Days 134-136: Admiring from Afar

Note: We finished the Leg 2 video! CLICK HERE to see jumping lemurs and all the B-roll that didn't make the blog the first time around.





We had planned an extra day in Jodhpur in case we needed more time to go through the fort. Instead, we dedicated it to searching for rooftops with great views of all angles. Here is another unsuccessful attempt at displaying just how mammothly awesome this fort is:

Next, it was on to Udaipur, home of the water palace used in James Bond's Octopussy. On the bus, we met a nice couple who had retired and had now been travelling for for five years... Kind of puts our trip length in perspective.

We immediately liked Udaipur with its clean streets and nicer smell. The buildings rising out of the lake and surrounding hillside were absolutely beautiful. It took only hours to have us seriously reconsidering the rest of our time in India to see if we could stay longer, but the cost of flying to Mumbai just couldn't be justified for an extra day or two. Instead we enjoyed the view from our hotel's rooftop as the the lake morphed from rose to purple to ink black and the softly lit lights of palaces danced in the reflection of the water.

Tired from all the traveling, we decided to take it easy the first full day in Udaipur and spent a few hours lounging by the pool at a nearby nicer hotel.

For lunch we tried Millets of Mewar, a restaurant that prides itself on healthy vegan/gluten-free dishes. Erin was over the moon with all her choices, so Craig suggested we try our second Indian cooking class so we could expand our repertoire and discover the secrets of gluten-free chapati.

Under the guidance of Surinder, our passionate chef, we acquired the skills for a basic Indian gravy and added it to other ingredients to form a peanut sauce with steamed vegetables, vegetable kofta, eggplant curry, and rajma, a kidney bean-based dish, all to accompany the gf chapati. We can't wait to get home and make an Indian feast!

Day 133 Bishnoi, Jain, and Camel Train

To explore some of the surrounding areas we got ourselves a driver, Mr. Singh. We were interested to visit some Bishnoi villages; the Bishnoi value environmental protection above most else and have for over 500 years. This was famously demonstrated when 363 followers clung to trees to protect them from being cut down, and the trees went unharmed but the 363 villagers were beheaded by order of the King.

We saw the place where they, and supposedly some of the descendants of the trees they protected, were buried and visited a family's home. Bishnoi means 29, referring to the 29 tenets that they follow. These include rules for personal hygiene as well as environmental protection and random rules about how women have to be segregated for 5 days during their period. We felt a little guilty having broken X number of the rules already, but were confused when we were told it would be rude if we didn't break another with the family we visited.

We stopped at a few collectives for pottery, block-printing, and handloom-weaving where we picked up a few souvenirs. For lunch we sat on a concrete floor while the matriarch of a weaver's family cooked for us on an open flame. We carried on what conversation we could and after lunch we were off to Osian.


Osian used to be an important trading and religious center; it is an oasis in the Thar desert. We popped in to visit a goddess temple and a Jain temple. Both were stunning, the goddess temple with its mirrored silver walls and the Jain one with its various marble carvings. Erin elected to skip the Jain temple after our attempt to enter resulted in a shouting match that no one would tell us the subject of.

Some blackbucks at a protected lake

Another beautiful stepwell

It looked like Craig might be walking back to the car...

The final stop of the day was to go for a sunset camel ride over the sand dunes. Our camels were pretty comfy to ride, although they might have been a tad hungry judging by the way they swung their heads down low to pluck shrubs from the earth whenever the opportunity presented itself. Craig dubbed this our "shrub crawl." The camels got a rest and we had an opportunity to stretch our sore legs while we watched the sun dip below the sand dunes, then it was back to the blue city.

Days 131 & 132: Jodhpur

At the end of a long cramped bus ride our eyes grew as we entered Jodhpur and the massive, imposing fort atop a hill in the center of town came into view.

We had dinner on the roof, still impressed even though a billboard blocked out half the lit up castle. We settled in for the rest of the night and watched Two Weeks' Notice. (Starts very strong but slowly becomes gibberish and annoying in Craig's opinion).

With the fort not opening until 9AM we took our time in the morning and then hopped in a tuk-tuk to avoid the step climb up the hillside. The awe inspired by the impossibly tall castle walls that seemed to grow out of the top of the cliff face did not diminish as we drew nearer. Kipling described the complex as being built by angels and giants.

Due to a conversation with Craig's brother and sister-in-law the night before we took the audio guide tour of the fort. We learned that we are audio guide people (expect pictures of us wearing 1980's headphones to soon clog these pages). We learned so much but could go our own pace, enjoy silence, and skip parts entirely without offending anyone.

