off, turning into your lane. These guys make South African taxi drivers look like Morgan Freeman drivin Ms. Daisy! They seem to drive by natural selection, having learnt their driving skills by playing GTA. Road markings are mere suggestions, and India could save millions of rupees if they just shut off their traffic lights, since they are not used.

But that said, there were no scratches on the vehicles, despite 2-inch driving proximity. To be honest, I didn't know if they were driving really poorly or really well. I still don't know. The drive went by people sitting under tarps looking poor, guys pushing great flat wheelcarts, cows in the road, and rubbish everywhere.

Hotel New Bengal was pleasant enough. It was a notoriously cheap hotel for Mumbai (Rs750 for a double), and though the room was dinky, and the bathroom was down the hall, it had 3 single beds pushed together, and a tv, and a fan. We were lucky it was raining because once it stopped, the next 5 days in Mumbai were the hottest sweaty armpit days of our lives. It must have been 100% humidity, if that is possible. The atmosphere had vaporized.

We walked around the block, got some cash from an Axis ATM, no problem, and we felt safe, with more than Rs50 on our pockets. We ate next door at a 'Pure Veg' restaurant, some sort of curry.

We slept from 2am until 2pm.

Rainy first day	Above Dr. DN road
Cute kitten	India traffic

We tried to organise SIM cards for our phones today, and were met with various bureaucratic impediments. We forgot our ID, first of all. We went back and ate at a Muslim shindig along the way. More curry. Mumbai food is cheap, by the way. We're talking Rs90 for more curry and chapati than healthy individuals should eat. In the north, you generally buy a curry, and some starch to go with it. Either rice, or one of the flat breads: chapati, naan, parotha, or roti. To be honest, I was disappointed with the hotness. We'd been training with chillies in our food in Cape Town. And nothing was habanero hot here. I kept a brief journal of things we ate, but gave up after the list was getting too long: Paneer Butter Makhani, Onion Rava Masala Dosa, Veg Jaipuri, Kerala Masala, Kolhapuri Veg, Aloo Palak, etc. I was going to try be vegetarian for the whole trip.

We went back to get the SIMs, but now we needed the details of our Indian contacts. So we got ahold of Aurora's friend, Ruheen, and finally, after nightfall, got our cell phones sorted out 5 minutes before the shop closed.

We went to try watch a bollywood movie that Aurora's friend was in (as it was partially filmed in Cape Town), called Crook. They told us to wait until the movie started. It was a bit surprising - um, the movie is starting, can we buy our tickets? - but it turns out they need 5 people to express interest in seeing the movie before they'll play it. We were the only ones. So, we walked across the road to the 'Mayfair bar'.

This was another bizarre experience. A strange karaoke style band sang along to great indian MIDI hits, while butlers escorted us to our couch. They poured our beers and refilled our niknak bowls. Kingfisher beer. Not bad. They sell 660ml bottles in India. In stores, they work out to be cheaper, but in restaurants, they are either the same price or more expensive than in South Africa.

There were about half a dozen 14-16 year old girls in short dresses who just stood around, staring at me and Aurora, and talking to each other. Some creepy man smiled like the Joker, raising his glass to me. We don't know what the point of the place is. Presumably you could pay to dance with the girls, or it was a brothel, we don't know. But it turned out to be a bit of a scam, since the beers were Rs300 each. We decided to never get beer again without asking the price beforehand. Bizarre.

We had some supper at the Pure Veg place next door again.

Victoria Terminus

My cellphone has been getting these Push messages. I did not know they could even do that. It just appears on your phone. Some ridiculous Bollywood or horoscope fill in the blank trivia message. It drained my phone battery. Aurora's hi-tec Samsung had some way of ignoring Push messages.

We woke up earlyish, around 10, and caught a taxi to the 'Gateway to India' for Rs50, in order to catch the ferry to Elephanta caves. We arrived at the tout stalls and brushed them away. Our trusty Lonely Planet said you didn't need to use a tout, and we were determined to work out how to get on the ferry by ourselves.

We found out it cost Rs130, so we went and had breakfast at a place called 'Falafels'. It was a pretty average falafel. It had this great franchisy feeling as though the chefs knew about hygiene.

Walking back to the Gateway (which is a big arch in front of a harbour, where Queen Victoria arrived some eons ago) we were bothered by 2 map salesmen, an aggressive giant balloon man, a holy string-bracelet man who asked for Rs200. I laughed in his opportunistic face, and gave him Rs20. Then a flower bracelet girl who insisted her flowers were free, but of course weren't, so we eventually had to throw it back at her, since she wouldn't take it with her hands. And I told the next guy who popped out saying 'Hello' with a look of eagerness, 'Sorry, I just want to be left alone', so he said 'Oh. Marijuana?'. Finally a guy tries to sell us a Rs50 Elephanta caves guide book for Rs130. "It costs 900 on the island!" Your mom costs 900 on the island. Fuck off.

The flower girl followed us to the last steps of the boat, probably hurt and just following us to spite us, since we treated her with such contempt. The conductor yelled at the girl to piss off, and finally we got on the ferry, and had that nice touristy feeling, knowing that no one wants to sell you anything for an hour.

We arrive and walk towards the caves. There are 500 steps up through 500 salespeople selling every trinkety Indian product you could ever imagine. I buy a hat for Rs90. It is pimping.

An aggressive red monkey steals a poor Japanese guy's Fanta bottle, growling as he jumps away. The Japanese guy's expression was priceless. There are monkeys masturbating, there are dogs licking themselves, it is wild.

We see the caves. It's pretty cool. Discovered by the Portuguese, it had all these carvings in caves made by Buddhists and Hindus in the 600-900ADs.

