Mt Abu --> Jaipur

On the train ride to Mt. Abu, I got very sick. Thankfully, Michael and I had two rows of bunk beds to ourselves. All of a sudden at one train stop, 300 Indian men poured into our car pressing against us. They hung from the tops of bunk beds as the men on the bottom spread out a blanket on their laps and started to play cards. I was squashed against the metal grate of a window with a ripped bag over my head throwing up again and again. They never blinked an eye. I should have puked on them. Michael finally helped me push some of them off (my!) bed so I could lie down.

The train stopped at Mt. Abu road, the base of the mountain. We had to take a bus up to the top. The temperature was cool and damp. The bus sped around sharp tiny curves with plummeting cliffs on either side. The mountains were lush and veiled with mist. I could hear the Jurassic Park theme song in my head. We decided to save Mt. Abu for the end of the trip so we could slow down and bask in the mountain’s relaxing shadow.

I was really looking forward to the hotel, a promising budget retreat with yoga in the mornings and cooking classes! We get there, into this moldy little crapper of a room, where the toilet “flushed” when you poured big buckets of water down the bowl, where the staff were really obnoxious and assertive (a complete first in my experience with Indian hospitality), there was no yoga, and the food sucked so I had no interest in learning how to cook it. Sweet!

We met two other American travelers staying in the hotel, Sebastian and James, and decided to visit the famous Delwara temples. The temple gates were almost hidden in the mountain and warned any women during her monthly cycle to not enter or she would be punished. I ducked into one of the temples. If you squinted it looked like well lit cave, with stalactites and stalagmites covering floor and ceiling. But really, each pillar, inch of wall and ceiling, each crevice was carefully carved marble depicting dancing women and gods. So quiet and hidden, it was easy to pretend the temple was lost and I was the first to find it years later. Photos were prohibited but…maybe my photobucket has a few of them.

After our excursion we walked around the cleanest marketplace I have seen in India thus far. I became addicted to boiled corn rubbed with salt and lime. You hold it piping hot in its own husk. We picked up some beers (it was easy to find—that how you know this was a tourist town) and rented a paddle boat at Mt. Abu’s famous valley of a lake called Nikki Lake. Sebastian brought his Iphone and played some music. “Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta, stolen from Africa…” But in the night, in the paddleboat with a beer, we could have easily been in Jamaica. Wherever. That’s the beauty of traveling your mind, heart, body, conversations are in a million places at once. It almost doesn’t matter where you actually are, it’s all part of it.

The next morning we went to the deliciously cult-like Brahama Kumaris meditation center. We were given a tour by an Indian dressed in white, around the white meditation hall (that fills with thousands every morning), into the white garden, and into a white van. We went to the white “hospital” where I could see neither doctors nor patients and were led into a white room. We were greeted by a brainwashed (I mean calm and serene) Swedish woman who played music and led our hour-long meditation session. I fell asleep. That’s good, right?

We took the advice from the Planet Guide and called up trekker extraordinaire: Charles. He promised us a no-bullshit fast paced informative tour up the 5,000 ft of Mt. Abu. He was quite handsome, young, and had a very interesting Indian Australian accent. He would frequently put down his walking stick and emphatically act out a personal experience, acting the roles of all people involved—accents included. We crept to the edge of a river, hanging onto vines for support to look at a baby crocodile. We crawled on our hands and knees to avoid thorns and jumped over rivers. I scaled a rock that was proooobably at a 75-degree angle. I ate wild berries. Every time we reached a plateau, I looked around and exclaimed, “This must be the most beautiful place in the world.” But we kept going higher. When we reached the mountain summit, I lay on a rock and could see the whole world. We were sitting in the clouds of Mt. Olympus. Eating bananas.

Our train back to Jaipur was fully booked so Charles booked Michael and I sleeper seats (I’m sorry—seat…singular) on a bus. It was so crazy. The beds were on top of the seats with a rail on one side and open windows on the other. The double bed was cramped and I kept pushing Michael over telling him to shrink a little and not take up so much room. (I’m so mean.) The bus was incredibly bouncy and you felt like you were going to fall over the cliff every time it hit a bump. “I will never fall asleep,” I thought. But I did. The bus stopped around every 3 hours (the entire trip took around 5 hours longer than the train) at really noisy bus stops with loud music and braying donkeys.

At around 3am I felt the bus stop. I had needed to go to the bathroom for the last 3 hours. I raced down the ladder, hit my head, and tried to find my shoes (hands groping around the filthy floor) contact-less and in the dark. I was frantic. I kept hitting Michael “wake up! help me find my shoes! Where is the toilet paper!?” (I really owe him.) Then the bus started to move and I started to cry. “I WILL pee myself.” I went back to the bed, put on my contacts with my filthy hands, which felt greeeat, and stumbled over people sleeping in the aisle to the front of the bus. The bus immediately stopped short and beckoned to a bush only 10 feet away. I was embarrassed to squat in front of bus with floodlights, but more scared of being in a bush, in the dark on a highway, with the possibility of the bus forgetting about me and driving away. So I wasted no time. And that is my India bathroom story.

We got to Jaipur sweaty and dirty and checked our bags into the bus cloakroom. We found a clean restaurant and I took an hour in their bathroom, washing up, brushing my teeth, and changing. After breakfast, we went to go see Jaipur’s famous City Palace, which was too boring to describe. Michael was sick the first time we visited Jaipur so he went to see the sights and I was hired by an auto driver to do some shopping. Textile (beautiful fabrics) shopping to be exact, which is Rajasthan’s specialty.

Shopping is so great, I have an auto driver take me right to the warehouse, (he gets commission), I get served cha and sit on an expensive cushy chair. Then men whisk around me showing me all sorts of pieces “at wholesale prices!” they promise. But I won’t have any of that. “I work in Kolkata trying to find a vaccine for Cholera. I have Indian wages.” I’ll say pressing them with guilt. Anyway, I did my homework and know what the prices should be. So I picked up many wall pieces and bed covers for my family and had them hand sew the borders and tie it up all nice and tight for easy transport.

The plane ride home was frightening. We flew through a lightening storm and I could see bolts through my window. My knuckles are still white.

Traveling has to be one of the best ways to spend a life and money. It was the most carefree and adventurous I have been in my whole life. When you’re traveling, it’s all about you. What you want to do next, all about meeting people, about exploring famous sites, eating food and traveling like a vagabond. Who wouldn’t want to do that? My trip to Rajasthan, was easily my best experience I have had in India, maybe even in my life.

I posted pictures of Mt. Abu on my photobucket!

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v635/celticsunflower/