The Pilgrimage

My first solo adventure in India was a great success. After all, any weekend to which I can apply the phrase “circumambulating the ancient stupa” is, in my opinion, a good weekend. I had learned about Sanchi, a Buddhist pilgrimage site, in my Asian Art History class last year and it was one of the places in India that I was really keen on going to. It just so happened that I no one else was quite as interested in going, so my weekend trip to Sanchi also became my first attempt at traveling alone in India.

To get to Sanchi, one must go through Bhopal, a smallish city in Madhya Pradesh, a few hours north of Hyderabad by plane. I would never have anticipated that at any point in my life I would be able to boast of being the only single Caucasian female traveler in any given city in the world, but I think I can safely say that I held that title this weekend in Bhopal. The city is neither large, nor touristy, nor pretty to look at, so my presence there generated a lot of confusion. I was asked, in seriousness, more than one time, “What are you doing in Bhopal?” I wondered the same thing myself when I landed there. I felt a little like I had traveled through time to a dingy, shadowy, more depressing era. To be fair, I read later that I was staying in the ugliest part of the city and that I completely missed the pretty part on the other side of town. Ranjeet, my hotel, lacked the “Mediterranean Atmosphere” that Brenda’s guidebook told me it would have. It also lacked such luxuries as soft mattresses or light bulbs in the bathroom, though it did include a working TV and an inexplicable salt and pepper shaker set on the bedside table.

I pretty much arrived and went straight to bed on Friday night, but Saturday morning I set out early to go to Sanchi. Breakfast in the hotel was scheduled to start at 7am, but the confused doorman told me, in fact, that it would not be served until 10. Instead, I ate at the only restaurant I could find which didn’t appear to actually be open when I walked in. There were also about 100 items on the menu, of which, one, “The Veg Sandwich,” was available. Filled with sandwich, I set out on my way.

I was actually quite concerned about finding my way to Sanchi which is about 2 hours away from Bhopal. I had no real plan for getting there and I was growing more concerned about communication since, without the tourist industry of other cities, people in Bhopal seem to speak a lot less English. Luckily, my Hindi comprehension and reading skills are just good enough that I was able to recognize signs for things like “Bus Stand.” After the initial panic of wandering Bhopal alone with no direction wore off I realized a quick solution for my situation. I generated so much attention and curiosity from locals on the street that all I had to do was say “Sanchi?” a few times and before I knew it I was on a charming little pink bus heading North for 25 rupees (50 cents).

After 2 hours of sitting on the bumpy bus being stared at in disbelief by every other passenger, I hopped off in the middle of nowhere. I was expecting a small village at Sanchi, or perhaps a whole town, but what I found was just a deserted crossroads in the middle of expansive farmland. One road leads to/from Bhopal and the perpendicular road leads up a steep hill to the Stupa. I only really knew I was there when I said "Sanchi?" a few more times and the other passengers shooed me off the bus.

The Great Stupa of Sanchi is the oldest standing religious monument in India and one of the oldest Buddhist pilgrimages in the world, dating from the 3^rd century BC in the reign of Emperor Ashoka. It is known for really elaborately carved sculptures in pristine condition. Even so, it doesn’t generate a lot of tourism. Even on a Saturday I was one of the only visitors there. My guidebook told me I would feel like an explorer discovering something secret and grand, and cheesy as that sentiment may be, it really is the best explanation for the feeling. I had a 2000+ year-old monument on the top of a hill in the middle of the scenic Indian countryside all to myself on a beautiful, peaceful day, so yes, I allowed myself to feel a little like Indiana Jones.

I circumambulated the ancient stupa a few times and admired the sculptures. You can tell it’s a really early Buddhist monument because there are no actual images of Buddha, he is usually just represented as a tree. There are also a lot of really old pre-Hindu images like these “Yakshis” or tree-spirits.

After making my Art History teacher proud I explored the rest of the area which includes the ruins of a Buddhist monastery (you can see where the little cells were!), and the remains of one of Emperor Ashoka’s famous edict pillars.

Pilgrimage completed, I made my way back down the hill to the road hoping the bus to take me back to Bhopal might appear. I had no reason to believe that such a bus existed, and had no alternative plan if it did not, but I was only waiting about five minutes before it showed up to take me back to the city.