We take the ferry back, and walk home. We stop on the way at the Mumbai MOMA, see the modern art. Nothing special, and Rs250 for foreigners. Rs10 for Indians. Like every historical or cultural artifact in India, foreigners have to pay at least 10 times more than locals. It's a bit of a gyp, but well, I suppose South Africa has the same thing for national park fees. Though it's only 2 or 3 times more. Not 25 times. Someone left a note in the guest book, 'there are naked breasts in the paintings! children could see it! have you no shame?' by some man named Sameer. So I wrote 'Jesus grow up, Sameer' underneath it.

We check out a proper clothing store, which has A/C and almost South African prices. We leave and are tugged on incessantly by inordinately happy street children, all maybe 3 years old. They almost all ask for chapati, and make a hand to mouth gesture the same as when Italians are telling you to go fuck yourself. Their happiness continues unabated after we cross the traffic to get rid of them.

We walk up Fashion St, a never-ending row of stalls of average to poor quality dresses and shoes and cargo pants and sunglasses, every one thinking 'Come look sir' or 'Yes sir' will have a profitable effect on me.

We walk back to the hotel as sun sets, and eat a bit of food, but are hungry again, at midnight. We chat to this crazy muslim kid working at the front desk. I show him the Bollywood push-messages on my phone, he answers one of the trivia questions and laughs, and then clicks 'Ok' instead of 'Cancel'... damn it! He has sacrificed education for the chance to make some money in Mumbai. Anyway, where can we eat? He says the only place open is Zanaria, or something like that, a few doors down. It has a feeling of SA's Baghdad cafe mixed with Tiger Tiger. There's a shisha room with low couches, and a room where you sit in sunken booths with waiters walking up and down on a catwalk, with neon everywhere. It says 'Stylish Indianized Cuisine' and our measly meal of chips and drinks costs Rs320.

At least satisfied with a new experience, we go to sleep.

At the Elephanta Caves	Aurora and Shiva
Dan and Shiva doing the world ending dance	Island greenery
Some of the lesser caves

Woke at 8 with horrible mosquito bites, and slept again until 11am, then decided let's make a plan to get the hell out of Mumbai. We walked to CST (aka VT) train station and try to find out a way to get to Udaipur. We walk around, asking men with guns, who point in a general direction, and then ask the next one. And finally find the counter. But a random man says no, you should take a bus, and starts leading us outside into the horrible weather and chaos. We follow slowly, a bit unhappy that we didn't even make it to the counter, and then to a side street with hundreds of bus company booths. It is Rs1400/900 for AC chair/sleeper. There is an Israeli guy sitting on his bag, smoking a cigarette. I am too disgusted by the ground to consider putting anything I owned on it. It is 40 degrees and humid, and I just hope Aurora is making sense of what the man is saying. I notice that the flies will walk rather than fly.

We know the other option was Counter 52, the tourist counter, and finally find it, upstairs. They say to go somewhere else. We wander around aimlessly until the man who took us to the buses sees us and walks us there, annoyed than we stopped following him earlier. It turns out there is no direct train, and that a bus will be easier.

We walk into the chaos, and eat in some dingy business diner. We sit upstairs in a hobbits lair, and share a table with some businessmen. They all eat with their right hand only, and I find it a bit messy that way, so I make a burrito out of my food. I eventually learned to eat with one hand, but can I help it if the south americans had a good idea?

We walk through the street towards Horniman circle, a nice little park with people sitting on benches staring at you. We walked to the Oval Maiden, almost the Central Park of Mumbai, and watched a cricket game. We spoke to some orphans, or general street urchins for a while, trying out my Hindi phrase book on them. They were amused because we could ask questions but couldn't deal with their responses, and we shook all their hands. Then once gone, we doused ourselves in hand sanitizer.

We saw book sales. The official store had a book I wanted for Rs1350, which was the same price as in the US. Then an outside dealer had the complete works of Kafka for Rs20, but we opened it, and half the pages were unreadable.

We saw St. Thomas's cathedral, which had interesting memorial stones for various British soldiers who succumbed to all manner of disease and trauma while maintaining their loyalty. The stone floor and the fans made the hall almost cold, which is about as close to heaven as you get in Mumbai.

We tried to get into the University, but there was some phantom turnstile somewhere always out of reach. On each side, a person said it was on the next side. We walked entirely around the building, and then men with guns said no, and we gave up.

We go to the internet cafe, and look for better deals to Udaipur. The man behind us hears and offers us 1500 for a 14 hour bus ride. He is Muslim and all dressed up, and has an office, so we trust him, and decide to take the deal. We'll just go get the cash. But he is praying when we return, and then store closes, so we go home.

We watch the Dark Knight on HBO. My stomach turned, having ate a veg sandwich, chinese noodles and ice cream. But I was fine the next day. I proceeded with caution.

Cricket at the Oval Maiden	Action shot
Watching the cricket

We had to do laundry, so I forced myself awake at 9am, and dumped it all downstairs. They have a bizarre laundry system in Mumbai. All laundry goes to a central place, Dhobi Ghat, the world's largest laundry place, where poor men and women, happy to make some money dip your clothes in brakkish water and bash them on rocks. It is controlled using some numbered tag system. It works amazingly well, (and cheap!).

We walked to find Bus #103... But then saw McDonalds, and decided to try it out. We got the McVeggie Meals, mmm, it was dreamy. We'd just been eating Indian food, which all tastes the same after a few days. So it was a nice change to eat some mayonaise meal in bread.

