Leaving India

We've decided that spending an exorbitant amount ($246 Cdn) for a night at the Holiday Inn Delhi International Airport Hotel was a good buy after all. We enjoyed a solid night's sleep with no noise and just finished a 2 hour buffet breakfast with both Indian and western food. We're both able to eat today. I ate about a pound of bacon with my omelette, stewed tomatoes, fried potato patties, croissants, decaf coffee, sweet lassi (sweetened yogurt and water drink), fresh squeezed orange juice and lemon tea. Anita had about the same with a little less bacon but some other pastries, yogurt, fruit and nuts. We also packed some hard boiled eggs, fruit and buns for a later snack. Great breakfast.
Now we're just killing time in our room until 2 pm. Then we'll kill time around the outdoor pool and in the lobby until 9 pm when we'll get transported to the airport. Then there'll be more time to kill until our flight leaves at 12:45 am. Hopefully there will be some decent movies on tap for the 14 3/4 hour flight to Toronto. Maybe we'll even get some sleep.
It's time for a few final thoughts about India.
Our trip would have been much more enjoyable if we hadn't been sick so much. It's been the rare day that I actually felt good. It started with severe jet lag, then Delhi Belly, then more Delhi Belly that required antibiotics, then a sinus infection, then more Delhi Belly. After all that, I felt weak, tired and afraid to eat. Anita has been better but her Delhi Belly in Udaipur was pretty bad. Hopefully, we're both over it now.
Even if we had been well throughout, travelling from place to place here is often not pleasant. The airports and train stations are generally crowded. The trains are often late. The bathrooms on the trains are not that nice. The train booking is complex. The travel by car is terrifying. Some of the drivers are okay and some are vultures. The same is true of the tuktuk drivers.
In the cities, traveling by tuktuk means being exposed to the worst of the air pollution and feeling very vulnerable in the chaotic traffic. However, it's a cheap way to get around. Walking anywhere means constantly shaking your head "no, no, no" to all the hawkers and beggars. We're used to that and don't find it to be too annoying, as long as we don't get distracted and step in any of the shit from cows, dogs, monkeys, camels, goats, pigs etc that is literally everywhere. As we've said before, we're seen as walking stacks of cash. Maybe if we're prodded enough, some will shake loose.
This is the dirtiest and most polluted country we have seen. We thought the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was polluted until we got here. We feel like we've been swimming in bacteria for 4 weeks. And the people here litter all the time. Then there's the almost constant smell of burning garbage.
The middle class Indians we've met, many of whom are tourists seeing the same sights we came to see, are generally very sincerely friendly and helpful.They're often quite knowledgeable about Canada and we all laugh at Canada's nickname of "mini Punjab" since a lot of Canadian Sikhs come from the Punjabi state to the north of Rajasthan. Some of the local culture takes some getting used to. We have never heard an Indian tourist say "please" or "thank you" to any service person. They expect service people to do their jobs without expectation of any courtesy. Line-ups in India are like line-ups in China. Every line-up is a crowd like it's last call at a bar on a wild night. People try to force their way onto trains while other people are still trying to get off. It just doesn't work very well.
In 4 weeks, we have never dealt with a woman other than flight attendants and washroom attendants. Only about 30% of Indian women work outside the home, either through tradition or fear for their safety.
Those are a lot of negative comments but unfortunately almost every foreign tourist we've met has the same opinion that we do. India is missing out on a lot of foreign tourist money by not having a better tourist friendly infrastructure. Even getting our visa was more difficult than it needed to be.
The sights we've seen are incredible. The palaces and forts in Rajasthan, Agra and Delhi are huge and elaborate. We agree that the Taj Mahal deserves its reputation as the most beautiful building in the world. We just sat and stared at it for hours. We're really glad we saw it and glad that we had a chance to interact with Indian people to see what they're like.
If we had taken a group tour, we would have probably stayed mostly in big, bland hotels like the one we're in now and rode around on tour buses talking to fellow Canadians and never meeting anyone who lives in India, other than the tour guide. That would have been much more comfortable but not nearly as interesting. We're not quite ready for that yet.
In conclusion, we're glad we've seen a little bit of India but it's doubtful that we'll ever come back. At our age, we may not be ready for the group tour but we still like a certain level of comfort and less hassle when we're traveling. As a young German traveler said to us, "You must be strong to travel in India". However, there's no question that it's been interesting.