After a long bus ride and a late lunch I took a little stroll around Bhopal, but was unable to find the particular bazaar that I had been looking for (maps are useless without street names or landmarks) so instead I hopped in a rickshaw and visited the Darul Uloom Tajul Masajid. There are three beautiful, historic mosques in Bhopal, but the sun was going down and I only had time for one so the decisive rule of “eeny-meeny-miney-mo” led me to this one. It’s pink! Very nice.

I was going to eat dinner in my hotel, but when they told me they didn’t have the first three things that I tried to order I decided instead to go back to the place where I had had my before-hours breakfast. Here, I played my favorite game with Indian restaurants which is to choose whichever item in the “veg” section I have the least understanding of and hardest time pronouncing and order it. This game had been 100% successful, always resulting in something delicious up to this point. The dinner (some kind or rice thing) was ok, but the dessert “Rasgulla” was a spongy, gross mistake.

In the morning I flew back to Hyderabad. On the four hour flight they feed you 2 meals (which, as I described in an earlier blog, are actually delicious on Indian airlines)!

I now have a very successful pilgrimage and my first solo trip in India under my belt. And now…back to school.

See Ya Later/ Phir Milenge

This past week I have been going to classes, preparing for my yoga certification exam next week, applying like mad for summer jobs/ internships, phone-interviewing, trying to come up with an idea for my senior comps project for next semester, trying to figure out what classes I need to take next semester and panicking about all of the aforementioned things.

The sum of all of these parts is stress, fatigue, and something I call "blogger's block," or the inabilty to come up with anything interesting or cultureclashtastic-worthy to share.

This problem can be solved if:
1) Someone comes up with a feasible senior project for me
2) Someone hires me for the summer
3) I go somewhere really historic and interesting so that I can dazzle you all with photos and stories of exotic travel.
Lucky for you, I happen to be leaving for a very exciting weekend trip today and I will surely have lots of stories to share upon my return. Option #3 is taken care of, so the rest of you can get to work on numbers 1 and 2. Thanks.

By the by, the rain went away and it is now unbearably hot again.

RAIN!!!!!!

Revolutionary Road

The three month anniversary of arriving in India is fast approaching and along with this milestone comes a strange assortment of cravings for Americana. I have now arrived at a place where I have pretty much completely adjusted to the Hyderabad lifestyle. My cravings for things from home now come spaced at large intervals and though they are quite rare, they seem to come on much stronger than before. I am not, for example, sick of Indian food, but last night I was viciously attacked by the sudden, insatiable NEED for tortilla chips and salsa.

I suspect I am not the only American here that is having these strange, three-month withdrawal symptoms. My suspicion was confirmed when a group of us came up with the idea to venture to Hyderabad's swankiest movie theater the other day to see Revolutionary Road. A very expensive 100 Rupee ticket (2 dollars) gains you admission to this posh structure which boasts a shopping mall, an Imax screen, a McDonald's, a crisp, cold air-conditioning system, and big clean theaters with plush seats. Guilty, guilty pleasures. I really do love Bollywood movies, but Revolutionary Road was a nice break from Indian Cinema. It was bleak, depressing and thought-provoking and included realistic acting, flawed characters, violence, rough language, sex scenes, and not a single musical number. It was also in a language that I understand.

I highly recommend this film even if you aren't having America-cravings. I suspect it's good in the USA too.

I'm beginning to wonder what kinds of India cravings I will have after returning to the States. Will I suddenly have the urge to eat a whole box of soan papdi? Will no food ever taste spicy enough for me? Will all American films seem too dark and too lacking in pop music? What's a girl to do?

Planes, Trains, and Auto-Rickshaws

I have taken nearly every form of transportation possible in India, and each has been an eye-opening experience. A few words on getting around:

Bicycles

The high price of gas petrol along with the massive size of campus makes bicycles a popular choice and a necessity for the University of Hyderabad student. There appear to be a lot of large corporate monopolies in India and so even with a few thousand bikes on campus, it is a few thousand of the same crappy, one-speed bicycle in a few different colors. They are only differentiated by the varying states of disrepair and customized bike seats. My bike (the piece of junk on the left there) and I have a very hostile relationship; I’d rather not talk about it.

Buses

Traveling farther afield from campus usually requires a bus ride. I believe I described Indian public buses before as a “big, sweaty, group-hug with a lot of strangers.” This remains true. Luckily, buses have two separate entrances in the front and the back, the front being for women and the back for men. The seats are divided in the same way with the front section reserved for ladies. The men’s section is usually much more crowded and as a lady I can usually get one of the coveted front seats, although, having a seat sometimes means you get to have a tired old woman or someone else’s child sitting on your lap for the duration of your 8 cent journey.