We walked back to the hotel, booked our bus at the internet cafe, and walked back to the bus stop, round 2. We caught the #3 bus, which was equivalent to the #103, and got off in Colaba. It was so cheap! It works out to 5c in US currency, for a 20 minute bus ride. To be fair, it was packed over lawful capacity.

We got off in Colaba causeway, which is a bit nicer than the rest of Mumbai. It's still stalls and all, but more touristy. I bargained a persistent bongo salesman from Rs500 down to Rs250.

We ate at Leopolds, which I was keen to do, as it is the local hangout of the author of Shantaram. Honestly, it sounded a hell of a lot classier in the book. We ordered a pitcher of Kingfisher for Rs425. It arrived in a 1.6l dispenser.

Afterwards, the bongo man was still there, and I bought the bongo. I learned I could have got one for Rs150. But it was worth the Rs100 to tell the next bongo salesman to "go away, I already have one". (Not that this strategy works. Surely I must know other people who want a bongo?)

While getting a McDonalds ice cream, we were subdued by a man with a needle embroidery device, who showed how easy it was to embroider stuff, with his little device for Rs300. We talked it down to Rs50, then I pointed out how you could just pull it out. He refused to let me touch his display, but I managed to yank out some thread. He was then keen to sell it for Rs10, and as we ran away, he yelled Rs5! Rs5!

We went back for a nap.

Then in the evening, we headed out to Chowpatty beach by taxi. Seeing Chowpatty from the bay really gives you a sense that Mumbai is enormous. Chowpatty is basically a suburb, but it has more large buildings than Cape Town CBD.

The beach was packed with families and chai salesmen, and boys selling neon sticks and wind daisies, and balloons and samoosas. Occasionally loners sit near you and bask in your presense. Every minute you tell someone 'no'. After ten minutes, every salesman has tried a few times and you get some peace.

Reknowned for being an unswimmable radioactive beach, it was charming enough at night. We ate bhel puri, which is a vermicilli and onion chutney specialty. Supper for Rs20 is pretty damn cheap.

We walked past an outdoor play with thousands of people watching. Some sort of Bhagavad Gita tale reenacted for the illiterate masses. It reminded us of Dr. Parnassus's Imaginarium, step right up! step right up! Just the fact that there are thousands of people at the beach, at 10pm, was a bit strange.

We crossed the road over a bridge, and ate these things called a Kofti. We got the Pista and Chocolate Koftis. They are something like Astronaut's ice cream, if you've ever had that.

Then we decided on a place to have some drinks, called Ideal Palace. I felt a bit bad as here was a Jain man following us, with diseased teeth, asking for some rupees (Jains like this guy apparently live entirely upon the charity of others), and here we are, going into a place called 'Ideal Palace' and not giving charity because the man seems deranged. But a few screwdrivers and double rum and cokes, and we were over our moral dilemmas. There was a great clean ammonia smell to the place, and the Nepali waiter was grinning like a school boy. They had no idea what we ordered. But to save face, ran away and tried to bring us something. But we explained again and it worked out.

We took a taxi home, with some opportunistic taxi driver. He asked for twice we paid to get there, and we bartered him down to the normal rate, plus a tip for it being past midnight.

Chowpatty Beach	Bhel puri eatery, cheap!
Some Krishna play	Some other Krishna play
Mumbai	Mumbai decripitude
Against traffic	Old and new

We had the day to waste before our bus to Udaipur. So we had breakfast at Metro Cafe, a really nice eggy sandwich. We went to see the movie Robot, which was 3 hours long, and in an A/C theater. It was great. We got in 20 minutes late, and thought we were watching an Emirates commercial, as there was a man and woman dancing in sand dunes.

But it was part of the movie. It is really awesome if you want to check out a Bollywood movie. In fact, it's the only one I recommend. It has the biggest budget of a Bollywood movie in history, and stars Rajnikanth (the Chuck Norris of India), and Aishwarya Rai (like, the Jessica Alba or something). The CGI was awesome, and ridiculous.

We walked around aimlessly, from A/C store to A/C store. We saw shoes, and a 4 story mall. Big elfy pointed wedding shoes, and sarees. We bought pringles and a ripoff of Boggle. We got lost in Crawford market, which is an endless maze of people and trinkets. We got out and bought some cookies from a Jain bakery. It was so cheap, but I only got Rs20 of cookies. They looked dejected. But I thought it was Rs15 per cookie, not Rs15 per 100g. I was pleasantly surprised by how many cookies i got.

We went back to Metro Cafe, and prices had risen 20% since breakfast. I tried the Veg Makhana and Naan, and Aurora had the Veg cheese burger. Yum.

We called Udaipur, made some tentative hotel booking. Took a taxi to Mumbai Central, and sat for an hour. Better safe than sorry.

On the bus, we met a man named Harish, who was my age, but had 2 children. He was a Brahmin, so he was into all the Hindu superstitions. He explained very seriously about chakras, and that when I see the picture of some Yogi, I must look up focused into my forehead and it will cure any ailments I have. He believed it entirely, so I asked him about whether they had ever performed statistical analysis to determine the Yogi's healing rate. Not that he knew of. I was reading my book, The Lotus and the Robot, by Arthur Koestler, who examines Yogic healing claims scientifically, back in the 1950s. As you might imagine, the results were not in Ayurveda's favour.

Udaipur

Day 7

We woke up on the bus with Udaipur announced. We had 2 minutes to get out of our linen sheets and get our packs off the bus. We sat on the side of the road with our things, waking up, and putting on sunscreen, as it is already 30 degrees by 8am, though luckily none of the humidity of Mumbai.