The many courtyards that form the backbone of the palace complex within the fort create and enchanting maze of finely carved walls, elaborately gilded rooms and mysterious window screens. We were treated to sweeping views of Jaipur, the blue city.

Now hungry and at the mercy of the midday sun we quickly visited Jaswant Thada (similar to the royal gaitor in Jaipur). The marble used to build this monument was so delicate that inside you could see the sun's warm glow coming through the stone.

From there it was off to lunch on another rooftop with views of the fort, a lake, Jaswant Thada, the clocktower, another fort, and a huge palace in the distance.

Having finished our sightseeing for the day Craig was just as excited for what followed which ended a five month hockey drought!

Days 129 & 130: Pushkar

We had planned our visit to Pushkar based on the assumption that after a week in India we might need a break from the busy streets, pollution, and aggressive touts. However we have found India to be far more relaxing than anticipated, save for a few complaints already mentioned.

Thus our time at the sacred lake was even more relaxing due to the fact that we didn't need to relax.  The small town has only a few sights to see and they were neatly clustered around the lake. In an hour and a half we were able to see the main attractions and spend the rest of the time on rooftops admiring the view.

Pushkar is home to one of the only temples in the world dedicated to the god Brahma due to a curse his consort Saraswati placed on him (? We aren't super sure).  Sadly the temple does not allow photography. Nearby is a bathing ghat where Brahma is rumoured to have once bathed. Of the other 51 ghats around/on the lake other notables include one where Gandhi's ashes were spread and one where the god Vishnu appeared as a boar.

Our visit to a ghat was not the most pleasant experience. We were led down some stairs littered with cattle and birdseed, as well as the end result of huge flocks of pigeons splattered about the steps. This was of course after we had to remove our shoes. We were shown how to pray at the lake and removed all difficulties from our families lives, your welcome, before haggling over how much needed to be donated. It was interesting but probably one of the most disgusting places we have been.

A highlight for Pushkar which was something we had meant to do earlier was taking a cooking course together. Our teachers Deepa and Hemant were wonderful and patient as we learned how to make dahl, channa masala, and rice  biranyi.




The end result was fabulous and we can't wait to make everything once we are home and finally get to cook for ourselves again.

Days 126, 127, & 128: Jaipur

Arriving in Jaipur was much more relaxing than Agra, even though we were told to get off at the wrong stop. We were able to arrange an auto from the pre paid ticket window and found our hotel without too much trouble. The traffic was the wildest we'd seen so far in India, and perhaps all trip, with the exception of Addis, but Pearl Palace was set on a quaint little side street. Our third floor room was quiet from traffic, and the home of a delightful family of pigeons who cooed loudly each morning and likely spread dander throughout our stuff. The rooftop was serene and served up the best food in town.

With two days to spend here we were able to take it easy with two full mornings of sightseeing and the hot afternoons left for relaxation and planning. The first morning we set out for the Pink City, the old part of Jaipur where laws dictate that all buildings are pink.

The first stop was another Jantar Mantar, built by the same man, Jai Singh, as the one in Delhi (plus three others); Jaipur's is the biggest and best preserved site for cosmic calculation. We discovered that the tall tower is built so that the shadow from the sun moves one millimeter per second. It was neat to watch plants get enveloped so quickly in shadow and we mourned the loss of our video camera's time-lapse feauture.

Next, it was on to the City Palace. Far from falling apart, this ancient building is still in use and the home of the descendants of Jaipur's royal family. We marveled at the Mubarak Mahal, or Welcome Palace, and its beautifully carved archways. We saw the two largest silver objects in the world, 1.6 m tall vessels that the Maharaja Singh II took to England with him, full of the water from the Ganges. Then we passed under the great peacock gate (autumn), and those of the other three seasons that adorn the palace's inner courtyard. In each art gallery we found ourselves looking more at the lavish decor and painted/carved ceilings than any of the paintings. On the way out we caught a puppet show and a snake charmer charming some lethargic cobras.

The second morning we started at the Royal Gaitor, where many great maharajas are honoured through impressively carved marble cenotaphs. We strolled through the three sections, all void of other tourists and had a bit of a scare from a protective mother monkey who obviously wasn't used to humans visiting this off-the-beaten-track attraction. The carvings were exquisite throughout depicting elephants, lions, and horses. It was here that we got our first views of the "Great Wall of India" as our driver called it that wound its way through the hills connecting all the sites we would visit that day.