Rickshaws

You must haggle your price with your rickshaw driver before you get in. The meter is always “broken.” 100% of Rickshaw drivers are 100% crazy. Your rickshaw driver may stop at any point to buy himself a snack or to ask a stranger for directions to your desired destination. The inside of your rickshaw will, generally, be decorated with pictures of Bollywood stars, and if you're lucky the driver will deafen you with loud Bollywood music as you drive.

Trains

Indian trains are a cheap and decent way to travel long distances, but they move inexplicably slowly and they bear no resemblance to the trains in The Darjeeling Limited. The sleeper cars have three-tier bunks, which, if you happen to be less than 5’6” are just the right length. With the gentle swaying motion of the train, these can actually be relaxing beds to sleep in. That is, of course if you can sleep with a few ticketless passengers sitting on the foot of your bed, or with a family of strangers staring at you every time you open your eyes, or with cockroaches climbing over your face, or with Tea-peddlers periodically walking through the cars yelling “CHAI! CHAI! CHAI!” Fortunately, India has toughened me to such elements and most of my friends and I have learned to travel quite comfortably on trains.

Planes

Indian planes are relatively cheap and relatively luxurious. A recent flight I was on began with the flight attendants distributing a small mango juice-box to each passenger. I had been in India long enough at this point for this to seem unsurprising, but when I took time to remove myself from the situation I realized how bizarre I would think it was if I was given a box of mango juice on an American airline. Even one-hour flights in India will serve a meal. You will be given the options of Veg. or Non-Veg. which usually consists of rice, daal, a curry, a salad and a dessert. It is by far the best plane food I have ever eaten…as in…it is actually good food, food I would pay to eat. I tried explaining the lukewarm, rubbery, inedible food found on American planes to an Indian friend and he really didn’t seem to understand where I was coming from.

Other transportation in India

The streets of Hyderabad are filled, not with cars, but primarily with trucks, rickshaws, and motorcycles. The concept of seating and towing capacities for each of these modes of transportation is stretched to its limits. A truck may move a pile of raw materials twice its own size, a four-seat rickshaw can hold at least eleven people, and a motorcycle is a family vehicle. Because trucks are generally loaded sky-high with goods, rickshaws have no back windows, and motorcycles are generally not equipped with mirrors, no one speeding down the road has any rear-view vision. The problem is solved by constant noise-making. As any moving vehicle approaches any other moving vehicle, the drivers create as much obnoxious honking as possible. The backs of most trucks and buses read “Sound Horn!” or “Horn OK Please!” in colorful letters. The streets of Hyderabad are very noisy. Luckily, many cars and buses are outfitted with vanity horns that play bits of music when they honk. Even better than the musical horns is the “back up music” that most motorized vehicles have. I believe this also has to do with heavy traffic and low visibility, but most cars and buses play music when going in reverse. Though this music is meant as an alert to bystanders, the song choice is rarely anything intimidating. Popular songs include, but are not limited to, “Happy Birthday,” “Silent Night,” “Fur Elise,” and of course, “My Heart Will Go On.” Nothing screams “get out of the way” like Celine Dion, eh?

Drive safe.

Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder

Yesterday was cloudy, overcast, and cool enough to wear jeans. It RAINED for about ten seconds at 2:30 in the afternoon. This was the first weather that I had seen in 78 days. My mood was enormously improved, things looked prettier, food tasted better, everything (and everyone) smelled better, I had more energy, and I spent all day happily exploring the city.

Today it is sunny and deathly hot again. Misery. Lethargy. Monday.

Pantleg Ponderings

I could speak for pages about gender roles in India. Even after all of the time I've been here I still don't have a good understanding of gender in this society. The two conclusions that I can safely draw are 1) Gender roles in India are very very different than they are in the United States. 2) Indian women are a lot more modest in dress than American women. It would be somewhat frowned upon to wear shorts in the hot weather for example. Now, I am not a person who has the capability to get a tan by any stretch of the imagination, but dressing modestly in India has left my body with a very strange color scheme. My legs, which haven't seen sunlight in months, remain the ghostly shade of translucent white that they were in December in Oregon, while my forearms look like they have been in India for three months. Since I can never see my legs behind the long pants and long skirts that I typically wear here, I had forgotten entirely about them until my friend Nick posted this horrifying picture on Facebook. One hot day in the desert of Rajasthan, I had decided to be scandalous and roll up my pants. The result, as you can see, was blinding.