One of the autorickshaw (tuk-tuk) drivers was respectful enough to wait for us without bothering us more than once, so we chose to go with him to our hotel. We were adamant about going to the Soni River Guest House, but he said it was being rebuilt, and he would show us his friend's place. His friend wasn't around, so he took us to another place, Hotel Kesar Palace. We were getting a bit weary, but then we saw the place, and it was Rs350 for a big room with en-suite bathroom, spotlessly clean, and the best view in town from the rooftop. Good enough!

Had an eggy breakfast and shower, and tried to find the boats. We ended up lost and at the Queen's Haveli museum (Bagore ki haveli), and had a guided tour, which was ostensibly free. He showed us how the Queen had a nice room, and how she could see out but others couldn't see in. She had miniature kama sutra paintings on her walls, and a place for the king when he was visiting. A big courtyard where people played music, and a room with some artist's magnificent styrofoam sculptures.

We learned that Udaipur was never conquered by the British or the Mughals, and so it is a proud place. The Mewar kings ruled for some thousand odd years, until Independence, when they were stripped of their power.

The Durga Puja festival was taking place, so there were endless processions of people with sound systems on carts pumping Hindi electronic prayer music. They'd get to the water's edge, then throw all the flowers in the water, and dunk effigies of Durga in the water. They outlawed the practice of tossing the effigy in the water just that year, because it was polluting the lake.

As I understand it, Durga is a goddess who is more or less indifferent to the world because of some nirvanic state, but still has a sense of humour. I think the guide said she is Shiva's wife, but Shiva's wife is Kali, (the one with those splayed arms in every direction), so it's one of those dual identity deals. Hindu folklore is replete with gods who are forms of other gods. There are some 1000 forms of Lord Shiva, but all with different names and identities. It is very confusing.

View from our Hotel Kesar balcony	Durga Puja in process
Udaipur main road	Aurora in Udaipur

We keep looking for the boat, but find the City Palace instead. It is a well impressive palace, but seriously the longest exhibit of our lives. After the first 2 hours, we were getting tired of chambers and ornate sitting rooms, and elaborate windows and courtyards, so we skipped the last bit.

Before the protection of species acts	Bird cages
Cool weapons	Horselephants!
Some old Haveli room	The windows were cool
The city view	The palace gardens
Some minaret thing	The doors were cool too
The garden decorations were elaborate	A view from the palace
Another window	The national bird
Artsy blur

We couldn't find anywhere to eat. The hotel restaurants had no staff. Just empty with no one in the kitchens. Eventually we ate at Cafe Namaste. There was a ridiculous parade going on, and we took part briefly, being sprayed with shaving cream. A man with a lion's head and a gun scared me considerably. Men in horse outfits pranced around jousting each other. The Electric Hindi Pop was blasting at 100 decibels, and all the locals were dancing. We were pretty lucky to see it. Aurora was almost blown up by a fire cracker, but wasn't, so it was all good.

He pointed it right at me, the bastard	Mmm flowers
Third eye	Shaving cream procession
Men in horse suits	The sunset

We went and took a shower to clean off the shaving cream, and watched the sunset on the roof.

Sunset left	Sunset right

Across the river, we found Burning Man India, with some 10-headed god being burned. Huge Americans stood around complaining about having to stand. One guy was really happy that we knew about xkcd, and general internet culture. Aurora liked the Danish people, and I was just zoning out, because it was taking an hour. We filmed it, and then some kids ran up crying about not getting to see it.

So I showed them on my camera, and the mom asked if I could copy it to her computer. Well, ok.

We saw a LP (Lonely planet) recommended eatery, but it was way too ritzy. We ate at the Food Club instead, which had good Indian fare. We got back before our 11pm curfew, and debated the merits of the curfew.

To be sure, there is not a hell of a lot to do past 11pm, anyway.

A building	More buildings
The Durga Puja festival closing	An effigy of some devilish character
It burned in seconds	And they lighted tom thumbs
And had some fireworks, yay!

Day 8

We had agreed with Foriz, the driver to meet on the roof at 10am. It was tough, but we made it. I paid him Rs500 for yesterday and today's tuk-tuk adventures. We got in, and headed to the top of a hill.

We then went to a cenotaph park. That is, 25-odd mausoleum structures. Each Mewar king would have one built after his death. But the size and grandiosity of the shrine was voted on by the Udaipur citizens, based on the positive karma that the man imparted. The current Mewar king has decided that he will not have a cenotaph, partly because there's no space left in the park, and partly because the age of kings has sort of passed.

Aurora in a cenotaph	Cenotaphs galore

Then off to a Jain temple... Then to Maharana Pratap Smarak Samiti hill... I liked how Maharana Pratap Singh apparently cried for his horse, Chetak, because it reminded me of Never Ending Story, when Bastian cries for Artex. Chetak!!! No!!!

I left for one minute to buy some chips, and the other tuk-tuk drivers started hitting on Aurora. When I returned, they asked 'Married?', 'No', 'Why not?' and I said, 'Um, we have different cultures', and tried to get on to the next sight. Indian men have it pretty bad. Traditional Indian women don't do sex before marriage, and Rajahstan is very traditional.

Artex! No!	A lizard
View from the hill	A lake dwelling
A cool bug	Ruined view
Bugs going at it	Another view from the hill

We had an amusing conversation with Foriz. He asked 'Are you Christian?', 'No', 'Do you believe in religion?', 'No', and then he said 'Good! Only one God - is everything!'. Don't think he picked up that we were atheists.

We stopped by at a science center behind some queen's fountain. The curator, who wanted good reviews in his book to keep receiving funding showed us around. He spoke to us like children and was always amazed when we knew everything about the things he showed us. 'Oh you know about mirrors!?'... 'Um, I took Modern Physics at university.'

The queen's fountain	Fun with mirrors
More fun with mirrors	Sign me up!

