After a hectic 2 weeks in Bombay, I finally began the "travel" part of the trip. First up was a weekend trip to Aurangabad to visit the famous Ajanta and Ellora caves and check out the glorious Buddhist carvings and paintings and Jain and Hindu carvings, some dating back to the 6th century BC. I can't believe I lived in Bomaby for 20 years and didn't make the trip before. Charlene, a cousin from Toronto who's also touring India for 2 months decided to join me and so did Captain another cousin who lives in Bombay.
Highlights of the trip (well aside from the AWESOME caves of course) include my first stay in a convent (nuns have heaps more fun that we think!) and a kufaffle at Ellora that had a security guard denying entry to my INDIAN cousin on the pretext that she doesn't "look" Indian. I on the other hand sailed through and he didn't give me a second look! My cousin was speechless with indignation for all of 30 seconds before she laid it into the security guard switching rapidly from English to Hindi to Marathi (the regional language) and for good measure added a few choice phrases in a couple of other Indian languages as well. Even after she showed him a bunch of her identification, he refused to let her in. By this time quite a crowd had gathered and seeing 3 "innocent" women being so unjustly treated, they proceeded to liberally abuse the security guard until he let her in. Charlene and I had in the meantime laughed ourselves fitless and welcomed Captain into the "foreigner" category with open arms. The rest of our stay at the Ellora caves kept getting interupted by random folk who had heard what happened and wanted to take a picture with my cousin! Left for a 10 day trip to the northern desert state of Rajasthan on Jan 25th. Charlene joined me again and so did another Bombay cousin - Charmaine. (yes, I have a lot of cousins in Bombay and yes they all seem to have names beginning with "c").
Flew into Jaipur for a day - just enough time to check out Hawa Mahal, chow down on delish Rajasthani thali and catch up with a college friend Ditty.
Flew into Jaipur for a day - just enough time to check out Hawa Mahal, chow down on delish Rajasthani thali and catch up with a college friend Ditty.
After a day in Jaipur we moved on to the holy city of Pushkar. There we made the agonizing trek up some 2000 odd steps to the Savitri Temple.
We were rewarded by an amazing view and (not so nice) assurances of a good marriage for us both from the ageing pujari (priest).
Checked out the only Bhrama Temple in existance anywhere in the world and watched the sun set on the beautiful and peaceful city from one of the many terrace cafes.
Had a pretty eventful night as we were bounced around on a bus that seemed to barely hold itself together as it navigated the narrow roads to the southern palacial city of Udaipur. And that's where I am right now!
Will be here for 3 days and then head off to the border town of Jaisalmer and hopefully try out a camel safari. More adventures await us... and we welcome them all.
*Not to infringe on "Fraggle Rock" but in this case Mac refers to a common term used to refer to "Catlik" (Catholic) and in particular Goan people in India. Please see previous post for more deets!
Will be here for 3 days and then head off to the border town of Jaisalmer and hopefully try out a camel safari. More adventures await us... and we welcome them all.
*Not to infringe on "Fraggle Rock" but in this case Mac refers to a common term used to refer to "Catlik" (Catholic) and in particular Goan people in India. Please see previous post for more deets!