Udaipur City Palace

Yesterday morning, while we had breakfast on the rooftop, the monkeys were gathered on the neighbouring roof. The only thing that really drives them off is the loud music from the weddings.
After breakfast, we crossed the footbridge and walked up to the City Palace. After paying 250 rupees each plus 250 rupees for the camera, we wandered through the palace for more than 2 hours. There were some interesting displays of life for the nobles here back in the 18th and 19th centuries. The whole palace complex is huge. There must be hundreds of rooms linked by narrow little (sometimes claustrophobic) stairways, and various courtyards, some of them quite large.
After we left the palace, we looked at a few restaurants but didn't find anything special. As we passed the steps to the temple near the palace, Anita took a picture of the ladies in their colourful saris. We stopped at the Edelweiss Bakery, recommended in Lonely Planet, for a snack of apple pie and walnut pie. However, neither was very good. Lonely Planet has really over-rated that place.
Back on our balcony at the Panorama Guest House, another wedding unfolded on the street below us. The musicians push a big wagon with antique looking loudspeakers on the top. There's lots of drumming, horns and amplified keyboards. First the bride arrived with her musicians, music wagon and entourage. Then 1/2 hour later, the groom arrived on a white horse with his posse. They all went into the little temple along the water, just across the street from us and in the picture we've shown both music wagons waiting outside. Our Aussie friend John went to the wedding and said the bride had a fainting spell and had to be helped up. She could either have been exhausted from the days of celebration or apprehensive about joining her mother-in-law's household at such a young age. Who knows? Brides here can be younger than 15 while the grooms are often much older.
At dusk, we enjoyed some butter chicken, chapati and beer on the roof-top. John joined us a bit later and we enjoyed talking with him once again. This morning at breakfast we traded emails with him so we now have a connection in Sydney, Australia and he has one in Combermere, Ontario.
As we were checking out of the Panorama, we saw the bride and groom from the wedding that used the canopy near our hotel for the groom's celebration a couple of nights ago. Anita got a few pictures. They arrived in a car decorated with flowers. We didn't know why they were there but they soon left. Throughout the wedding, we always saw the bride with a veil covering her face and it was the same this morning.
We have also included a picture of sunrise from our balcony.
For 800 rupees (about $16 Cdn) we got a taxi for the 45 minute drive to the airport. The Udaipur airport is very modern, clean and quiet, a nice change from Jaipur. It was no hassle checking in and boarding our plane to Delhi. Now that we know the baggage screening procedure, all went smoothly.
After our hour and 10 minute flight, a driver from the Holiday Inn New Delhi Airport Hotel was waiting for us with a sign that said, "William Boise". Luckily we can interpret. Within 10 minutes we were checking in at the hotel, which for one night is costing us more than 5 nights at the Panorama Guest House. But, we get a driver from the airport and back to it tomorrow night and a big buffet breakfast. Being here is like already having left India, except that the staff are obviously Indian. The hotel itself, except for the security, could be in Toronto. It's immaculately clean and very nice but has no character.
The security is very tight. The hotel is completely fenced and there is a guardhouse and bollards that rise up hydraulically through the pavement to stop vehicle entry. Each vehicle is checked and then at the main door to the hotel the guests are checked with metal detectors, wanding and frisking. All bags go through an X-ray machine like at an airport. Getting in here is like going into the US embassy in Ottawa. Our room key will only allow us to take the elevator to our floor, the pool floor or the lobby. However, they've given us complimentary late checkout at 2 pm and we can hang around the pool or lobby until we get driven to the airport in the late evening. Our flight leaves at 12:45 am so now we're just killing time. But, at least we know we're near the airport and won't miss our flight.