We then went to a clothing collective, but were not interested. We didn't want to buy anything, and poor Foriz made no commission. Then he took us to an artist school. Rajahstan is famous for its miniature paintings. You can see all around India paintings that are from the Rajahstani school of art. But again, we couldn't really care less. I took a look, because looking is free, so they say, and they said 'Ok, is there any you like?' 'um, no... how much is this peacock?' 'That's Rs1400'. 'No thanks'. 'Ok, how much are you willing to pay?'. 'Um, Rs200 maybe'. 'No sir, Not possible. Something higher'. It was really awkward actually. He said something like at least it's the price, and not because you don't like it. Well, ok, mister, if that makes you feel better.

As a final surprise, the guy from the beginning wrote our names on a grain of rice, and the man spoke of it as a special gift, and revealed it almost with an air of magic. He spelled my name 'Danial'. I wasn't impressed in the slightest, and left without giving a tip.

So we were taken back to the lake, and I was a bit miffed with Foriz. He left, and said we could see him at Lake Shore Hotel sometime. We stopped at the Little Prince cafe. We shared a Rajastani thali and pizza. It was great. Thalis are like little buffets, or samplers. You get a bit of everything.

View from Le Petit Prince	Close up of bridge
Guys chilling across the river	View on the lake

We walked to find the boat again. We found MM travels, but they were closed. But all the guys were just sitting on a boat, and they obviously worked there. It was possibly a racket to get tuk-tuk fares to the other boat stand. But we walked away, a full kilometer to the next boat stand. We had to run, because it was 4:59pm, and we had a minute before the boat left. We just made it. Rs300 each, but it is a sort of necessity.

We had a great little trip to Jagmandir Hotel/Island. It is a main set of the James Bond film, Octopussy.

Save the lakes!	View from boat
City Palace view	The lake hotel
Another view of the lake hotel	Side on view of City Palace
Surreal pigeons	View from Lake Palace
The romantic couple	The sunset
View from Lake Palace	View over the lake
Bird, moon, minaret	snake! snake!

We took a tuk-tuk back, and I bought a Big Lebowski painting that I wanted. It was really pretty special. The rug in the glasses DVD cover.

We went to Soul Meet for supper. Lots of mosquitoes, but a friendly father and son staff, and we had pretty cheap rum and cokes, and some pasta. It has a nice view too. We went for late beers at Lake Shore Hotel, before our 11pm curfew.

Day 9

We had a lazy day. We gave in our laundry, and checked out a place across the lake called Dream Heaven. We'd go there for lunch. We had breakfast at Cafe Namaste, omelette, sandwich, vanilla muffin, and apple crumble.

Then at Dream Heaven, had a coke, lemon juice, and cold coffee. It was hot. Like an oven. But something of this didn't work out well and my stomach started feeling strange.

We made plans to go with an Australian Chinese guy and a Danish girl, Andre and Jalalala (I forget), to check out Ranakpur the next day.

Me and my monocle	View from Dream Heaven
Cows on the main bridge	After being shooed
'Go stand by Auntie'	The sunset
Sunset zoomed out	Aurora turning zombie
Another lake, higher up

We read for a bit, and took a tuk-tuk to sunset point, since we were running out of day light. You paid Rs10 to get in, and it was a really nice park... We went to the 'Musical fountain'? It was no more enlightening when we saw it. We had pictures taken with some kids, whose dad said to go stand with Auntie.

We went to Ambrai for supper, and I felt suddenly ill. I went to the bathroom and threw up. I had ordered a very expensive Pepsi, and so we drank that and left. Aurora's shoe broke, and I'd fixed it with a paper clip this man gave me earlier, and he said he was a masseuse. So we went back to him, and he sat me down.

He did some sort of quick Ayurvedic treatment. He massaged the hell out of my forehead, and plugged his fingers way into my diaphragm, and then pulled on my toes, and made me snort some homeopathic Vicks vaporub stuff. He suggested a drop of lemon in our water. We politely thanked him, and bought a lemon, but then I just drank salt water and took Imodium. I don't know if the lemon was really going to do much. I was fine the next day, but we cancelled our Ranakpur trip anyway. We had a basic supper at the hotel, and met the British folk who we'd end up seeing in every city from then on, for the next month.

Day 10

Another very lazy day as I planned on recovering. We went to Hotel Hanuman Ghat, had an Israeli salad and nutella pancake. I was weary of the salad, but they peeled everything. I don't know if I mentioned it, but the water in India does not pass the Geneva conventions. It is not a fair weapon of war.

We met some French women, and decided to go with them to Ranakpur tomorrow at 9:30am. I spent the day in bed after that, while Aurora checked her email.

We went upstairs for sunset, and next door for one of our better meal choices. We watched Octopussy on an LCD TV. Almost every restaurant in Udaipur plays Octopussy every night. They used the streets and lakes for the Indian scenes in the movie. It really is a beautiful city. But the poor waiters must be gatvol of James Bond.

Day 11

The French women had a turn to be sick, but we decided we had to continue ourselves. Ranakpur and Kumbulgarh cannot wait! We had breakfast and met the driver. We drove through lots of villages, and the children all waved, or ran up frantically trying to sell obscure fruits. They actually seemed like townspeople in a foreign zombie film, desperately trying to get into the car to escape something called a 'rupee'. We bought a large cucumber thing, and an artichoke-like fruit, and then forgot them on the driver's seat. We waved our artichoke fruit at the rest of the children. Haha we already have one, suckers!

We went to Kumbulgarh Fort first. It had nice views, and lots of birds, and there were some great number of schoolkids in blue uniforms. We got Lays 'American sour cream' flavour, plus a grape juice to keep us alive, but were getting hungry.

