Well, it’s all over. A quick bit on
India but mostly will try and wrap it all up and put a bow on it. Jodhpur,
well, it’s really blue. Stunning city, even more stunning fort. What I’m trying
to say is that the blue city looks stunning from the truly stunning fort; and,
the truly stunning fort looks stunning from the city. Other than the color,
there’s not much going on in the actual city. An exquisite marble-carved tomb,
but that just gets categorized in the “amazing stuff you get to see when you go
to India and nowhere else.” Oh, and Libby bought like 5 lbs. of spices that I
had to carry for the rest of the trip.
Udaipur is renowned for its “romanticism.”
Indeed, it does excel at that. There’s a certain tidiness and cleanliness
that’s missing from most everywhere else in India save certain sections of
Delhi (obviously). The downside is that every store is some variation of a
tourist-goods store. We had one of our more memorable dinners in all of Asia there
in Udaipur. A beautiful lake inhabits the city center, and there is beautiful
architecture that rings this lake. The restaurant where we ate is located among
some leafy trees in a greener section of the shore with a magnificent view.
This being Asia of course we managed to get a table that was literally on the break
wall. The food was great, the cocktails were incredible, so obviously this
place ranks highly. But as the dusk was fast approaching, and the candle was
being lit, the most amazing thing happened; first dozens then hundreds then
thousands of birds started swarming around the lake. After a quick mental jog,
I decided birds certainly don’t come out at night and watched as all these
“birds” went to their tree and proceeded to hang upside down. Libby didn’t
believe they were bats until I pointed out their perch, and she came around. An
amazing display to accompany dinner. Truly one of those “only in Asia” moments
and definitely one for the memory books.
The joke about the heat being some
sort of character-builder stopped being funny around Udaipur. There was some
serious deliberation about skipping the literal desert of Jaisalmer and heading
either north or just to the air-conditioned portions of Delhi. We decided to
shorten our trip in Jaisalmer but to ultimately go. Jaisalmer is kind of in the
middle of nowhere and figured we wouldn’t want to make a special trip out there
on any future trips to India. Jaisalmer gets rave reviews and rightly so. This
is a special city. One of the most
beautiful we saw. The sandstone carvings are beyond exquisite. Majestic? Sublime?
All of the above. The fort is massive; it contains a whole city essentially.
After Jodhpur, I remember being like, “surely this is the most stunning fort in
all of India.” Jaisalmer either beats it or is on par with it. Jaisalmer, like
the Taj Mahal, is just one of those places you simply have to go. If possible,
you should skip the “camel experience.” If you have not gotten the chance to
ride camels like us, you just splash out 30 dollars a piece to ride a camel for
2 hours. Pretty contrived in my mind, but, I get to say I’ve ridden a camel. Of
course, like all spectacular sites in India, the locals are almost enough to
ruin it. They give impossibly cheap rates on their hotel rooms and proceed to
ram their camel safaris down your throats because that’s where they make their
real money. Ideally you would take their
incredible room rates and put your most steely exterior on to resist the camel
rides. Unless you have a real camel desire…
Anyways, I came to realize after one
day of 117-degree heat, that the desert is a harsh environment. After I saw a
cow dying by a dried up water hole, I realized the desert is an EXTREMELY harsh
environment. We had about 3 weeks of character building, but the Indians we met
had about 30 years (or whatever) of character building. So really, the touts
were like sinewy, blood-thirsty hyenas, and we were fragile lambs. In addition,
they try really hard to dress up like fragile lambs. Really, we never stood a
chance. Not a chance at all. Anyways, loved Jaisalmer, but also loved getting
on that air-conditioned train out of Jaisalmer.
