Adventures in India 15: Pushkar

The hotel chicken wings at breakfast may have been leftovers from previous night.  We left early from Udaipur to leave time for tourism in Pushkar. Pushkar is one of the holiest places in India. The car overheated on the way - turns out the person who had earlier replaced the clutch had done something to cause a leak in the cooling system. The driver just pulled over and refilled it, so it wasn't nearly as dramatic as we were concerned it might be at first.

Ana also found limited edition gross Oreo when we stopped.

The road went up and got very twisty and narrow - saw buses driving very carefully indeed.

Apparently the hotel was a new one for the driver and he had to try a few different roads before finding the place, which was fairly attractive, though the rooms were a little iffy.

The hotel was on a hill overlooking the city, and that was a nice view. 

After checking in, we still had the late afternoon and evening for tourism.  Pushkar is famous as a holy site, the only holy lake in Hinduism and also the location of the only temple to Brahma. There was talk of why this is, something something a curse - but if I went any further I'd have to Wikipedia it, and in this case that is left as an exercise for the reader since reading it directly will be more efficient.

At any rate, we went to through a market to the temple to Brahma, where cameras are not allowed, and our guide tried to encourage us to cut the entire line.  We waited, since it was only a minute or two and why be jerks in a temple?  I am confident this site has more impact to Hindus than on me - in appearance and effect quite similar to others we had already seen.

After that, we transited through the market to the holy site of the lake itself, where you are also not allowed to take pictures.  There, and without being asked by the guide or anyone, we found ourselves holding a coconut and trying to follow along with our very own Hindi-speaking priest in some kind of blessing which reminded me a little of getting married, and which (SURPRISE) ended with them asking us for money. The priest referred to money in terms of how many hours or days he said it would support the charitable work of the local priesthood, which does not give you a clear understanding of how much they were asking for.  I am sure this was deliberate.  I was gearing up to be difficult about it and either demand more information or offer a small amount of money in a known denomination when Ana picked one. That turned out to be $300, and then we lied a lot about not having it on us, they wanted to do a written IOU, we bailed, and the guide was later asking us for it at the hotel (we wondered if he got a cut).  It was a thing.  Given choice or warning, we could happily have skipped this whole part, which was entirely unnecessary and annoying.

A picture taken of the lake next to the part you're not allowed to take pictures of.

Interestingly, afterward it turned out that our Hindi-speaking friend had accidentally picked the same amount of money, assuming their priest was speaking in rupees and not dollars.  It sounds like their priest switched currencies several times in confusing ways and made it sound like rupees when he meant dollars.  They also declined to follow through, though as someone raised in the Hindu faith our friend decided to make up the $300 in other charitable work at a time and venue less sketchy than this.

After that not very excellent tourism, we went back to the hotel and enjoyed just sitting on the room's little porch and watching the sun go down without anyone bothering us.  We were definitely wearing bug spray (malarial area) and were a little concerned when another American tourist went by with her kids and complained that the all-natural bug spray did not seem to be deterring mosquitoes from biting her kids.  Looking out over the down, we watched children kite-fighting from roof to roof and generally found this much more relaxing than standing by a lake and being hit up for money.

After the sun went down, we had dinner on the front lawn of the hotel, which was pretty nice - good temperature and views and with bug spray the bugs didn't bother us.  The whole city is vegetarian as a Hindu holy site, but we had some tasty okra in gravy and I ordered spring rolls which are probably not authentic to the local cuisine but were delicious anyway and I felt zero guilt by this point in the trip about enjoying things that weren't local cuisine.  So in our opinion, Pushkar is best enjoyed for the views and relaxation if you're not Hindu - might not have been an ideal destination for us but overall it balanced out OK.

Adventures in India 14: Udaipur

Our friend had found a listing for German cafe 'Edelweiss' in her Lonely Planet guide, and the guide recommended the sticky buns. Our friend fixated on the idea of sticky buns quite firmly. Only checking that the cafe was in fact closed had prevented a cross-city trip for sticky buns the night before. So the first order of business the following day had to be sticky buns, which by this point I was starting to get excited about them too. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the sticky buns for that day had not arrived yet. We munched other available things and used the wifi, which was some of the best we encountered in India, as the sticky buns were supposed to be on the way. We waited quite a while, closing on when we were supposed to meet our tour guide. They finally arrived just as we couldn't wait any longer and were heading out to meet the tour guide. Of course, they turned out to be more like cinnamon buns and were merely OK, which was likely inevitable after all the drama. More photos are on Flickr.

