pushkar and ajmer, rajasthan

pushkar, rajasthan

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.

pushkar
holy lake, pushkar
pushkar
pushkar

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.

streets of ajmer, rajasthan

“london on acid” – mumbai!!

doing laudry, mumbai, maharashta, india

oh my word. india is chaos. all the rumors you’ve ever heard are true. got to the mumbai airport at 3 am and immediately started dropping water weight. it is 40 degrees (celcius) and 100% humidity. wandered around outside for a while looking for this guy who was supposed to pick me up. i am very lucky to be staying here in mumbai with the mother of a friend of my dad, or something like that. well, eventually the guy showed up, and took me to this elderly lady’s house. its quite nice – i have a little apartment to myself and she insists on cooking meals for me and she even did my laundry. she is rather overprotective – she gave me a cell phone to carry around and she keeps calling me to see if i am ok and to remind me of all the bad things that could happen to me. the first night i told her that i hung out the door of the commuter train to catch the breeze and she basically had a heart attack. truth is i did do that, because riding the commuter train here is insane and that is the only way to stay sane. its actually pretty fun. the train doors stay open, because they physically couldn’t close – there are 20 times more people on the train than there should be. when it comes to a stop at a station everyone is so desperate to get on that they just charge in – pushing, grunting and knocking people over. its impossible to get off when you want to unless you’re hanging out the door to begin with. “my house” is about 45 minutes from downtown on this train, in the “nicer” part of mumbai. nicer is relative, as no one in the area has probably ever heard of or experienced an air conditioner and there are still goats and garbage in the streets.

first day i went downtown and saw the gateway to india, a huge archway erected by the british just before they left. across the street is the taj mahal hotel, site of a terrible terrorist attacks a few years ago. i ducked in there for some air conditioning.

they call mumbai “london on acid.” i presume the acid relates to the frenetic traffic patterns. or the urgency with which people are trying to sell things. but its actually a lot like london. there are countless impressive colonial buildings throughout downtown mumbai. there is a clocktower that is at least as big as big ben. and a massive colonial era train station (the busiest train station in asia) that was initially named after queen victoria (now it has a marathi – thats the language here – name that is about 200 letters long) i walked around all day, as i did the next day, when i went to a huge open air laundry facility where all mumbai’s clothes go to get washed by hand. amazing.

i also went to the haji ali mosque which is out in the ocean, connected to land by a long cement bridge that is lined with beggars. close by is a huge hindu temple devoted to the hindu goddess of wealth, where everyone buys flowers and reverently goes through all kinds of motions all along the km long street leading up to the temple. then once one gets inside, an obese and hairy shirtless guy irreverently grabs the ornate flower decorations and coconuts and whatnot and tosses them into a trough in front of the idol while the devotees cross themselves. craziness. also crazy was the restroom situation there- i really needed to go, but shoes had come off at the entrance- and like all indian restrooms there was a half inch of urine on the ground. but i really needed to go.

colonial mumbai
colonial mumbai

wandered through the slums, got completely lost, took a random bus that i thought was going the right direction but it wasn’t – i love it. eventually found my way to a pennisula called malabar where mumbai’s movers and shakers live (like its bollywood movie stars). went into a huge jain temple. the jain symbol is the swastika. to be fair, they had it first. but its rather odd being in a building full of elephant statues and mystical priest weirdo guys and scented candles that is adorned with swastikas. also, at the end of this peninsula is a pedestrian only area called banganga tank. it is full of hundreds of little hindu shrines, and the tank is a pool of water surrounded by ghats (steps into the water) where little kids are swimming and rituals with flowers are going on and whatnot. according to hinduism its the center of the world. and here i thought that distinction belonged to boston. on second thought i guess the center of the world and the hub of the universe could be at different places. anyways, it was a cool place. also went down to where the slums meet the ocean there – the water is horridly foul and there is garbage and sewer washing into it. and there were mentally deranged old men swimming in the sewer and they started coming after me so i left. this is india.

waterfront, mumbai

almost done. then i went to chowpatty beach which is the hangout of choice for young lovers. wish i had a girlfriend to walk along the beach with (is crying to himself). i drowned my feelings by eating. these little crispy balls of fried goodness called puri that the break a hole in and put lentils, chutney, lemon juice, wonderful paste, yogurt etc. you eat it and then they make you another. its fantastic. basically everything here is fantastic except for the extreme heat and the horrible chaffing that results from the sweat and multiple days of walking all day. but i won’t go into detail on that.

mumbai
puri, mumbai
central train station, mumbai
haji ali mosque, mumbai
mumbai

streets of mumbai
streets of mumbai
streets of mumbai
streets of mumbai

mumbai