The Taj Mahal. Doesn’t really need
explaining. You have to go. Take the 6-8 am train from Delhi, and return that
evening. There are like 3 other sights in Agra worth seeing which means you
have the utterly detestable task of negotiating with tuk tuk drivers who will
without fail try to sell you on their “whole day” packages. To be honest, what
I think is going on is these tuk tuk drivers try to juggle as many “whole-day”
packages as they can. After dropping you
off and making it very clear where they will be “waiting” for you, they go on
to find more business. Fortunately, you
don’t pay these people until the end and if they are not waiting for you when
you get out, then they’re not doing their job and you just got x number of free
tuk tuk rides. So yeah, there is usually a way to screw the people who are
trying to screw you and I’d like to say I got pretty damn good at it by the
end. Just like they try and act like they are lambs you try and act like you’re
a hyena. Which comes back to the whole telling everyone you’ve been to India
many times before because everyone will sort of give you an interview to try
and gauge how much they can screw you. Also, how expensive of a hotel/country
you are at/from (I don’t remember and perhaps Latvia? Estonia?).
Delhi was simply an all-out 2-day
assault on the various shopping outlets. We got to get colonial with high tea
and a chak de phatte one afternoon but other than that it was a shopping
bonanza. We left the camera, skipped the sightseeing and just shopped. Really
India has everything for anyone, which is what makes it the one country I think
everyone should visit. We skipped the natural component of India, which we
figured we’ll hit on the next round. We heard stories of people going to the
nature reserves and spotting wild tigers, leopards, ect. Stuff I feel like you
never get to actually see in the wild. Of course, I still need to see the
Himalayas as well. The presents I got for everyone were enough to convince my
mother that maybe India isn’t so bad after all-lol.
Now, to the
reflection. What does all this traveling do for you? Why is it important? Is it
just a fun waste of time? I’d say that extensive travelling is not the most important
thing to do in life. But, you would be cheating yourself and your life of
something if you did not do extensive world touring at some point in your
life. Our takeaways from travelling
become more substantive as you become more mature, so age isn’t really an
issue. Though I think you lose a lot with a tour group. But you would gain a
lot with the correct personal guide. Always a balance. So that answers the
“should I do it?.” Now for the why? The only somewhat essential answer I can
get to is that you learn more about yourself, you learn more about others and
you learn more about the world. Additionally, you learn more about all these
things and their relations to one another. More perspective, more experience, more
understanding and empathy, all things that make you a wiser person. One of the
more poignant…points I came away with were these unanswerable life questions
India in particular threw in your face. Why do I have relatively everything and
this person has relatively nothing?
Answer: doesn’t exist. I think
that’s an important thing to understand in life. I felt like my experience was
enhanced by the fact that before I arrived in Asia I had a pretty entrenched
set of ideals, which travelling served to strengthen, and not shatter. I
wonder, and this is merely subjective speculation regarding the objectively stupid
appearing individuals, if people who are unsure of who they really are become
caught up in all the currents and tides that differ wildly among all the
cultures in Asia. One moment they are caught up in the Rastafarian island
paradise lifestyle, the next they are embracing the Buddhist tradition of
meditation, and finally they are bathing in the subjectively holy river that is
objectively polluted. Though by the way, I find meditation highly intriguing…
Obviously you don’t want to be close-minded about everything out there that is
different. Just about finding the right balance for you.
And honestly, that’s about all I
can say. You learn to adapt quickly and efficiently; you’re constantly making
decisions seeking to maximize utility. You seek to establish a floating peg
index to help stabilize your emotions in the roller coaster that is travelling.
In my case, this was done for the benefit of the “team.” You get to see
essential beauty in many forms. You’re awed, perhaps inspired, in one way or
another. You get to touch that ephemeral and transient sense of “living” at an
increased rate. What I would define as goose bumps and a rush of adrenaline to
the head. Obviously you are always “living,” but when traveling you get that
sense of “being alive.”
In the end, I suppose the most
important thing this trip taught me was to never sit down, feel bad for myself
and start wishing I were somewhere else.
You see the living consequences all the time on the road. In their case,
they are looking but not seeing.
