Traveller Home India

20th February 1993, Bhuj, Gujurat

Up at a reasonable hour and immediately took my swords to the tailor to have him sew me a bag so I could cart the damn things around with me (they were way too big for my pack). Once that was finished I met Rich and Nicky and we headed over to the 'silver street' to purchase some cheap precious metal. I ended up getting two silver boxes, one with the design of an Indian elephant colourfully enameled on the lid, for Rs500 (US$18) - this place was expensive, we were paying Rs58 (US$1.90) a gram. The silver shops closed during the heat of the day so we rested in the courtyard of our hotel for the afternoon until they re-opened. Rich and I went for a walk through the backstreets where no tourists ever went. Everyone we met was so friendly, I think because they didn't see that many Westerners. The locals had painted the city in the most brilliant colours. The streets were amazing, sometimes entire streets painted in one shade of a pastel colour, a different one for each street. We stumbled upon a few brilliantly painted temples, each better than the last one we saw. We eventually made our way back to the hotel to find Nicky and head to the train station. We were headed to Udiapur, via Palanpur through the state of Rajasthan.

The three of us bit the jovial hotelier farewell and he walked us to the door and waved us off as we packed ourselves, luggage and all into a rickshaw. Now three people sans baggage is a squeeze. Three people and their backpacks is almost overloading the petite little motorized vehicle. Our driver was insane and swerved so closely to a few cows that Rich was able to touch them as we passed. It was a hellacious drive to the station, coming within inches of hitting most cows and almost all pedestrians.

Boarded our train, had a wee smoke then vegged out in the compartment. The train was packed and we ended up sharing our compartment with two Indian men who said they were escorting six older women to Mount Abu (an Indian honeymoon resort with an amazing marble Jain temple). The women were in the next compartment over and after taking a quick peek saw they were all over 50 years old, and judging by their excess body matter they were well fed - indicating wealth (because you've got enough money to eat that way to get fat). The train pulled away and shortly thereafter the smaller, skinny Indian man in our compartment began to rummage around under his seat, pulling out a couple of pots which he placed on the seat his butt had just been warming. The larger chubby man seemed to be telling the skinny man (dubbed Laurel) what to do. Rich, Nicky, and I watched in awe as Laurel opened up one of the pots and pulled out a few peeled potatoes. He proceeded to mash them up, then add other ingredients that had been pre-chopped and stored in a third pot. He made this potato dish with a yellow curry sauce. We couldn't believe it - the man across from us was cooking on the train. And making koftas at that! He rummaged around under the seat some more and pulled out a stack of plates and a pot of cooked rice. He dished up two servings of his culinary creation then headed off sown the aisle towards the women I'd seen earlier.

That's when it hit me - this man was the women's personal cook and the chubbier Indian man in our compartment (Hardy) was their porter, for he dealt with the luggage and showed the train conductor the women's tickets. Unbelievable. Nicky just could not believe this was going on across from her - great expressions. After the women had been served and finished their meal the cook brought back the dirty plates and rushed off to the loo to wash them with a huge bottle of water he'd brought with them. After witnessing this pseudo-cooking show we were wondering, "Wouldn't it be easier to eat before getting on the train?" In our Western minds, yes, it would be, but to them, we hypothesized, eating on the train like that - with the cook and all - would give them (the well-to-do) another opportunity to flaunt their wealth, Having a cook cook for you on the train (one commodity item - the servant) along with the fact you were being served good food (the food being commodity item number two) other people would see how much food you got to consume, thereby showing your status.

Once the dinner was over we all climbed into our bunks, and watching Laurel and Hardy showed me some insight into their class system. The cook (the lowest class member in our control group) had to sleep on the lowest bunk with the porter above him (from a higher class). The cook had to sleep with a suitcase, taking up a quarter of the room on his bunk, but he could still recline his feet up on top of it. The porter has his own bag as well, but he'd decided his bunk wasn't too comfortable with his suitcase taking up so much space - the bunk would be much more comfortable with the suitcase on the cook's bunk. At that he passed it down to the cook and made him sleep with it. With this new object added to the already cramped personal space in his bunk the cook could no longer stretch his legs out so he resigned to curling himself up tight into a fetal position so his body would fit on the bunk with the luggage. Since he was the lowest member of the caste with the group he was traveling with he ended up with all the hardship. At least his way was being paid and he was employed, two things that are hard to come by in India for the locals. Laurel and Hardy were all snuggled up in their beds as were Nicky Rich and I, but there was still one empty bunk above me that needed to be filled before we could go to sleep. Otherwise we'd just be woken by the noise they'd make moving in.

Our train made it's first stop where the occupants of the empty bunk arrived. This man came in and laid out a long bedroll across the top bunk. (I was laying in my bunk watching things being passed up and down past my bunk by the man and his children.) The only thing about the bedroll it that it was so thick it took up almost half of the space from the bunk up to the ceiling.

[DESCRIBE SMALL BUNK SPACE]

The man's twelve year old daughter came in and climbed up there, then to my surprise the father (a very large man) followed her up. Out of curiosity to see how one contorts one's body to fit two to a bunk I leaned out and looked up. All I could see was the bulk of the father's torso precariously balanced on the edge of the bunk; almost ready to tip the wrong direction and send the man to the floor by way of a near fatal back dive. I couldn't believe the two of them were going to actually sleep up there, but this was India, so anything's possible.