Wedding at our Door

Last night we had dinner at our rooftop restaurant again. Well, I had dinner while Anita had 2 boiled eggs and some chapati. An Australian man about our age joined us. He told us that he's travelling with his daughter and her fiancé this time but he and his wife have been to 60 countries over the years. He said that traveling in India is the most difficult. He started this trip in Kolkata (Calcutta). While there, he saw a mother tending to an infant on the hot pavement while a dead body lay about 10 feet away. He described it as "hell on earth".
We traded travel stories. He's been to Auschwitz and Buchenwald but he found the Tuol Sleng torture prison in Phnom Penh and the killing fields near there were the saddest places he's ever been. We agreed. We still can't shake those sad memories.
While we were eating, there was a wedding procession down the street and into the temporary enclosure outside our hotel. We don't know what phase of the wedding was happening. There was a deejay, loud music, a buffet table, photographers and a film crew and about 100 or more guests, all dressed up. We identified the groom but didn't see the bride. Maybe this was a celebration for his family. There also seemed to be a lot more women than men. We don't know why.
Anyway, after one photo from the restaurant, we went downstairs and got a few more pictures.

Museum Bagore ki Haveli

This morning while I ate the "fix breakfast" (2 boiled eggs, toast and "hash brown, potatoes" which are actually boiled potatoes in gravy with green peppers and onions) while Anita tried some yogurt (curd) and tea, we heard the whack, whack of clothes being washed. We looked over the wall of our rooftop restaurant and saw the lady next door washing clothes with buckets of water. She was beating the clothes, including saris, with what looked like a little cricket bat. Saris are very long wide pieces of fabric. Later we saw another lady walk up to her rooftop wearing a sort of halter top or Indian sports bra thing and big waist high slip, pull a sari off the line, start by wrapping around the waist and before you knew it she was completely covered including her head. It's an all purpose garment for this climate. We don't think they wear anything else underneath because we see them sometimes squat to pee in the street. Practical.
This afternoon, Anita felt well enough to leave the hotel for the first time in 3 days. We walked over the footbridge to the main part of the city. On the way, we saw ladies bathing their children in the polluted water of the lake. They do what they have to do. Except for the homeless beggars, people here appear to be very clean in their person and dress, despite the challenges of keeping that up. I'm not sure everyone at home would be so diligent about personal hygiene. It's too bad they're immersed in pollution.
Anita is still feeling weak so we thought a visit to Museum Bagore ki Haveli would be a suitable outing. It's not far and it's not big. For 100 rupees each plus 50 rupees for a camera (total $5 Cdn) we wandered through an old haveli (mansion) built by a former prime minister of the former local state of Mewar in the 18th century. The haveli had been abandoned for 50 years before being restored in 1986 and turned into a museum showing life in the 1700s.
Puppetry was and is big here so we saw a whole room full of puppets, some of them life size. Then we saw rooms typical of the time, for wealthy people. In a wash room for the wealthy ladies, there was a short wooden seat in the middle and brass containers of water around the room. One container had a small heater underneath that likely burned some liquid fuel. The indoor environment fanatic in me noticed that this was vented into the room. Carbon monoxide, anyone? There were also other typical rooms of the era. The lifestyle required many servants to help with the bathing, move the ceiling fans and so on. They also had displays of weddings, turbans from various regions and castes, and weapons. It was an interesting afternoon.
On the way home we took pictures of a couple of the little shrines along the water. Traffic and commerce just flow around them. As we got back to our hotel, we had to walk through a big awning setup to get to our front door. It looks like there might be a wedding just outside our door this weekend. Should be interesting.

