Udaipur - A Charming City

This blog post will also have the same format as the last blog with the same three sections. Also, Stephanie and I have made an agreement that I will write the blogs and she will edit them so now I’ll write in first person rather than an awkward third-person voice like the previous blog posts. This set-up works out great because Caroline likes to type about her experiences but absolutely hates editing and Steph would much rather edit than write and she has her travel journal that she would rather write in. This is one of many reasons we’re like two peas in a pod J.

General Summary of What We’re Up To

On Wednesday, August 27, we left Jodhpur to go to Udaipur. The drive was much more beautiful than we expected with a lot of greenery and hills. I found it to be kind of a comforting scenery because it reminded me of the scenery back home, which has a lot more trees and grass rather than the desert which is 95% sand. For a part of the drive we even entered a jungle area that had monkeys on the side of the road and supposedly leopards as well. Overall, this was one of our favorite drives thus far because it was lovely to see so much greenery and to also breathe fresh air in the hills.

A view from the car window - much different than the desert

A view from where we ate lunch

Once we arrived to our hotel we were glad to find our Scottish friends, Jamie and Leah, at our hotel as well. To no surprise, we spent a great amount of time just talking about random stuff over dinner and a few beers. We then walked to a different place to have a beer with a beautiful scene of the city’s palace and then later walked to there because we heard we could have a beer within the palace. We figured it would be expensive, but didn’t expect the beers to be more than triple the price of beers elsewhere. So like the cheap backpackers we are, we simply left to go back to our hotel to drink one final beer.

Udaipur is a beautiful city and we are lucky to have a hotel with a great view of the city and its surrounding hills. I feel like I could sit on the hotel’s roof all day and watch over the city’s compacted buildings of varying colors. While we are in a very touristy area of Udaipur, which has the same crap that’s sold in all touristy Indian areas, it’s still a cute place with the compacted streets and foreigners from all over. Oh, and there’s a big lake in Udaipur which is nice to see from a distance, but not so nice to see up close because it’s quite polluted and has much algae in it.

Thursday was a rather relaxing day for us because we had breakfast with Leah and Jamie before we had to say goodbye to them and went on a relaxing walk that extended beyond the touristy area of town. Later in the walk, we then had a chai break at a tea stand (a necessity, of course) and then relaxed back at the hotel. We strategically planned to come back to the hotel during the midday because it can get quite hot during the day and there’s a lot of commotion and whatnot on the streets. It’s also the perfect time to relax on the hotel’s roof and write outstanding blog posts, such as this one (haha).

The sign for where we had tea - at the Tea Room Hotel

And the inside view of the Tea Room Hotel

A view from the roof of our hotel. The palace can be seen in the top right.

A view from the other side of the roof

Me on the bridge over the lake

A nighttime view from the roof of our hotel

 

Our final day turned out to be a lot different than we expected. Our only plans for the day were to visit a postcard and book shop to buy some postcards. Each of us also ended up buying books and as we were about to leave, we met a new friend, Mariano, from Guatemala. We then decided to walk around the city together and later coincidentally met Mariano’s friend, Matthew, from Seattle. We then spent the day with them by drinking chai, getting lost in the streets, eating lunch, viewing a sunset from a hilltop with beautiful scenery (joined by another friend, Martin from Germany), eating dinner and watching a festival performance.

Mariano, Matthew and Martin are great guys with interesting stories. Mariano is from Guatemala, as I mentioned before, and knows Spanish, French, Portuguese and English fluently. He’s also well-traveled where he has studied in France for two years (I think), Brazil for one year and has also traveled throughout Central America, areas of the US, Spain (where a lot of his family is from) and probably a lot of other places. He also recently got accepted to a graduate school in Madrid that will begin in January to study art direction. From what I understand, art direction is about creating the background and overall feel for various things ranging from movie sets to art galleries. While this profession is much different than what he originally chose to study (a biochemistry degree), he seems very happy to be on the path he is on and is really looking forward to his future career in art direction. He only found out about his admittance to the school in Madrid about one month ago and then on a whim chose to travel India, Nepal and throughout Southeast Asia until January.

Matthew just graduated from Tufts University in Boston last spring in something similar to cognitive science (I think) and chose to backpack India and Southeast Asia (I think) for six months until Christmas time or so. So far, he’s traveled throughout most of northern India and much of Rajasthan and was able to give us some advice about northern areas of India. We also learned that he really likes China and has studied Mandarin in China two different times in Shanghai and Beijing. He also seems to come from a well-traveled family who has been to many different countries throughout the world for vacations and whatnot. His parents are currently in Beijing and it sounds like they’re still trying to figure out where they’re going to have their Christmas. Right now, I guess the options are between somewhere in Eastern Europe and Morocco.