Next, we headed outside Jaipur proper to the original capital of Jaipur state, Amber, to see the fort and palace. We chose to walk rather than ride one of the unfortunate elephants, though we still got a 'too-close-for-comfort' experience when trying to enter the main courtyard from the same gate.

Inside, Erin was most intrigued with the veiled marble screens upstairs, where the women could watch the happenings away from prying eyes. Craig appreciated the sheer height of the fort walls rising out of the rocky hillside.

We also spent some time gazing at the Hall of Victory's mirrored walls and ceiling.

Up the windy hill that our auto driver took with impressive, body-jarring speed, was the Nahargarh Fort, or 'Tiger Fort.' It seemed connected to Amber Fort by a wall reminiscent of China's. It was mainly falling apart, but offered views of the new and old city from its roof.

On our way back down the hill we stopped to admire the view of the Water Palace, built as a vacation spot for one of Jaipur's kings (he would notably come here without his family for some debauchery). It is no longer in use but we noticed some boats taking people over to tour it. While looking out over the hillside, something drew our attention away from the palace... a peacock came gliding down the mountain just above the treeline. Its regal body soaring, stunning wings trailing behind, was an astonishing sight, and made for the perfect ending of our day!

Days 124 & 125: The Taj

Our bus to Agra arrived in the evening after a leisurely drive down deserted highways. When we arrived the buses near-empty interior clashed with the throngs of people lining the roads and the menagerie of different forms of transport competing for precious space. We found an 'auto' and sped through the streets weaving between rickshaws, cars, cute minibuses, horse-drawn carriages, camels, and people.

As the eye saw it.

Our hotel boasted a rooftop restaurant with great views of 'The Taj' but as it's not lit up at night, it was nowhere to be seen. That is until the lights in the hotel went out for a few minutes as we ate, and in that time, our eyes adjusted to the darkness and we caught a glimpse of its mystical outline towering over the mist. Erin quickly hid her eyes because she hadn't wanted to see it until we walked through the gates the next morning at sunrise, but admitted giddily that the momentary view had been exhilarating.  Craig, on the other hand, managed to get a few shots that showed it almost 'too well' that he hid from Erin.



We were out the door at 6, and made our way to the south gate, supposedly the most dramatic, as when you enter, you're staring directly at the taj head-on. But our guidebook neglected to mention that this is the only gate that opens at 8, instead of sunrise. So we unfortunately walked all the way to the west gate instead (the furthest from our hotel), to enter there, the busiest gate. After an incredibly frustrating, gender-biased line-up, where we lost two of our precious gluten-free granola bars, we were in. Putting aside our negativity, we took a deep breath and looked onwards.

It's weird... You've seen the picture a million times and you know it is the Taj Mahal, but it didn't look like it. Standing behind people who were taking pictures of it, you could see in their viewfinders that that's what it was. But the enormous building in front almost looked out of place without being framed at its sides. The varying colours in the marble, the increasing size in the Sanscrit calligraphy so it looks equal from afar... Every little detail was visible up close. It's symmetry was perfect.

We read many interesting facts and theories, both before and during our visit, i.e. the minarets are outward leaning so as to protect the Taj in the event of an earthquake.

Staring down a guy that just took Erin's
picture. One of the better pictures of us.

The only annoyance of the visit were the photos that some of the young male Indian visitors kept taking of Erin. She stood up to one man, in front of his buddies, and asked him to delete a picture he had blatantly snapped while we were posing together. The stares from the men despite her conservative outfit were also unsettling. She also regretted wearing white that day as Craig told her she didn't stand out enough in front of the building!

With a building that was painstakingly made symmetrical on all four sides,
it is baffling that everyone obsesses over just one of them.

After our fill, we ate breakfast nearby at the hotel with the 'best Taj views in the city,' then returned to ours for a relaxing rest of the day. Near dusk, we moseyed down to the river where we found a polesman to take us out for a unique view of the mausoleum. We couldn't believe we were the only people out there! We've had a lot of bad things to say about Lonely Planet on this trip so far, so it's important to mention that on this occasion it steered us well.

The next morning we grumbled at our early alarm, but managed to pull ourselves out of bed again for sunrise, this time from our own hotel's unobstructed views. Craig had splurged when booking the room for a room with a view, so watching the outline appear in the morning light was the motivation we needed to get the day going. It was a wonderful visit of the most beautiful building in the world!