Guy with goat on motorbike	Cow in road
Little river on the way	Little Jain temple near the fort
View from the fort	View from the fort
View from gate	Pointless stairs
The wall	Holy Aurora
Aurora in a box	View from the fort

We stopped at a buffet that the driver dropped us at. In a repeat of the Mayfair bar incident of 2010, we didn't ask how much it cost, and we were sorely cheated, at Rs300 each. I paid solemnly with a tip, as though it was normal, but from then on held a grudge against places without menus.

Windy ride	Some cool guy
Roadside view	Inside the Jain temple

We went to Ranakpur, a giant Jain temple. Only Indians, or possibly Jains, were allowed in the centre area, and no leather was allowed in the temple. It was very ornate, and had a stupendous number of columns. Something like 1000 columns.

Pillars	Ceiling view
Nymphy type	And another
More pillars	A wheel?
Strange ceiling creature	Pillars and Elephant
Me and the tree in the temple	Two women
A view from the temple	Elephant
Entrance to the temple	Monkeys
Some guys by the temple	Ghost-like woman
Sheeps	Huge Camels
Some cool hill	Stylised sunset

We got back with the sunset, and booked our bus for the next day. We ate at Cafe Jasmine, where we learned the secret of the Gulab Jamun. An amazing spherical ball of deep fried goodness with some ice cream.

We went home to read, but were distracted by music on the rooftop, while packing. There were Russian women in high heel shoes and miniskirts climbing in front, which is a rare sight for India. There was psytrance music, though not as psychedelic as expected, but the company was amusing. We sat with 2 German girls, Joe the Brit, and a couple from Australia. Joe was pretty funny - he was trying to cozy up to one of the German gals, and using his fear of the local dogs as his alibi. He friend had just been attacked, and was being treated for rabies.

Are you going to Ranakpur tomorrow? "Nah, my friend is probably dead, don't know where we're going".

When the Aussies left early, and dogs howled, he said "You hear that?! it's the flying dogs! They're dead now".

There was seemingly no limit to the absurdity of variations of malevolent dogs in Udaipur. It was the full moon.

It was also a double birthday, and they had a bottle of Smirnoff. Our malaria med, Doxicyclene, has the effect of enhancing your alcohol experience to near hallucinogenic levels, so we were a bit more smashed than usual, and any attempt to sleep was met with the somewhat silly "But it's a double birthday!"

We got to bed by 3am and got up with the alarm at 6:30am. Jesus.

Jodhpur

Day 12

We took a rickshaw to the bus (from now on, i'll refer to autorickshaws as rickshaws). And took the bus to Jodhpur, from 8am to 3pm. We went through the largest expanse of marble countertops I have ever, and will ever see. Describing it does no justice. But I wouldn't be joking to say it went on for at least an hour.

I can't explain how much marble I saw	Pure for sure

We slept a little, and spoke to a California couple with fun opinions, including voting yes on Prop 19, and considering Arizona to be some kind of fourth Reich. They were also on a 3 month trip. Unfortunately when we arrived in Jodhpur, we were separated.

Getting off the bus in Jodhpur was one of the most traumatic experiences of India. We were assaulted by about 10 rickshaw drivers. Men grabbing our bags and pulling them away. We had to yell at them and fight for our possessions. I scanned them all and found a guy at the back who seemed not to be attacking us, and followed him. Immediately one of the other drivers hopped on our rickshaw to show us his place. We said ok, we'll just look. The room was Rs400, and it was huge, and characterful, so we took it for a night. It was a heritage haveli, so it was old.

It had an industrial size fan which seemed to do nothing but whirr. It just pumped hot air around the room. We went out to find a new place for the next day, and stopped in at Prakash's Sunrise Guest House. I saw the room, and Prakash asked how much I'd like to pay. Strange. I said, well, it's probably worth 150, but it's nice, so maybe 200. How about 180? And he said Ok. So we booked for the next day. That was a seriously cheap room. Incidentally, the cheapest we had in India. We had opportunities to take some 150s along the way, but they usually had a strong smell or no fan. This one had dolls hanging from the ceiling, and was not infested with vermin.

We saw the market, and took a walk down a side street. We weren't bothered much. Then returning to the market, it was just so filthy I felt like I had to leave. There were flies everywhere. I don't know how people get away with selling sweets that are covered all day long with flies. Some guy explained something about spices and showed us his shawl shop, and he didn't mind that we said we wouldn't buy anything. Just look! OK we're looking! Fuck off!

Wandering around at night, some douchebag said he was a student, and was talking about how old some building was that we were looking at, and then suddenly, walk this way, oh here is my shop.

We went for a hell of a long walk down a main road, past stalls selling every thing in the world we didn't want. Some old guy wanted me to take a photo of him, and swop hats. Aurora freaked out, cause he might have lice. We went as far as the road had stalls, and then took a rickshaw back. The guy had a blue light and pumped Hindi music really loud for 10pm. The blue light signified something about being a drug dealer or pimp, but I forget.

Cows chillin	Sunset in Jodhpur
View from our table	Some sort of thing
Our haveli room	The fort lit up
The view at night	Some wall in the city
Some odd guy

Day 13

We woke up early at 8:40am, packed and walked over to Prakash's Sunrise guest house. Said we would sleep a bit, and woke up at 11:40am. We had a great breakfast upstairs, and tried out the saffron lassi. That is a quality yogurt beverage, mmm. The wooden beam above me was drizzling wood shavings on me, and I looked for the cause. A wasp was being metamorphosed and ejected out of a cocoon in the wooden beam. I saw the mother wasp behind it - huge!