KHANA

A few things about restaurants in India

1. In the hybrid Hindi-English language that exists in India the word "Hotel" has been reassigned to mean restaurant. Most restaurants have titles like Hyderabad's "Shadab Hotel" and unless the sign specifies "Lodging" or "Accommodation" it is not a hotel in our understanding of the word.

2. The number of menus you receive shall always be less than the number of members in your party and shall never exceed four. Number of menus < number of hungry people.

3. The menu shall always include about 100 items of which, about 30 will actually be available. The wise diner prepares at least three alternatives to suggest to the waiter.

4. On the other hand, if you order something not listed on the menu, it is highly likely that it will be provided for you. This rule especially applies to alcohol. Few restaurants actually have liquor licenses, but if you ask for beer they will gladly find some and bring it to you, often sending a waiter to the liquor store across the street with your money. To keep things secret, the beer may or may not be served to you in a tea pot.

5. Most restaurants advertise being "Multicuisine" which generally means North Indian food, South Indian food, Chinese food, and American food. It is generally advisable to stick with the Indian food.

6. Restaurants generally have several dining sections. Usually these sections are a casual, crowded section on the ground floor where all of the local men eat, a fancy, more expensive, air-conditioned "family" section on the second or third floor where, as a white female you will be forced to sit, and more subdivisions of those two groups.

7. The waiter (always male) will seat you at your table and remain standing there until you tell him everything you want to order: drink, appetizers, main courses, etc. Trying to order one course at a time, or trying to change your order will inevitably result in confusion.

8. Everything is clearly marked Veg. or Non-Veg.

9. Everything is delicious.

10. At the end of the meal you will receive a handful of fennel.

Holi Sh*t

Let it be known that 1) we STILL don't have internet in our dorms so in order to post to the blog I STILL have to ride at least a mile on my (poor excuse for a) bike in 100 degree heat uphill both ways being chased by cows and 2) I've been a tad under the weather so the aforementioned bike ride has been significantly less fun. 3) In the course of writing this blog the power went out like five times. I'm doing my best, so some people (COUGHnicoleCOUGHkarstanCOUGH) can stop complaining when I don't write blogs...you can't see it, but I'm sticking my tongue out at the computer right now.

I mean...you could just CALL me if you really miss me that much...

Moving on...

Yesterday was the Hindu festival of Holi, more commonly known to Westerners as "That Indian holiday when people throw paint at each other." It has to do with the arrival of spring, but it truly is just an uncontrollable, nationwide paint fight.

Step one: Acquire Colors

You may recall this picture from the last post of paint pigment powder for sale in the market in Mysore.

Step two: Prepare for battle

Here you see me armed with my (clean) sweats, my squirt gun, and my bag of hot pink (surprised?) powder.







Step three: PAINT FIGHT!!!
Immediately upon leaving the dorm we were attacked by a gang of rainbow-colored teenage boys with Holi powder.
Every person we passed was just as colorful/ just as ready to attack.
Every colorful opponent went straight for the face.
My initial reaction each time I was attacked was to scream and as a result I ate a lot of paint.






Step four: Lather, Rinse, Repeat
I have never been so deserving of a shower. As it turns out, paint pigments dye the skin and the hair. I did a pretty good job scrubbing, but I still have a few purple patches. A lot of my friends look like Easter eggs.

Happy Holi!!!!

Mysore Musings

CIEE, my abroad program, advertises the fact that they organize weekend excursions to different parts of India for their students. Upon our arrival here we discovered that "excursions" really means one single trip, and "weekend" really means one single night...This is cause for irritation, but our whirlwind trip to Mysore this past weekend was nonetheless fun.

There are roughly 30 of us in the program, so we filled up nearly a whole train car on Friday afternoon when we arrived at the train station. The train was no less than five hours behind schedule, so what was meant to be an overnight jaunt to Bangalore turned into an all night and half a day nightmare.

