Camel carts, Kama Sutra and thalis galore

Trip Start Aug 21, 2003

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of India Everywhere, India
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Okay, here's a travelogue entry finally! It may be a short one as we're tired and we have a long drive tomorrow. Since buying a motorcycle seriously altered the dynamic of our travels, we'll start with a description of that. Driving a motorcycle in India has to be one of the most different and unique experiences in the world. The roads for the first part of our trip, in Madhya Pradesh, were pothole-filled and only wide enough to accomodate one truck, not a truck passing another truck and a motorcycle trying to stay alive. Even on the national highways, which are the 'best' roads, we often had to share them with camel carts, tractors pulling wagons full of people, trucks going the wrong way down a divided highway, and herds of cattle and goats. Indians seem to have no fear on the road; it seems they leave everything up to karma. There are no speed limits in India, just funny road signs, curiously always in English, that say things like "don't drive in the wrong direction" or "lane driving is sane driving." We are constantly lost, as they only place road signs where you don't need them

01 - Empty Enfield

. So we stop and ask a lot, in English, and usually get longwinded replies in Hindi, or one of the other hundred languages or so they speak in this huge land. We like to try and stop for breaks in the middle of nowhere, so we can have a little peace and quiet, but always, out of nowhere, a human will appear. India's like that - there's always someone around. Who likes to watch every single thing you do. We often feel like we're just real-life, walking TV shows. Oh yeah, and it's real hot here. Today is was 104. We sweat so much on the bike we don't even know it. As soon as the sweat breaks on our skin the intensely hot air is there to dry it right up. We drink 10 litres of water a day and we're still dehydrated.

Whether or not we like India is a good question. One we haven't quite answered yet. It has overwhelmingly bad parts, things that can make you break down crying or want to go to sleep and wake up in Candyland. But it's also amazingly diverse, with so many things to see and so much history behind them all. After Agra and the Taj Mahal, we visited the early 17th century palaces in the tiny village of Orccha, a place that looks like it belongs in a storybook, with far off spires that reach into the sky. From there we visited Khajuraho, an isolated village that is home to the most exquisitely beautiful temples we've seen thus far on our trip. They were built between 950 and 1050 A.D

02 - Full Enfield

. by the Chandela dynasty, powerful rulers of the northern plains of India. Across the surfaces of both the interior and exterior of the temples dance sensuous asparas (heavenly nymphs), and couples engaged in Kama Sutra like poses. They are made of sandstone, and are so perfect they could have been built just yesterday. From Khajuraho we concluded our tour of the state with a relaxing stay in the village of Mandu, where we meandered through 15th century forts, palaces and mausoleums.

Next was the state of Gujarat, the proud birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. First stop was the small (4.5 million is small by Indian standards), loud, and dirty capital city, Ahmedabad, where we experienced the epitome of the Indian thali at a lovely restaurant called Agashiye. The thali is the best thing about India- they are everywhere, and eliminate the need to know how to order Indian food. A thali is basically an all- you-can-eat sampler of dishes, served on a big palate-like plate or a banana leaf, and always includes 2 main dishes, dhal (lentil soup), plain rice, chapatis (pita-like bread), and in Gujurat, tall glasses of buttermilk. All this for around 50 cents. From Ahmedabad we headed to the former Portuguese colony called Diu, a small island off the southern tip of the state. Thanks to Gandhi, Gujarat is a totally dry state, except for Diu, where alcohol is damn cheap. We spent a relaxing week on the island, where we stayed in a guesthouse upstairs in the old 16th century Portuguese St

03 - Palace - Orccha, Madhya Pradesh

. Thomas Church, watched the sun setting over the colorfully painted town every day from the roof, and in the evenings ate tasty Portuguese fish dinners cooked by the owner's wife. From Diu we made a detour to the town of Bhuj, which was pretty unspectacular except for the fact that it is still under reconstruction from a devastating earthquake that hit in 2001. That particular earthquake killed over 30,000 people in the state of Gujarat, and Bhuj was hit the hardest. Three years later it looks like the quake could have hit just yesterday, and all the town's citizens are hard at work trying to put the pieces of their lives back together.

Now we are in Rajasthan, the land of many camels. Every day it becomes more difficult to find a shady spot to take a break. First stop was the cream-colored town of Udaipur, where parts of the James Bond film Octopussy were filmed. We spent most of our time there exploring the old city set on the shores of Lake Pichola, and gazing out at the Lake Palace Hotel, wishing we could be there, supposedly one of the most spectacular hotels in the world. Now we are in the blue city of Jodhpur, where blue painted buildings radiate outward from a high and might fort. And it is here that we have finally found an Internet cafe with services sufficient for our travelogue needs. So it's your lucky day!