Sunrise guest house was special. Prakash had been a B-list Bollywood actor, who starred minor roles in a few films when he was younger. He made enough money to buy this house in Jodhpur, and he put 6 or 7 model photos of himself on all the walls. He had a mural of himself upstairs, which was missing an eye. Terminator Prakash 1000.

It was born in front of my eyes	Prakashinator 1000
Chillin squirrel	Prakash, our guesthouse patron
Prakash	Prakash
Prakash	Er, yeah, Prakash
The original blue city	View from Fort

We booked the train to Jaipur for tomorrow, forgetting all about Ajmer and Pushkar. They are supposedly worth visiting. Oh well. We took a tuktuk to the fort for Rs50. The fort is rather imposing. It is a serious fort. The audio guide was good, and the view was excellent. Jodhpur is called the blue city, because the Brahmins used to paint their roofs blue, and then everyone started doing it.

It was an impressive fort	Carried in style
The courtyard	Sweet ride
The courtyard	Hubert Letterford's cousin, Ahmad
Cool swords	More cool swords
Cool gun	Balancing swords
They sat in style	Elaborate rooms

I spoke to a Mexican guy in Spanish, who was filming everything for posterity. He said all his friends went to the SA World Cup, but for the price of a trip to SA, you could go on 3 trips to India. Good choice, for a Mexican. I think the World Cup was probably worth 2 India trips. Maybe not 3. Excuse my comedic racism.

Aurora at the fort	It really is blue
Kind of blue	Aurora over Jodhpur
Aurora feeling the power	Er, yep, blue
Guys checkin the cannons	More blue
Some more blue	Orange! Bet you weren't expecting that

At 5pm, we attended a traditional 'Living Legends' showcase. It happened to be the annual week of music at the fort, lucky us. The world experts on the kazoo-bagpipe, and the gourd-tar played while a man hit his doumtek drum.

The second act was an ancient woman who knew 800 pages of an 1500 page epic, though she herself couldn't read or write. She 'sang' while her son played the armpit-harp and ankle tambourine. (Plus a drummer).

Gourd-tar and kazoo-bagpipe	Armpit harp

We walked down afterwards, and had supper on the rooftop of Hotel Haveli, which had more performers. I tried some Rajastani dishes, K Sangrain, and Godda Govinda, or something. Both very average. We had 2 big beers, and went home. I went searching for toilet paper at night, and ended up walking in step with two strange men. They had pharoic bone structure, and were skinheads except for an Egyptian braid at the back of their head. They asked where I stayed, and I accidentally told them. I couldn't tell if they were monks or crackheads.

Jaipur

Day 14

We woke early to catch the train. We walked to the station, trying to find food on the way. We got some cashews, and giant sandwiches at the station. We put our bags in one seat and sat together in the lower bunk. The train arrived at 3pm.

We have an argument between the normal rickshaws and the prepaid guys. They say it will cost Rs10 more to take prepaid. We went with the prepaid guys, because of their laissez-faire attitude. By now we were already getting more than a bit annoyed with the persistence of salespeople. How does annoying the shit out of your customers increase sales?

But it was good that we went with the prepaid, since we got a little piece of paper with the address I gave. We went on the most traumatic rickshaw drive of the trip - Jaipur is one hell of a dusty ugly city, and it has traffic circles. Some poor bicycle rickshaw got too close and our driver leant out to try push the guy's carriage over. It was violent.

Luckily, Amber, where our couchsurfing host lived, was up and over a hill, and it was getting really pleasant. We arrived, and the asshole driver says we owe him more money. I refuse, saying it's prepaid. Eventually we're swarmed by 8 men, and another driver is arguing his friend's case, demanding more money. I show that my piece of paper says Jagat Sangowan temple. Where is Jagat Sangowan temple? Oh that one across the road? This was a prepaid ticket, SO FUCK OFF! The guy was like 'oh sorry, sorry, do you need a tour guide?'.

On the one hand, I'm a bit huffy from dealing with a veritable swarm of assholes, and on the other, we've arrived, and Ankit is walking us to his place, and it looks like a really nice suburb. We've got 2 or 3 days here, so I begin to relax. It was like we arrived in the Laguna Hills of India.

We meet his grandpa, mother, and sister, and a little cousin, who we give magnets to. The girl is crazy. Pagal, as they say in Hindi. More couchsurfers, 2 Hungarians arrive, seem nice. We are a bit confused about who gets what room. We don't want to impose, but there are only 3 rooms, so is the whole family sleeping in one room? I feel bad, but it's almost impossible to shake Indian hospitality.

Pagal	Heena using a ball-point pen

The little pagal cousin draws her version of 'Heena' on Aurora's hand. We went out at night for a walk to see the Amber Palace over the lake, and it is very pretty. Ankit's cousin and friend are there, and they are tourist guides, and have lived in Europe for a while. So I'm speaking Spanish, One of the Hungarians is speaking Italian with the other guy, and he even knows a few words of Hungarian. Curva! He also speaks Japanese and English. It was an odd scene.

We went home and watched MasterChef India on TV, and the sister did proper henna on Aurora's arm. Amber is nice. A bit like the Bo-Kaap but with temples, ruins and monkeys.

Amber Fort at night	Heena treatment

Day 15

We awoke at some 8 or 9 am hour, and had a shower each. We went out with Barbara, Mate, and Ankit on some Jaipur adventures. We first walked to the temple nearby, Jagat Sangowan, famous in India because Shiva's little statue is there with his girlfriend's, not his wife's, as is usually the case.