I blinked and completely missed the city of Bangalore. Since we were now several hours behind schedule we rolled off the train and immediately onto a bus straight to lunch. If there is one thing that CIEE does do well, it is meals. Every event that the program organizes seems to end with me overeating. So I overate then we got back on the bus and found ourselves arriving in the city of Mysore. (The fact that Mysore rhymes with "eyesore" concerned me at first, but it is purely ironic, don't worry, lovely place.) It was early evening at this point so we sped through Mysore's lovely palace. The inside of the palace is really beautiful, but you'll have to take my word for it because, alas, no cameras allowed.

Following the palace we had exactly one hour to explore Mysore's busy market which sells bananas, bananas, bananas, perfume, jewelry, flowers, spices, and anything else you might want. All of this, of course, comes at a "special price just for you madam!!"



We then arrived, famished, at the hotel for dinner and much needed showers. Here, we discovered where all of our money had been spent. The hotel was pretty fabulous. I mean...soft beds, toilet paper, shower curtains, and to everyone's delight, a trendy discotheque attached. Sweaty, exhausted, and dressed less-than-stylishly, we paraded into the club. The decor was a confusing mixture of Americana with a barrel (yes, barrel) shaped door, and booths shaped like vintage cars. We then proceeded to get our respective grooves on and dance until we really really had to collapse in our expensive, cushy hotel rooms.

The next morning we woke up early with the aid of a lot of caffeine. We said goodbye to Mysore, and our nice hotel and got back on the bus...hooray! A few hours of driving brought us to Shravanabelagola, a Jain pilgrimage site and temple. To reach the temple, one has to scale the side of a mountain barefoot. This is difficult in the midday sun, but rewarding in the end. At the top, beautiful views of the Karnataka countryside and a giant sculpture awaits you. Lord Garnateshwara, the upstanding gentleman to your right, is an important Jain saint, he is also one of the largest monolithic statutes in the world. Withhold dirty jokes please.



After the temple we got back on the bus and drove to Melkote, a tiny village known for its Vishnu temple. We ate lunch in a Dharmashala, which is like a free hostel for the temple's pilgrims. Once again, I overate. We explored the town quickly, awkwardly paraded past the pilgrims, through the temple paying our dues to Vishnu, then in keeping with the weekend's theme, climbed back onto the bus.

The bus ride back to Bangalore was long, tiring, and punctuated by spontaneous sing-alongs to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." When our vocal chords were worn out and our butts were asleep from sitting, we finally arrived to the Bangalore Airport where our program leaders comically tried to get twenty-six tired American college students through security and onto an airplane. After only a few disasters we made it onto the plane, where, sadly there was no more singing. The plane from Bangalore to Hyderabad is about one hour...about 16 hours less than the train. We landed, then of course, piled onto a bus.

And now you know why I didn't study for my History test this morning.

hot. very hot.

While I was away I crossed the 2 month milestone of the study abroad experience. I’m now about half way done with my whole Indian adventure. I think I can safely say that I’m pretty accustomed to the Hyderabadi lifestyle at this point. Being away really gave me a new perspective on this city. Now that I have a frame of references for comparing North India to South India, I have a better understanding of what makes Hyderabad Hyderabad. First of all, I realized that compared to beautiful, cosmopolitan cities like Delhi with colonial architecture and a thriving cultural scene, or charming medieval fortress towns like Jodhpur with breathtaking views everywhere you look, Hyderabad is a little on the shabby side. In fact, Hyderabad looks a little like an arid, post-apocalyptic dystopia where everything is covered in a layer of dust and even the nice buildings are under construction. This is not to say that Hyderabad isn’t beautiful on the inside…it has a great personality…it’s just going through that awkward pre-teen, ugly duckling phase right now. The city has exploded from 5 million people to 7 million people in under ten years (if I recall the statistic correctly) which means that it is going through a lot of new and unusual physical changes before it reaches full maturity.

Being away also made me realize how much South India pride I have developed, specifically in terms of food. For every North Indian restaurant that we dined in, I actually found myself craving dosas (they’re like crepes), iddli (breakfast pastries), and biryani (a Hyderabadi rice dish) more. I figured by two months in I would be completely sick of all forms of Indian food, but actually, I’ve grown so accustomed to it that it’s all I want. You should also note that I have become a beast when it comes to handling spices. There is no pepper, no curry, no masala too picante for my taste-buds of steel.

