got on the 22 hour “express” train from mumbai to jaipur. the air conditioned one was fully booked (tried the suggested bribing, to no avail), so it was the excessively hot cage-like sleeper class. actually it was very doable though. they put all the white people on the (very long) train together in the same six person cage – in mine were an aging austrain surfer dude/chronic traveler who came to india for the women, a he-didn’t-divulge-his-sexual-orientation-but-i’m-going-to-go-ahead-and-guess-gay irish guy, and a chubby english-as-a-second-language french canadian law student on a decidedly unspiritual pilgrimage to an obscure temple devoted to rats. also an indian family with about seven kids on the floor. naturally you become friends with the folks when you are sitting around/trying to sleep in a 50 degree steel oven. goodbyes were tough, but life goes on.
trains in india are great. there’s a chai guy who comes by every three minutes with tea for ten cents. and you can order a pretty tasty meal for 50 cents. did i mention the trip (1000 km) cost $7? garbage goes straight out the window, and if you use the toilet it plops out the bottom of the train onto the railroad tracks. i decided at the last moment to jump off at a place called ajmer. its close to a little hindu holy town called pushkar, famous for its annual camel fair (reportedly the largest in the world) and its one of a kind temple to brahma. shared a cab-thingy to pushkar with the aging austrian surfer dude/chronic traveler.
pushkar is a nice little temple town that is supposed to be centered around a beautifully serene lake. it is in rajasthan, india’s desert state. got there and discovered that the lake was completely dried up. but there were literally thousands of little temples all over the place that are painted light blue around what should have been the lake, and a big red one for brahma that apparently is the only temple of the world of its kind. the crowds in front of it were insane. all these “priests” try to shove flowers into your hands (to release onto the lake that should be there) and then demand money. i know what you’re thinking – “people in india demanding money? that can’t happen very often.” actually it happens every single moment of every day from every angle to every white person on the subcontinent, and it is really, really annoying. back to pushkar – there is no meat, alcohol, or eggs allowed in the town. yes, they have a stringent checkpoint on the way in. they also charge a 20 cent toll to get into the town. hundreds of cows wandering the sreets. i had no idea, but the place is basically hippy central. thus, one day was enough for me. the vegetarian food was great though. the highlight was climbing a huge 1000m high mountain on the edge of town in the 40 celcius plus heat of the day to a little temple at the peak with amazing views and lots of cute little monkeys.
the next day i took the bus back to ajmer, which is just over a mountain range from pushkar. it is india’s biggest pilgrimage hotspot for muslims, as there is a huge mosque complex devoted to some sufi saint. first they wouldn’t let me in because i was wearing shorts, so i found a sheet to wear as a dress. then because i wasn’t wearing a hat, so i bought a little muslim cappy from a kid for ten rupees (20 cents). then because i had a bag with me, so i followed another kid down a number of back alley ways to some sketch guy who would “hold” my bag for me. then they wouldn’t let me in because i had my valuables on my person. at that point i decided the place wasn’t worth my time.
so i just wandered around the chaotic town for a while, visiting some other places, and then bought a train ticket to jaipur. the bureaucracy is crazy – i waited in line for over two hours to have a lady take five minutes to fill out a $1 train ticket. that’s what machines are for. and for supposedly being a relatively english speaking country india sure doesn’t seem to have very many people who speak english. figured out the lady had sold me a ticket for a train that had already left. so i hopped on a random one and sat with a huge group of ladies who were arguing at the top of their lungs in hindi for the entire three hours to jaipur. wandered around until i found a hotel that i could barter down. ah, the joys of life.
