Horse Trek

After a brief stay in Udaipur, Kiersten and I set off on a 7-day horse trek through the Rajasthani countryside. We went with a company called "Krishna Ranch" which was recommended to us via Cassidy and Brianna who had ridden with the company on two separate occasions (Cass and Bri: everyone from the ranch still remembers you guys fondly and talked about how you helped make chapati). Ever since hearing about their ride Kiersten had been adamant that she wanted to go. I was slightly more reluctant. I don't really ride horses (the last time I was on one was over 12 years ago in the Yukon and that was only for a couple hours) so I was unsure of how 7 days in a saddle was going to treat me.

Krishna Ranch had a new baby horse in the stable

Krishna ranch is run by the super friendly Dinesh who usually accompanies the clients on rides. Unfortunately he had recently broke is collar-bone and was out of commission for this ride. Instead were guided by his brother (also super friendly) who was equally knowledgeable about the trails we were to follow.

After showing us which of their beautiful Marwari horses we were going to ride, we didn't waste much time before starting to ride. We were joined by two Swedish girls (Erica and Eda) who both had extensive horse riding experience. Because of my lack of ability and experience on horses, Kiersten, Erica, and Eda were given younger, more energetic horses, while I was given the most chilled out: a white horse named Nerani (translates to beauty queen). Kiersten was given a 4-year-old white horse named Paris, which she fell in love with during the course of the trip.

Lake just outside of Udaipur

It was probably that I had a well behaved horse, but I didn't find riding it all that complicated. She would stop when I wanted, go fast when I wanted, and I could turn her without much problem. The thing that took the most getting used to (probably due to my poor technique) was the constant bouncing when trotting. Anyways, horseback riding proved to be a great way to see the countryside and sample the local culture. I wasn't even too sore when I got back.

Cows with humps. My hypothesis when it comes to cows is that the larger the hump, the more prestige the cow receives among cowkind. These were prestigious cows.

Our path took us through small villages, along dry river beds, through an animal sanctuary, past massive forts, and across a mountain range ( I am very very hesitant to huge the term "mountain range" here after being to Nepal, these were more like hills).

We were looked after very well by the crew from Krishna ranch. They cooked up delicious vegetarian food for lunch and dinner (mostly dal, curries, rice, and chipati etc.) and provided fresh fruit and eggs for breakfast. We spent the night in large safari tents complete with comfortable beds. I slept really really well during the whole trip.

Kiersten in our tent

Roaming through India

Once we got a little ways out of Udaipur we became very popular among residents of the small villages we past through, especially with the children. After passing through village after village being greeted by everyone you saw, it was hard not to start feeling like a celebrity of sorts. Passing a school full of kids was always the most hilarious.

We stopped for tea in this village and the locals came out for a look

Me and my friendly little horse

Symmetrical horns are another sign of prestige

On this night we camped beside a school. Kiersten was dropping off her bags in the tent when half the school came out to greet her (their are a lot of people that picture cuts off and more running to see)

After setting up camp on day 3 our guides took us up to nearby Hindu temple to meet the Sadhu (holy man) and join in on the evening Puja. The temple (having seen many on this trip already) exceeded my expectations. It was set deep in the forest halfway up a hillside, a ways from the nearest town, and was surrounded by langur monkeys. Two Sadhus lived full time in the temple. When we arrived one of the Sadhus invited us into a small room in the temple and made us tea over an open fire and passed around a chillum for those who wanted to partake. Afterwards he showed us around the temple complex with its many statues, paintings, and large marijuana garden. We stood on the roof of one of the buildings for a while observing the monkeys when one of the Sadhus came out to feed them. You could tell he did this frequently as the monkeys rushed over for food. After a while I went down and fed the little fellas myself.

monkey wants more chapati

Field of baby marijuana plants

The day after visiting the temple we rode to nice campground near the Kumbhalgarh Fort. The fort, which is impressive in itself, is most famous for having the worlds second longest wall, surpassed only by the great wall of China.

Kumbhalgarh Fort

There is a small village in the fort surrounded by temples

The world's second longest wall (~35km)

Riding through the original entrance to the fort (there is a paved road that most people use now)

This is how many of the small villages get their water

After the fort we rode through the Khumbalgarh wildlife sanctuary, which was a pleasant break from travelling through villages. Although we didn't see much wildlife, we did spot a couple wild chickens, kingfishers, peacocks, parrots, and of course monkeys.