Ankit's mom and Aurora	The famous Shiva and his girlfriend shrine

We climb up to Amber Palace, and are shocked to see how many tourists are there. There are so many touts, and like 15 elephants giving rides. We explored that fort like tomb raider, and once even opened a door and found ourselves in the Museum shop's backdoor. The clerks were more surprised than us. We saw the ancient latrines, which still have an element of hone. We examined a treasure chest... nothing. We went into a tunnel, and found hundreds of bats.

Elephants at Amber fort	Lots of elephants with lots of fat tourists

This salesman was trying to sell his paintings, which were standard Rajastan fare, the kind that locals don't buy cause it's too kitsch. He started at Rs200 each. I joked with him '10 for Rs200', and the game was on. You should never even joke with these guys. He said '20 for Rs800'. No. Ok, Rs700! I tried explaining that it's a joke, and I would never buy such kitsch shit, let alone 20 of them, but he didn't understand.

The mountain behind Amber	Town-side view from the fort
Entrance to Amber fort	A royal bathtub
Hungarians forting it up	Handmade royal ceilings
Royalty is gone, but the jobs remain	Royal hone
Modesty windows - can see out, but not in	Poor soldiers had to hike this

I bought bananas instead. We hopped the rickshaw to Amber Fort, but were a bit rushed because we told the driver we'd be 1 hour. The fort had the biggest cannon on wheels in the world. Over 200 tonnes. The barrel was 50 tonnes. It was shot once, 31km. Apparently the king was inspired by Napoleon, but then Independence came and went without anyone to have a war with. Well, they could try shoot the British, but they might get pissed off. By then, even a 200 tonne cannon was a bit outdated.

200+ tonne cannon	A snake charmer at the fort
Tourists	Our cozy rickshaw
We found a passage to an underground cavern	with bats!

We went to Jaipur, and saw Jantar Mantar, the world's largest sundial. And got horoscopes from our guide. He said I was a "traveller". No shit? And we saw some temple. Jaipur city is a mess. It's really horrible. We went to the Lake Palace, and to the restored temple where Ankit's dad's shop is. We got some cokes on the house, and took a look at a man's jewel collection. Some really beautiful green tigers eye, but I used to pick them up in the scratch patch when I was a kid. They imported them all to India, so I wasn't too keen to buy anything.

The world's largest sundial	Another angled seasonal timekeeping contraption

We went back to Ankit's home, and ate some rice and dhal (lentils). We didn't know if this was supper or not. But then we went for a hike, up around the back of the house, and onto some soldier footpath. A fort staircase that kept going up. There was some great green algae and a city view. The lights of the city faltered for a few minutes, which is normal, apparently. We went home, and had a snack. Spicy chapatti pancake with ketchup, and strange turkish delight lemon sugars.

Something in Jaipur	Kids playing
This marketing wouldn't work outside India	Cute strays in Amber
Your pool needs more chlorine	Your lake needs more chlorine
So began our climb	Made it!
Happy Aurora	Happy Dan
The little hamlet of Amber	Amber Fort from that spot

Ankit said he liked chess, so I was like 'me too!' and Mate said 'My father is a world famous chess master'. So we were like 'awesome lets play' but no one had a board. So I made a really shitty board out of paper, and Ankit coloured in the black squares. Ankit and I played a quick game. He started by asking 'which one is the elephant?' and we laughed, since I didn't know there was an elephant. But I am pretty good at chess, so I thrashed him.

Chess match

Aurora was dressed in a saree and I was given a traditional suit, and we all took a photo. I brought rooibos, and unfortunately they made it in the Indian style, with too much milk and way too much sugar. Not big on subtle flavours there. I couldn't explain what I was talking about, and didn't want to interfere in the kitchen... so I don't think they liked it much. The mother grimaced secretly.

Rajastani memories

We said bye to the Hungarians, since they were leaving at dawn.

Day 16

When we woke, the Hungarians were gone, and we didn't plan to do much that day. We went to a park nearby Ankit's dad's store. Aurora had some red paint in her hair, which the mother had put in the night before.

There we were, in the park, reading on the grass, when dozens of people started asking to take our photographs. It was one after another, even queues. We found out later that the park was for married people after their wedding, and that the red dot in her hair signified one who was just married. So that could explain it.

Aurora	in the park

Katy Perry was marrying Russell Brand in Udaipur yesterday, so maybe they thought we were celebrities.

We had ice cream and headed back home for some food. We walked with Ankit and his friend through some magically lighted forest, where tigers are said to roam, (though that is unlikely), and arrived at an unimpressive temple. We went home again, and Aurora was dressed up again in a sari. It was a woman's festival, and Aurora had to honour her husband! She had to flick water onto burning cow dung, and then she had to touch my feet. Then I had to give her a present - I was checking my email at the time, and it was a bit of a surprise, so I just gave her some money I 'owed' her. Just before it all started, they asked 'Married?'... 'No'... 'Friends.' 'yeah...'. We think they were having a big chuckle about marrying us without us knowing what was going on.

In the tiger forest	Final walk through Amber

We were talking about maybe going to Amritsar, or Sikkim, and Ankit recommended Amritsar because of a crazy border ceremony they do there every day. We saw the youtube video, and laughed because they were all doing the Ministry of Funny Walks. It turned out Ankit didn't know who Monty Python was. So we showed him some sketches. Then it turned out he didn't know the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and so on. He knew Akon. So we made a list of music for his education.

We laughed later about Pakistan, about how the Muslims don't have a sense of humour because who would if you lived in Pakistan. Who goes to 'find themselves' or 'have fun' in Pakistan? haha.

I also had a chuckle when Ankit pronounced the word 'colonizers' with emphasis on the 'colon' part. We definitely had a great time at Ankit's family's house.