Another Quiet Day in Udaipur

It was another quiet day in Udaipur. Yesterday, Anita was so sick that she couldn't eat anything. I ate 2 bananas. Today, Anita is still sick and by late afternoon now, has still not eaten. It will soon be 2 full days without food. I managed to eat a banana pancake and tea this morning and 3 bananas for lunch. Late this afternoon I kept down 2 boiled eggs, some yogurt and some naan with tea. I think I'm on the mend, again. Hopefully, the antibiotics will do their work soon and Anita will start to feel better.
I'm sure our trip to India would have been much different if we hadn't been sick so much. Between jet lag, 3 bouts of Delhi Belly and a sinus infection, there have only been a few days where I've actually felt good in over 3 weeks at this point. Anita has been better but right now she's having a pretty bad bout of Delhi Belly. Hopefully tomorrow and Saturday she'll be well enough to eat and to leave the hotel and see a bit of Udaipur.
After noon today, I felt well enough for a little excursion so I took a walk up to a Hindu temple that we can see from our balcony. Our hotel is very handy to the footbridge from Hanuman Ghat, where we are, across the lake to the main part of the city.
Because the streets are so narrow between the 3 or 4 storey buildings, I walked right past the temple without seeing it. I ended up wandering the back streets where there are no tourists for awhile but it really didn't look a lot different. Eventually, I found my way back and found the temple. There's no way to take a picture of the whole thing from the street.
I did a little more reconnaissance work before heading back to wash my feet and relax on our balcony. We almost always wash our feet after we've been out in the street in flip flops. We're very conscious not to step in feces or sewage water but still there are little splashes from time to time. Bacteria rules India.
We tried to access the internet this afternoon but had no luck. Apparently it's being repaired. We've heard that before. There's supposed to be wifi on each floor but it really only works on the 2nd floor terrace. While we were there trying it, we talked to a young couple from Chile. They're both psychologists and managed to get a month's holidays to tour a few spots in India. They were in the southern beach area of Goa, which they said was really beautiful but unfortunately there's a lot of garbage and pollution there too. Like all other tourists we met, they find travel in India challenging.
From our balcony or from the 2nd floor terrace, especially in the late afternoon, we can see the monkeys doing acrobatics over the rooftops and trees. The monkeys here are the black faced, black bummed ones that are less aggressive than the red face, red bummed ones that we also see from time to time. When they want a drink, they just take the lid off a rooftop cistern and help themselves.
We've included a picture of the contrast between a man washing in the polluted lake and a tourist sitting in a nearby restaurant. There's also a picture of the temple from our room and of the steps up to the temple. There's a picture of the castle in the middle of the lake. In the James Bond film that was shot here, this castle was the home of Octopussy, the name of the female lead. Then there's a picture from the terrace of monkeys on the next building and finally a picture of the restaurant on the roof and the couches where we lounged to watch Octopussy.
Maybe tomorrow we'll tour the city palace.

Rooftop Dinner at the Panorama Guest House

Across the lake from our guesthouse is the main part of Udaipur. From our room we can see and hear what goes on at a small Hindu temple there. It's next to one of the old havelis or mansions that are in abundance here. We've decided that it's a good thing that Hinduism is hereditary. They wouldn't get many converts with the bells and drumming. It's not as bad as the full volume Asian pop we've heard in Vietnam but it's not really melodious either.
From the rooftop restaurant here, we can see across the lake to the massive City Palace. The many maharajahs (kings) of Rajasthan in their various small kingdoms were fond of building palaces but weren't so big on social programs. In the time of the British Raj (rule), the maharajahs were allowed to keep administering their little kingdoms and living off the taxes in exchange for their allegiance. After independence in 1947, they received a generous stipend from the government for the same reason. In the 1970s Indira Gandhi abolished their allowances so now they're either impoverished, make a living somehow or they charge admission to a large part of their castles and live in luxury in the rest.
It seems that people here accept their lot in life so no-one resents those who have it easier. The caste system, at least in rural Rajasthan, still seems to prevail. If you were born into a lower caste, that's because of your karma or misdeeds in a previous life. It's up to you to work your way up the ladder by leading an exemplary life. At least in the countryside, arranged marriages of very young girls and doweries paid to the groom's family  are apparently still the norm. If you marry outside your caste or religion, it's perfectly legal but your family might disown you. We've also read that the literacy rate outside the big cities is around 50% for females. This is changing but the change is very slow in rural areas.
Just before dusk, we enjoyed a great meal on the rooftop. The food was really good and the view was amazing as darkness fell and the lights of the palace came on. After dark, we came into the restaurant where every night at 7 pm they screen the James Bond film "Octopussy" that was primarily shot here in Udaipur. We could only watch for a little over an hour before we were too tired and had to go to bed.
Unfortunately, Anita had been feeling a little queasy for a week or so and last night Delhi Belly hit her hard. I was suffering a bit too but at least I slept on and off, except for the barking dog next door. (The sign on the gate says, "Bevair of Dog"). Then at daybreak, the ladies washing clothes in the lake start beating them on the steps between rinses, so we can hear that distant drumming all day.
Today, we've had a cup of tea and water with electrolytes but no food. We haven't left the hotel at all. Luckily, we have a decent place to relax and get well.