Rajasthan, Rajasthan

After spending a lovely three days of food, culture, and fun with Tim and Odette in Delhi, we headed to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Our friend Bob also joined us and we all began our friendship with the Indian railway.

The train ride to Agra was interesting as two guys who were in the military and riding the train all the way down south (56 hours) shared our seats with us. There was also a guy from Kandahar, but communicating with him was difficult as the Indian guys had to translate and English was their third language, after Malayalan and Hindi. Agra was a pretty quick wake up call from the luxury of Tim and O's house in Delhi as the area we stayed in (just south of the Taj Mahal) was a bit outside of our comfort zone in terms of cleanliness and noise. The Taj itself was spectacular, as was the Agra Fort (both built by Shah Jahan, aka "Ruler of the World," at the height of the Moghul empire in the 1600's.) The whole city was delivered to us by our death defying auto rickshaw driver, LaLa, who only yields to cows, not bikes, not people, not cars, not camels, not even elephants.

Moving west into the fringes of the Thar desert, the capital of Rajasthan state, Jaipur (2.5 million people) was pretty big, overpopulated, and also a bit dirty. The main site to see there, Amber Fort, a 12th century monument, was pretty impressive though. The real highlight of our time in Jaipur was getting caught in an absolute downpour and taking refuge in a 4ft in diameter construction tube with about 30 other people, one of which was a University student who asked as about life in North American and shared a bit of the Indian perspective. Unfortunately, his take on American society and politics was not very positive, but hopefully we shed a bit of light on it. We also attempted to go to a Bollywood movie, "Sigh is King." The theatre was very glamorous, but the lack of subtitles made it hard to keep our attention for the whole two hours.

Next , we took the night train to Udiapur which almost felt like a different country because of its small size, laid back people, and general lack of pushy touts. We stayed in a beautiful old mansion with views of the lake where "Octopussy" was filmed. We had the opportunity to talk with more people, visit an active temple, and the town is a maze of winding backstreets that are interesting to explore. One of the highlights of our time in Udiapur was taking a cooking class with Vijay, a former Rajasthan swimming champ. He took us to his home about 5km outside of town where we had the pleasure of meeting his wife, 10 month old daughter, and nephew. We not only learned how to make 10 dishes, including the basics on spices and tea, but he also showed us his wedding album and explained a bit about the Hindi traditions and religion. We went home with full, maybe too full, bellies and a once in a lifetime experience.

Our next stop was Jodhpur for the weekend to meet up with Tim and Odette. We hired a private taxi to take us on the 6 hour journey and stopped at two incredible sites along the way. Kumbalgarh Fort was sent up on the hillside with a view over a rural valley. It is the starting point of the second largest wall in the world, after China, and is 36km long with 360 temples within its boundaries. Ranakpur is home of a magnificent Jain Temple built completely of marble with 144 intricately carved pillars and wall to ceiling carvings of religious figures and symbols. In some ways it was even more impressive than the Taj because the detail was amazing and so much to take in at once. Jodhpur was also a bit big, but the fort here as well as the history of the Maharaja is interesting. It was also great to spend some more time learning from Tim and O. Tonight we will take the 11:15pm train to our last stop in Rajasthan, Jaislamer, where we hope to take an overnight camel trek into the desert. All in all India is a whirlwind of culture shock so far that is both incredibly alive and fascinating as well as difficult at times. We will do our best to post some pics when we get back to Delhi on Thursday. Namaste.