Cinnamon bun does not equal sticky bun!

Next, we saw another Jain temple, but after the last one this one could not stand up. It was much smaller and nothing we hadn't seen before by this point in the trip. We also had to bribe the shoe guy so our shoes didn't get lost. At this point, we were getting a bit tired of bribing people.

After the temple, we went to the local palace, which was a bit more for luxury than defense but was was still equipped with the latest in anti-elephant defenses.

The palace, and also a clear example of the piece of dust that was on the lens for the entire trip - see the dot in the sky just above and to the right of the central palace door shown.

Precious stones inlaid into marble.  Probably not a weekend project.

The view from the palace out over the city was pretty good.

Sometimes, when you're nobility with a palace and all, you just need to coat the walls of a room entirely with gold and mirrors.

Go go tourism walking powers - down narrow and twisting staircases - very common in the interior of these palaces.

Silver throne chair to get carried around in.

After the palace, we were signed up for a boat cruise on the lake.

We went up and down the lake in front of the palace and old city, and also visited another palace / garden out in the lake itself. It was nice, but small.

Lunch at another expensive tourist place, but they had new and interesting food offerings like that grilled fish dish in the picture that was pretty good.

Just before sunset, we went to a palace garden park. The guides out front followed us forever when we declined services "This park is very technical!" They gave us some sample 'technical' info, saying that the fountains were all gravity-driven, but my engineering degrees suggest they either 1) they are piping the fountain water in from mountains miles away, or 2) they are using electric pumps. The guides claimed it was all gravity power for the fountains but we couldn't see anything tall enough to produce the pressure head anywhere nearby.

Garden design not particularly special, but not a bad walk in the evening.

That evening, we ate in a really fancy place on the lake, in the old city, overlooking the palace. Really, we paid for the view but didn't care in the slightest. The food was pretty interesting, and the cocktails were great. Overall, it was a fairly pleasant day of tourism.

Adventures in India 13: Transit to Udaipur

We were sad to leave the hotel in Johdpur (also their breakfast buffet was the best of the trip - banana fritters and pancakes and fried coconut), but further adventures awaited on the trip to Udaipur and in the city itself. The drive to Udaipur is substantial from Johdpur, but about halfway between them is the Ranakpur Jain Temple. Now, we'd been to a number of Jain temples before, and the party was not necessarily that excited about another one. However, this one proved to be very special indeed, and one of the highlights of the entire trip in my book. It is also the largest Jain temple in India. More pictures on Flickr.

Before that though, it was Ana's turn to feel sick again, probably due to anti-malarials, again, so she wasn't up for walking around in the temple, and grabbed a bench outside in the sun. One interesting thing we encountered in India was the desire of substantial number of people have pictures of us or to be in pictures with one or both of us. We didn't mind as long as they asked, but when people just walked up to us and started taking pictures, the temptation to be all, 'So, that'll be 200 rupees' was pretty strong. Apparently while waiting on the bench a family approached Ana, sat down, and started taking pictures clearly intended to prominently feature her. In this case, she exploited a scratchy throat and began deep hacking coughs, leading to the father shouting at the family "No touch! TB!" an ignominious scamper for all involved away from the area. Well played!

We opted for the free audio guide tour instead of a live tour and headed up into the temple.

And were immediately gobsmacked by the scale and detail of the stonecarving. The light coming in through many elaborate windows made the massive structure feel light and airy.

As an active/in use Jain temple, you were supposed to be silent in here. Nobody was paying the SLIGHTEST attention to this and it was actually quite loud and echo-y. There was also a portion of the temple being used for religious purposes where only Jain were supposed to go. In practice, our friend told us they weren't exactly checking but they were letting in folks who looked Indian and not so much the foreigners.

This carving was not a short project, and I assume you really don't want to make mistakes.

Smaller outbuilding exterior.

Just amazing work.

After the temple we headed over for lunch at a nearby tourist trap restaurant/resort. As mentioned before, it was pretty hard to get the driver or anyone else to not take us to restaurants aimed at foreigners. I included this shot because it shows our mighty steed, the Toyota Innova, and the exterior of the resort.