Some of the Krishna ranch crew who took very good care of us

Kiersten and Paris

Paris loved a good post-ride scratch

The crew

We ended our ride in a small place called Ranaktpur, famous for its temple. We visited the temple, which made entirely out of marble (including everything inside), and were very impressed.

Inside the temple at Ranakpur

After seven days of riding, I can't say that I was unhappy to get off the horse, but overall it was a fantastic trip. Kiersten, on the other hand, would have been happy to continue riding her horse back to Delhi if she had the chance. I think I will stick with my mountain bike.

Udaipur

From Jaipur we caught the 6pm train to Udaipur, and were due to arrive at 3am. The train station was madness but we found our train platform easy enough. The trip itself proved interesting. We passed the first couple hours quietly by watching tv shows on my laptop. Then all of a sudden big friendly broken-english speaking Indian man sat down next to us and started asking the typical questions: where are you from, how long in India etc. It turned out he was with his giant extended family (about 25 people, young and old, in two train cars) travelling from Kolkata to Udaipur (a two day train ride) for the wedding of one of their relatives. The next thing we know, we were being introduced to everyone, handed babies, given food, and told that we absolutely must come to the wedding. Kiersten was ushered away to talk to women while the men all crowded around me with the speakers translating for those who only spoke Hindi. Unfortunately we weren't able to attend the wedding because were out riding horses during that time. A big disappointment because Indian weddings are supposed to be amazing. 500 guests is considered small and the wedding takes place over five days. Anyways, hanging out with the family was fun and made the ride pass quickly.
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Madness at the Jaipur train station

Kiersten with the probably the most well behaved baby I have ever seen (it had been on a train for two days and this was at 11pm or so)

Our train arrived in Udaipur an hour early which was quite the shock. We hadn't booked a hotel for that night but nonetheless managed to wake someone up at one of the hotels and got a room. The next day we got up fairly late and had breakfast on the rooftop of hotel. It was our first glimpse of Udaipur and we were totally impressed. The city is much smaller and more beautiful than Jaipur with a nice lake in the middle of everything. If you've seen the 1983 James Bond movie Octopussy, Udaipur is featured prominently. There are two main islands on the lake with massive palaces built on them, now converted into luxury hotels.

Lady adding to her dung collection on the roof opposite our hotel

View from our hotel

We spent our first day in Udaipur walking around. We went to the nearby Jagdish temple where it was a special day when they fed the poor and asked for donations. Surrounding the temple were about 50 kids eating as much food as possible. From there we went to the massive City Palace located on the lakeside. It was an impressive group of buildings but the inside was mostly a museum and hotels. The art exhibits they had were really cool though. They included old miniature paintings of huge battles, people on elephants hunting tigers, and the oldest comic strips I've probably ever seen.

Feeding children at the Jagdish temple

Cooking for the kids

Kiersten standing in front of the Jagdish temple

Kiersten facing the lake

Massive painting by city palace

Udaipur with City Palace on the right

Sunset on the lake

We spent the evening in one of the fancy hotels that make up part of City Palace (the one that James Bond stays at in Octopussy) drinking Indian white wine (pretty good). The next day we had to leave for our horse trek but returned afterwards for a couple more days. I'll stay sequential and post more from our return to Udaipur when I post about the horse trek (I haven't uploaded those photos to the computer yet anyway).

India: Delhi and Jaipur

Delhi

We arrived in Delhi from Kathmandu on the evening of January 5th. It was immediately apparent that we had left Nepal and had entered quite a different country. First of all the Kathmandu airport is chaos compared to the relative serendity of the modern Delhi airport. Dealing with customs was the second big hint. The customs guy saw the two of us and asked if we were brother and sister? no, married? no, boyfriend/girlfriend? yes, and then broke out into a huge grin and then started asking why we weren't married etc. etc. Is she mad at you? It was pretty funny, especially since it was our very first interaction in India.

We were picked up at the airport by a friend of Kierstens through Neverblue named Vivek. I had never met Vivek before so I didn't quite know what to expect. Kiersten had told me he had been one of her most friendly clients. Vivek and his friend Deepak turned out to be super nice and the most gracious hosts we have ever had anywhere. They showed us all around Delhi, took us to eat amazing Indian food, and gave us great tips about travelling around India. Vivek has a super comfortable apartment in a buisness suburb just outside of Delhi and it was really nice to sleep in a comfortable bed again. Unfortunately, I left our camera sitting on his coffee table when we left for Jaipur with 90% of  my Delhi pictures on it, hence the lack of pictures below.

