| DIARY |
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| Friday, December 13th - Udaipur We visited the caves in Ellora near Aurangabad, and it was really impressive, sometimes we were surrounded by bats flying around us, it was funny. We visited Aurangabad and then took a bus to Jalgaon, which was a whole experience in itself, we were squeezed between Indians on the bus, some of them spitting in the bus, it was a bit disgusting, I tried to read as much as possible or I would have a heart attack to watch the road... Then we took a train to rajasthan, a state near pakistan, it took us 24h altogether to get there by train. Here in Udaipur, it is fantastic, it seems like one of this tale from a thousand and one night, palaces on a lake, tiny and colourful streets, it is beautiful. Our hostel has a view on the lake, from where we can watch the sunset.The town is well woth exploring, so we will stay here some days I think. Then we'll head to Jodhpur, called the blue city, it is promising to be more and more amazing as we go along. Hope you are all feeling good back home. See you. |
| Pushkar - Sunday, 29.12.02 Udaipur was really nice. Once, the James Bond film "Octopussy" was shot here. With the mountains in the background, the view was spectacular, especially at night, when the palaces were illuminated. We stayed for some days and visited some museums and castles. We also met a family who invited us for dinner. We tried several different dishes and sweets and also bread which had been baked in a fire of cowshit :-) It tasted delicious. In Udaipur, Amandine and I both shaved our hair to a length of 2 mm. It's very handy to travel. Next we went to Jodhpur, the blue city. Other travellers had recommended us a hotel which had just opened. The owners were enthusiastic about making us feel at home. We were allowed to go to the kitchen and take what we needed, drinks etc. They would also give us blankets and matresses to lay on the roof of the hotel and enjoy the stars or the view to the big fort of Jodhpur. We also met a couple of nice people here. Togehter with them and with the owner of the hotel, we went for two days into the desert to visit some tiny villages, where we were received as maharajas. We got very nice food to eat, a special Thali ( different pots with sauces, vegetables, rice and bread). Some of the ingredients only grow in the desert. We slept in a little cottage made of earth, with a roof of straw. The following day they took us on their tractor into the desert and showed us other tiny villages and the sand dunes. The hospitality was unbelievable. We then went on to Jaisalmer, a town very close to Pakistan. The town has a huge fort. For Christmas Eve we booked a tour which brought us into the desert on a jeep. We celebrated there with other people, traditional music and a nice camp fire. We also spent the night there. It got f... cold in the morning. Yesterday we arrived in Pushkar, a little town which got very famous because of a camel fair that is held once a year. It is a holy town, alcohol, drugs, non vegetarian food (even eggs!) and kissing and embracing in public are prohibited. In the middle of the town there's a holy lake, which you are only allowed to approach barefoot. Last night we went to see a performance of gipsys, they played traditional music and danced to it. Some travellers also performed a fire show which was very impressive. Today we bought some silver jewellery and some warm blankets (it gets colder the more we move to thle north, especially at night) Everybody wears a blanket here rather than a jacket. It's very comfortable. Hope you are enjoying our stories,. I hope you all had a very nice christmas and I wish you all a very Happy New Year! Soeren |
| India : the end - Varanasi Our trip in India ended in Varanasi where the holy and imposant river the Ganga flows. I have to admit that it is not like any river. There is really something special, something magic, (something holy?) and the atmosphere is so strange, it feels like... " There's a natural mystic blowing through the air..." (thanks Bob M.) Pilgrims are coming from all over India to bathe in the Ganga; it is believed to wash out one's sins. People also come here to die because they believe that it will deliver them from the infinite cycle of reincarnation. One day, as we were walking on the ghats of Varanasi (to my understanding, name given to the stairs bording the river where they perform religious rituals), a sudden smellof barbeQed meat invade my nostrils. As we hadn't eaten meat for the last 3 weeks or so, my stomach started roarring with excitement, but as we walked further on,we found ourselves on the cremation ghats!! The question is : am I a cannibal? I felt so bad and so ashamed, fooled by my own instinct... The cremation ghats are disturbing: bodies are burned there 24h/day one after the other. They bring the bodies wrapped in a kind of foil (colored for women and the elderly, white for men), wash them in the Ganga and place them on the pyramid of firewood. Once the body is fully burnt, the ashes are thrown in the Ganga. For pregnant women, children and others special circumstances, the body is not burnt because they say it has already been purified, and instead, they are directly thrown in the holy river. The strange thing is the atmosphere around, nobody cries but nobody talks loud, everything seems normal for them. It is hard for us to see that because of our understanding of death. It seems like they don't respect the dead. that they exhibate the bodies to the public. You can see them breaking the legs that it burns better for example, it's a completly different culture... The Ganga is, you can imagine, except from being holy, very polluted and disgusting. But because it is holy, people keep on bathing in it and drink sips from it! The weather turned very cold in Varanasi, we weren't prepared at all and Soeren had already lost his jacket before he could use it. I bought wool and started to knit 2 scarves (I still haven't finished the 1st one yet, with a bit of luck, they will be ready for the winter when we get back :-) After that, we stayed a couple of days trying to get warm around the fire, we said goodbye to India and went up to Katmandhu. |