Lunch was actually pretty tasty with the coconut cashew chicken.

After lunch, continuing on to Udaipur, the road got pretty exciting, with a lot of winding mountain roads and significant drops. Among the prettier terrain we'd seen, and I would love to drive it in a more spirited manner in a sportier car, though I don't think we'll go back to India just for that.

The hotel in Udaipur was part of a large national chain aimed at businesspeople, so it was fairly professional and reasonably well-appointed. Hot water again!

Christmas decorations in the lobby.

Room looks like it would most anywhere else - nice. The TV in the next room over was extremely audible, which was a downside - it looked like they were using the same switch and electrical boxes to mount both TV's back to back - which is essentially a direct air pathway for sound to transit through.They turned if off relatively early at night, so we were able to sleep. However, there was one really unusual thing about the room. See the curtain? You would think that there would be windows behind it, yes?

Well technically, yes. However, the windows looked out into an unfinished maintenance corridor - which could, if one were a creeper, be used to go look into all the different rooms. We were pretty sure that this was new construction and behind a new, large, lit-up piece of art in the lobby. For the record, we did not go look into the other rooms, and we locked out windows and put the curtain over them. Dinner was at the hotel's 'Spanish' bar, and we dared to order some allegedly Spanish food. I don't think it was terribly authentic but for us Not-Indian was a great thing and we enjoyed it. Also tried some India-only whiskey blends that were unexceptional, but still add to Things Tried.

Adventures in India 12: Johdpur

Leaving Jalsaimer, we drove to Johdpur, which turned out to be one of our favorite cities on the tour. Driving in, we saw substantial walls and fortifications along the skyline. We arrived in the afternoon and checked into the nicest hotel of the entire trip, including luxurious rooms, low noise, and both good hot water and wifi. We were in fact suspicious that something must be horribly wrong with it based on initial impressions of how good it was. We ate a late lunch of non-Indian food, and I appreciated a club sandwich more than I typically would have just for not being Indian food. With lunch in us, it was time to go explore some of the places we'd seen from the road. More images available on Flickr.

Shout out to Ratan Villas - recommended hotel for Johdpur

We drove up above the city towards the walls surrounding the old city towards the rulers' thedas or cremation ground. The bigger your pavilion, the more important you are.  Being this close to the main rulers' pavilion, these folks were pretty important.

Using the telephoto lens, the more modern palace of the local nobility (still actively used - and therefore most of it not open for tours) could be seen on the horizon.

The fort also loomed over the cremation grounds.

And a lovely lake and bird sanctuary sat alongside it.


The rulers' pavilion is slightly larger, set well above the city and quite pretty.


The whole fort, cremation ground, and old city is surrounded by a wall on the high ground.


After touring the cremation ground, we proceeded to the fort, truly massing and perched on a rather sheer hill.  The guide says construction took 400 years and it seems quite plausible.  Some portions were pockmarked by cannon shot.


Looking up from inside the first courtyard.


Johdpur is famous for having blue-painted houses, many of which can be seen from the fort.


The ruler's quarters are an elaborate fort perched high in and elaborate fort perched high on a mountain, but unlike the outside, the ruler's quarters are lacy stonework for promoting airflow.


Throne room in gold leaf and colored glass.

The tour of the fort was a touch rushed as we'd started a bit late in the day, but the scale and perch above the city made the whole thing pretty scenic. There were also paintings on display in a different style than we'd seen before. This would have been a good fort to spend a little more time in and maybe use an audio guide instead of a personal guide.

After touring the fort, our friends wanted to go shopping and we wanted to go back the hotel, so we got dropped off and they headed out, but they returned pretty quickly after not seeing much that was of interest. We enjoyed the nice hotel room and hot water.

A restaurant was recommended to us that was definitely for tourists and rich folks but was still a good time.


The restaurant was tables outside with lights in trees, with small fires in braziers between tables.


Dinner wasn't amazing, but it was pretty good and the atmosphere counted for a lot.

This dinner came out to cost a truly exorbitant amount for India, but definitely still less than what it would have cost in the US. We'd been looking to try Indian wine after seeing it on menus before, and finally did that this evening. It was expensive and pretty bad, but we did successfully try it, which was really the point and met our goals, capping a very nice day of tourism and dining.