In our five days in Delhi we went to see the chaos of Chandni Chowk, the ancient Red Fort, Ashoka pillar, India Gate, Connaught Place, Humayum's Tomb (looks kind of like the Taj), lotus temple, as well as a few other places but I forget their names.  I will post more pictures as soon as I get the camera back. We bought another cheap one in Jaipur because we couldn't bear travelling for month without having a camera.

L-R Vivek, Deepak, and Kiersten

I forget the name of this place but it was old and impressive (I gotta start using my notebook for place names)

Jaipur
After exploring Delhi we caught a train to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. It was small compared to Delhi: only 4.5 million people. It was also our first time in India that we were alone without Vivek and Deepak to show us around. On our first day we thought we would just walk around in the old city a bit. The old area of town looked fairly easy to get to from our hotel but the streets of Jaipur proved difficult to navigate and we got lost. Jaipur is also super conjested and there are no traffic rules, so after nearly being killed crossing the road and super lost we decided to hop in a rickshaw.  The rickshaw driver was nice enough and we paid what we thought was a ok price to rent the rickshaw for four hours. He took us around showed us various sights around town and we were able to get a feel for the general layout of the place. 


We also learned a valuable lesson about rickshaw drivers: when they say they want to take you to "wholesale" textile factories where "you can see how the famous textiles are made," in reality they are taking you to a shop where they get comission. However, once you get used to dealing with them they're no problem and can be super friendly. You just have to be wise to their sneaky little tricks and know how much you should be paying to get from point a to point b.

Jaipur and Tiger Fort from Iswari Minar Swarge Sal (an ancient tower in the middle of the city with great views)

Royal Gaitore

Cenotaph inside Royal Gaitore

Jal Mahal (built from red sandstone)

Trash pigs about to fight. These pigs love trash!

Inside tiger fort

On our second day we headed to the nearby town of Amber to check out the Amber Fort. Driving through Jaipur on the way to fort was hilarious. On the road with us were (among other things) cars, rickshaws, bicycles, horses, camels, elephants, cows, pigs, and monkeys. The Amber Fort was by far the most impressive structure in the vicinity of Jaipur. The whole thing was open to the public and we spent a couple hours just wondering through its many rooms and hallways.

Amber Fort

Elephants near the Amber Fort

After the fort, our rickshaw driver tried to take us to a textile factory but we were wise to his ways. Instead we got him to take us the Sun Temple (also known as the monkey temple). The temple itself wasn't that exciting but there was a good view and it was really fun to watch all the monkeys. They seemed a lot more chilled out and docile than the ones we had seen in Nepal.

Finally we made our way to Jantar Manter and the City Palace. City Palace wasn't that exciting, basically just a big museum, but Jantar Manter was really cool. It's basically a giant collection of astrological instruments from the 16th century. Included among the instruments is the world's largest sundial which told the exact time.

World's biggest sundial, the time is shown by the shade

We spent our last day in Jaipur walking around and exploring the streets of the old city. The old city is surrounded by a wall with a few huge gates to let in traffic. Within the old city, different blocks are dedicated to shops that specialize in various trades. One block of marble carvers, one block of suit makers etc.
 

One of the gates to the old city

A marble carving shop (all done by hand)

Carvers sanding down the finished product

Much like Kathmandu, kite-flying is hugely popular in India. The day after we left there was a kite festival in Jaipur where the number of kites in the air apparently blocks out the sky. Because of the festival the many kite shops were doing brisk buisness. I even bought ten kites and some string (cost just over a dollar) to try it out for myself. 

Kite shop

People can transport anything by bicycle

Unfortunately my day was interupted by the sudden smashing of my toe into a sharp elevated brick as we were walking accross an alleyway. Blood quickly ensued and I had to catch a rickshaw back to the hotel to patch myself up.

Hawa Mahal

One of the best things about India is the food. We get excited for every meal (especially Kiersten who loves to photograph food) and have been trying as many different things as we can.

Yummm

Traffic was a little nuts

Weirdest sighting in Jaipur was probably the bat infested group of palm trees in one of the parks

Donate some money and this holy cow will listen to your troubles