The North was much cooler (in the literal, heat-related sense) than the South. I did not know this until I returned, stepped off the airplane and wanted to die. I had slowly, over ten days adjusted to chilly 80 degree February weather, only to return to the ungodly weather of the South. Currently, I can't tell if the reddish color of my skin is a sunburn or just an overheated flush. That is not to say that I haven’t slightly adjusted to the heat. I only complained about ten or eleven times today and it was mostly for the purpose of making small talk. “Ghastly heat, eh?” that sort of thing. I actually walked the mile from class buildings to the dorm in the noonday sun wearing a scarf and survived, so I must be getting tougher, right? In fact, I’m getting tougher in more ways than you know.

Nothing fazes me anymore. Today I found a cockroach crawling around in my purse and didn’t even bother to gasp; I just shrugged, set the bag back down and assumed it would find its way out. Hours later I rode my bike directly through a heard of water buffalo and thought nothing of it. And moments ago as I walked down the hall a winged-creature swooped past me, a girl stepping into the hall and said, “was that a bat?!” I responded, “yup,” and continued on my way unimpressed.

In spite of becoming hardened to the many oddities of life in Hyderabad, I still haven’t mastered everything. I learned this today as I sat outside on a bench working through an embarrassing attempt to read-aloud with my Hindi tutor. Out from the trees emerged a jovial, sari-clad old woman who began heckling me in Hindi. I’m not good enough with the language to have any idea what she was saying, but it involved a great deal of pointing at me and laughing. After several minutes when the woman mercifully went on her way, Rajini, my tutor, revealed that the woman had been making fun of my ankle-bracelet. I bought it in Varanasi thinking it was so culturally appropriate, but apparently it’s a faux-pas to wear it only on one ankle and without the symmetry of two I look like a foolish Westerner. I have so much to learn.

On an unrelated note, have you ever heard of this fruit? CLICK HERE

Where have you been???

Ok, I was gone for ten days and each day contained more adventures than I usually have in a whole year. This is a bit of a predicament in terms of blog-composition. I think it's time to break out the bullet points.

DELHI or I have a feeling we're not in Kansas Andhra anymore.

-Arrived to Delhi late Thursday evening. As we flew in over the city I looked out the window and realized two things. 1) This city is HUGE 2) This is SO different from Hyderabad.

-Having not traveled much out of the south, landing in Delhi was like landing on another planet. A beautiful, highly developed and comparatively efficient planet that has sidewalks and traffic lights and buildings higher than 3 stories and toilet paper in the public restrooms! A few of us drew comparisons to Paris because New Delhi is really gorgeous with wide avenues and lots of big parks. The "India Gate" seems to be channeling Parisian architecture as well.

-Old Delhi, on the other hand, bears a little more resemblance to the rest of India that we've seen with some busy street markets and lots of cows everywhere.

-The four girls on the adventure got to stay in the home Bharat and Shriya, the friendly son and daughter-in-law of Julia and Maya's host parents. The two boys on our trip were banished to a hotel in a cool part of the city known as Paharganj where an interesting chain of events led the hotel managers to believe that the four of us girls were prostitutes. That was a fun misunderstanding to clear up.

-The first day we visited the National Museum which had a great collection and a great gift shop, then we visted the Craft Museum which had a great great great collection and a great great great gift shop.

-The second day we ate a really enormous lunch where Jamie broke into a serious sweat, not because it was hot or because the food was spicy, but simply because he was putting so much effort into food consumption...then we went to the Red Fort which you see on the left. Here, Julia was crapped upon by a pigeon.

-A word of advice: If ever you find yourself in Delhi in a place called Urban Pind and a "Masala Martini" is offered to you, order as many as you can handle because it is the single greatest taste you will ever have in your mouth.

JODHPUR or I'm Blue.

-We had never planned on visiting Jodhpur, but somehow we ended up there.

-Jodhpur is known as the blue city...for obvious reasons (all of the buildings are blue). It is in the middle of the desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan which has a flavor distinctly more middle-earstern-y than anywhere else in India. It is a medieval fortress city which means windy, narrow streets and beautiful (blue) architecture. The best analogy anyone could come up with was EXTREME Venice with no canals.

-The highlight of Jodhpur was the Fort there which provided beautiful views of the city. Best fort in India by far.

-Day 2 in Jodhpur we decided to take a "Tribal village tour" of the desert. This involved the six of us piling into a jeep and being speedily driven around the desert where friendly desert-dwellers allowed us into their homes to watch them weave carpets, craft clay pots, and drink tea made from opium.