Martin is probably in his 40s or 50s from Colon, Germany and quit his managerial job about a year ago to travel. He’s already spent 6 weeks in Columbia and then I think he returned home before beginning his travels in India. He’ll be in India until the end of September, will go home for a bit and then go to Brazil for another six weeks of travel. I didn’t talk too much to Martin, but he seems to be an interesting guy overall.

We had a beautiful day overall and we are so thankful to have met these wonderful people. We’re especially thankful that they invited us to join them to go up to the Monsoon Temple to view the sunset. While it was a bit pricey (250 Rs plus an auto ride), it was our favorite sunset thus far. The sun was a glowing orange-pink color and looked beautiful around the surrounding waving green hills.

The temple on the hill

A view of Udaipur from the hill

After we saw the beautiful sunset, we went to dinner at the Bob Marley Café which didn’t have great food but did have a good time with our new inspirational friends. Following dinner we watched an interesting festival performance for the Ganesh festival that was going on, and then we said goodbye to our friends. They were leaving for Mumbai the next day so we knew we wouldn’t run into them again which was a sad feeling. We then returned to our hotel roof, watched the heat lighting throughout the clouds, read our new books and went to bed

I’m sorry if I go into too much detail about our daily activities in these blog posts but I’m finding it difficult to cut things out. I just want to share everything with you because we’re having a great time here! We are falling more into a routine these days though so I bet the blogs will slowly become less “and then I did this….and then I did this…and then I did this…” and will soon develop into more general topics relating to observations throughout the trip.

 

 

How To: Have a typical introductory conversation with a local Indian

 

As said before, the local Indians here are very friendly. Sometimes it can be a bit tiring however because we tend to have the same conversation every time. It goes like this:

Local Indian: Hello, hello!

Stephanie and Caroline: Hello.

Local Indian: Where are you from?

Caroline/Stephanie: America. Where are you from? This city?

Local Indian: Yes, I am from this city (or maybe 30 km outside). What is your name?

Stephanie: My name is Stephanie.

Caroline: And my name is Caroline. What is your name?

Local Indian: My name is ______. What is your job/what do you study?

Stephanie: Well we both just finished university and I studied social work and she studied engineering.

Local Indian: Oh wow, so do you have a job?

Stephanie: Nope, not yet. We’re just traveling right now.

Local Indian: How long will you be in India?

Stephanie/Caroline: We’ll be in India for about seven weeks and then Nepal for six weeks.

Local Indian: Do you like it so far?

Stephanie/Caroline: Yes, it’s been great! The people here are so nice.

Local Indian: Are you married?

Stephanie/Caroline: No way, not for a while.

Local Indian: Do you have a boyfriend?

Stephanie/Caroline: Nope. There’s no reason to right now. Are you married? And if not, when will you get married? (Because they have arranged marriages, it’s usually planned at what age they will get married).

Local Indian: I will get married next year (this response obviously depends on the person).

Stephanie/Caroline: Oh, that’s great. Are you looking forward to getting married?

 

Local Indian: Yes, very much so.

 

Then we’ll maybe talk about one more thing and go on our way. Every conversation won’t have every component of what’s mentioned above but will probably have at least 80% of it. Especially the “hello, where are you from?” part.

 

 

Random Thoughts

 

·         In the past, I’ve typically daydreamed about the first type of food I’ll eat when I get home. But even if I went home tomorrow, I would probably still want Indian food. We love the spices and the quality of food here because it tastes so much fresher than compared to home.

·         I’ve been keeping track of everything we spend money on throughout the day through an app called Share-A-Bill which has been incredibly helpful. I had a dorky idea however to put this info in an Excel sheet and plot our spending so far only because I thought it would be entertaining. And this is when I was reminded yet again that my dorkiness will never go away…and I’m okay with that of course!

·         We’re glad we don’t have to deal with football games and tailgating stuff this year. We find it crazy how obsessed people can become just from a game played by 18-23 year old guys. If people cared the same amount about their local community/neighbor or even their government system as much as they do for sports or other entertainment, I bet there’d be less corrupt crap going on in the government, a decreased level of income disparity throughout the country, and a happier society overall. I know that’s a very general statement but that’s the best I can describe it without going on a rant (which I definitely could do).

Caroline’s Song of the Day

27-Aug Those to Come by the Shins

28-Aug Hide and Seek (Songs for Tibet version) by Imogen Heap

29-Aug Pusher Love Girl by Justin Timberlake