Solo tripping through North India - 1

It's taken a while to start blogging again, but I hope I can make it stick this time. So many random things happening lately, it was inevitable I write about a few of these. Besides, there's one or two out there who are actually gonna read it this time .... or so they say ....

"Why climb Mt. Everest?" - Moron
"Because it's there." - George Mallory

Let me begin the revival of my blog with a little adventure I had in late September 09. Now in college some of us were always talking about how we wanted to go backpacking in North India. How we would convince our parents. How we would squeeze out some cash for the trip. How we would want to do it with the smallest group (backpacking, you harami!). On Sept 26th, I was on a train headed for Jaipur to realize this dream. Forget about my parents, I told virtually no one where I was going, I was earning enough to not worry about the money, and I was in the smallest group possible - all alone. While I was on the train, I got a call from my mum, and she was yelling at me for not going to church ever since I moved into Bangalore, and that I better go for the 11 A.M. mass at Jayanagar on Sunday, or I would be the biggest devil she has ever encountered ... or something along those lines. I promised her I'd go and said good night, my horns shining in the dim train light.

On the train I met both the skeptic and the enthusiastic Rajasthani - the skeptic telling me how silly it was to go to Rajasthan without your friends, and the latter filling me in on the significance of Pushkar, Chittorgarh and the amazing story of Rani Padmini, and a lot of gyan on basic Hindu mythology. When it was time for dinner, my new friend and I decided to watch a movie on my laptop from my limited collection that I recollect had 'My Sassy Girl', 'Disney's Up', 'Malena' and 'Children of God'. I had just seen the first two, and with no plans of seeing Malena when I'm not alone, I played the innocent-sounding 'Children of God' ... 30 minutes of drugs, violence, language and mild nudity later, my not-so-amused-friend suddenly felt sleepy, and hastily retreated to his bed. Yea, we never spoke again either.

28th September, Jaipur

A nice old man had suggested to me on the train that I take a day tour of Jaipur on one of the tourism buses. After getting ripped off by a cycle-rickshaw-wala, I proceeded to get ripped off by the tourism office where he dropped me. Once the bus arrived, I soon found myself heading towards the pink city inside Jaipur.

We passed the Albert Hall Museum which was closed on that day, and Hawa Mahal, and then onto the observatory Jantar Mantar.

After giving up trying to comprehend the Hindi explanations of how the astronomical instruments worked .....

Me: "Yeh kya hai? Yeh idar kyoon hai? YEH KYA HAI?"
Guide: "Yeh toilet ka deewar hai dhakkan, dekhne ka cheez aage hai!"

..... I moved on to visit the City Palace that was located just next to the observatory.

After some aimless wandering around, I had seen the largest silver object in the world, the attire of the royal family, the old guns and swords of the armies, a marble elephant or two, and a couple of cannons .... Your damn right I was a little bored, and I was starting to feel that I just wasn't cut out for sight seeing.

During the tour, the guide correctly guessed I was a software engineer and when I told him I worked for a company called Adobe (pronounced correctly), the guy started talking about some technical news about Adobe that I can only imagine techies bothering to read. How on earth does a tour guide in Jaipur know these little details, when people in Bangalore don't even get the actual pronunciation of Adobe? ( It's 'A-Dough-Bee', I know you said it wrong in your head )

Anyways, next we moved on to the best part of my Jaipur tour - Amer (Amber) Fort.

I wont explain the history behind Amer fort, cause I have no clue myself, but what I will tell you is if you like exploring/running around/getting lost/playing hide and seek, this is THE place to go to. Specifically, it's the palace built for the king's numerous queens that I'm talking about - a labyrinth of passage ways, stairs, rooms, corridors, underground water tanks and balconies with views of the surrounding region of Ajmer and nearby forts .... unbelievable, I couldn't capture it in pics (I didn't even try actually), but I have great memories of this place.

On the road back to the city, we stopped momentarily to view Jai Mahal in the dusk. I must warn you. If you're single, ready to mingle, tried every angle, but failed to sizzle (lol .. that was so lame but someone likes my rhymes), you might just feel lonely watching the Jai Mahal.

Picked up a kurta for my bro and a vase for my mum at the RTDC, and it was time to head off to my next destination. After a not-so-pleasant experience where my tour guide tried to cheat me onto one of his buses, I found myself at Sindhi Camp bus stop with a booked ticket and some time to kill. I tried the Rajasthani speciality 'Dal-Baati-Churma' at a restaurant nearby and wasn't very impressed. Anyways, onboard the bus I met a French chap named Alain. After exchanging our travel experiences for a couple of hours (he has been all over the world, so he was talking most of the time), we finally decided to shut up and allow the Japanese travelers sitting all around us to get some sleep. We would need the rest too, as we were headed out into the real desert, to a place some 100 kms away from the Pakistan border ....

TO BE CONTINUED ...