-Day 2 was also Shiva's (Hindu deity, "The Destroyer") birthday which meant a lot of festivities in the city when we arrived back from desert-jeeping. The whole city of Jodhpur seemed very eager to help us participate in said festivities. At one point we wandered into a Shiva temple and before we knew it we were standing bare-foot in six inches of sacred water in the basement of the temple pouring cups of water over the sacred lingam (phallus) in a ceremonial act while crowds of Indians gathered to watch and a photographer snapped away for the Rajasthani Times. Typical day in India.

JAIPUR or "No, I don't need a rickshaw."

-The city of Jaipur is also in Rajasthan. It is where we initially meant to go when we inadvertently ended up in Jodhpur. It looks like something from Star Wars. It has a lot of markets. It is crawling with tourists.

-The most entertaining part of Jaipur was the fact that six of us shared one giant bed in one small hotel room. I think this was the moment when we officially became the cutest group of travelers ever. Or maybe it was when we read each other bedtime stories or maybe when we played summer camp style bonding games...it's hard to decide.

AGRA or omg is that the taj?-I fully expected Agra to be filthy, crawling with tourists, cheesy, and populated only by Westerners. It had some of these things to a degree, but overall, I thought it was actually a very quaint place. There were not nearly the number of tourists that I thought there would be and most of the tourists were Indians. There were, of course lots of souvenier shops with aggressive salesmen, but I've really perfected the art of ignoring the shouts of "Hello! Madam! Good price! Look in my shop!"

-Brenda's guidebook says: "The Taj Mahal. The world's greatest building." I guess that's that.

-We had just been discussing what it must like to be a townie in Agra dealing with tourists all the time, when stumbled upon a night-market/carnival at the edge of town. We wandered in and soon realized we had found all of the locals, we were certainly the only Westerners around. My five thrill-seeking travel companions who all have death wishes peer-pressured me into riding a ferris wheel constructed from scrap metal and rubber bands which whipped us around in seats with no safety bars at 100 mph. I'm glad to be alive.

-We couldn't get a train ticket out of Agra when we wanted one so we ended up there for a whole extra day. We solved this issue by going to Keoladeo National Park, a fabulous bird sanctuary about an hour outside the city. In keeping with the theme of being the most adorable travel group ever, we hired a guide and horse-drawn carriage to take us around the park all day.

-Our guide had a keen set of eyes and a heavy accent, which made the day very enjoyable as he stopped to show us the park's great varieties of "antelopps," "painted-astorks," and even an elusive "pie-ton snake."

-Our hotel in Agra was the setting for many a horror film and contained more varieties of bugs than guests. The sickening color of the chipping chartreuse walls was perfectly accentuated by the flickering, seizure inducing, neon light. The bathroom doors didn't close and my favorite feature was the shower, which didn't work, but when you turned the knob the sink turned on across the room. We each paid the equivalent of $1.75 USD to stay there...so the next night in Varanasi we sprang for the $8 hotel.

-The train to Varanasi from Agra has not arrived on time in nine years.

VARANASI or THE END

-Varanasi is one of India's oldest and most sacred cities due to it's strategic location on the Ganges River. It is still a very important pilgrimage site for Hindus, especially after the death of a loved one.

-Because of the amount of funeral pyres, bathers, and other rituals that take place in the Ganges, the river is extremely polluted. It was described to me as "not water," "sludge," and "smells really bad." I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I was silently wondering why on earth we would want to go to Varanasi, which to me, sounded like the morbid, crowded, waste-land of the North.

-When we arrived we had to wander a confusing labrynth of narrow streets before we found our hotel, but then all of the sudden we emerged and saw the river. I gained a sudden understanding of what makes Varanasi special.

-Varanasi surprised me for being actually quite clean, hauntingly spiritual, and truly beautiful, but I was even more surprised by how tourist-ridden it was. Dare I say Varanasi may have had more tourists than Agra?

-That evening we gathered among the pilgrims and the neo-hippy tourists for some Shiva-worship on the river. The ceremony was very mesmerizing and actually had a few striking parallels to a Catholic Mass. As I was walking away afterwards I lost my friends in the crowd for a moment and suddenly found myself face to face with a Hindu priest who grabbed my head and drew a huge, red bindi on my forehead with a powdered finger and the words "good luck, good karma, god bless you."

-We rose early the next day for a sunrise boat-ride along the Ganges, and thus ended our epic adventure.