21st February 1993, En Route to Udiapur

We woke up the next morning stiff from the cold. We weren't prepared for a cold night so all we slept under were our sleeping sheets and when we woke up we could see our breath inside the compartment. It was definitely the coldest weather we'd experienced since leaving Europe. Arrived at Palanpur and 9:30 a.m. and walked over to the bus station with Nicky and Neil another British dude we'd met on the train, also headed to Udiapur. Apparently not many Westerners make it to Palanpur because the minute we entered the bus station and had put down our stuff there was a crowd of people surrounding us - easily three people deep. People were standing on the neighbouring benches to get a better view of the white people and see what they were doing. The people just sat there and stared at us like zoo animals, so we began acting like animals. Rich juggled a bit (more for his entertainment than theirs I gather) and when Neil reached into his bag to get out his water bottle the crowd leaned closer, all trying to get a view of what magical Western item the sahib was pulling out. When Neil pulled out the bottle he held it up over his head like an orb and screamed, "Water! The elixir of life!" He then lowered the canteen piously, opened it, and took a sip as though its contents had been blessed by the Pope himself. The locals just watched in amazement not knowing what to think.

We had an hour to kill so the four of us just sat around talking to each other while a crowd of 50 looked on . Our bus arrived and after securing a seat with my swords we said good-bye to Nicky (who was headed to Jaisalmer) by giving her a kiss on each cheek. As our bus pulled away I was just hoping the locals wouldn't try to get a kiss from her as well - as she'd just kissed us in public. Our bus driver floored the gas pedal and we arrived in beautiful downtown Himetnagar around lunch time.

At the Himetnagar bus station we were once again the center of attention with a small crowd following us everywhere we went. Absolutely no one in this bus station spoke any English (interesting because the Indians all know a little English since they use the language to communicate with each other from different states) so I got to play charades with the station attendant (using my map of India as a prop) to try to find out which platform the bus to Udiapur was leaving from. After a nice long game of charades it was sorted and time for us to eat some lunch.

This was your basic bus station restaurant - big and absolutely packed to the brim with locals eating their own lunches. We ordered a bunch of vegetable dishes then waited around for our food. Once it arrived I noticed they'd forgotten to bring us yogurt (to kill the heat) but it shouldn't matter too much. Rich and I have been traveling around India for quite some time now and are pretty used to all levels of spicy food. I took a bite of this Alu Gobi and the spices emanating from those potatoes were nothing like I'd ever eaten. I can honestly say that no where on the planet have I ever tasted such hot food. I'd learned that the initial heat eventually wears off (or numbs your mouth enough) so you can eat, but this dish just didn't stop. I even took a sip of the Indian tap water on the table in an attempt to kill the pain. It got to the point where I got up and went over to the kitchen door to get some curd. Now after nine weeks you would have though I'd remember the Hindi word for curd since we asked for it all the time - not this time. I couldn't remember it for the life of me so I made motions like my face was burning off and the waiter finally got the hint and brought some out for me which I devoured and rubbed on my burning lips. I took the curd back to the table and Rich and Neil each had their share of the salvation as well. We were pretty hungry, so we managed to take alternating bites of our meals and the yogurt to slowly make our way through lunch.

After lunch we meandered out on the platform, the bus arrived, we strapped our bags onto the roof and we were off towards Udiapur. The only problem was there were roadworks for more than three quarters of the way to Udiapur, so instead of nice tar sealed roads we got gravel and dirt causing everyone inside the bus to be tossed around. The shaking got so bad that this became a Class 5 typical African bus ride - and those conditions are really hard to duplicate. Neil put a rip in his pants from being tossed around so much and Rich & I felt like our internal organs had been rearranged by the time we arrived in Udiapur at 7:00 p.m. that evening. We said good-bye to Neil and headed over to the Lake Star hotel just outside the main downtown section of town. We got a brilliant room facing the lake; one side faced the Lake Palace Hotel, lit up sitting on its island in the middle of the lake, and the other direction looking out over the water to the City Palace in the middle of the old fortress.

Lake Palace Hotel - Photo Coming Soon!

As we were heading out to dinner we met this woman, Karen of the UK who had the room next to ours. She seemed like a nice person at first glance and before we could react she had invited herself to come to dinner with us. Little did we know she was one of the charter members of the space cadet club. We were walking along when she asked if we did opium during our longer train journeys. The conversation went something like this:

"Do you take opium on a train Journey?" asked Karen. "No," said Rich to which Karen responded "Oh! I never go anywhere without it." Great, a junkie for dinner - wonderful. All she did was talk all through dinner, blather pouring all over the table. I don't really remember saying much, not that there was much opportunity to speak anyway. Dinner finally ended and we walked back to the hotel where Karen finally left us. We vowed to try to avoid her as much as possible from now on.

22nd February 1993, Udiapur, Rajasthan

We were up relatively early and as we were walking though town we were befriended by a ten year old boy. Now when I say befriended we didn't befriend him - he latched onto us and followed us around all morning offering to take us to his art school. The kid had a great personality - good fun to talk to, plus he spoke about five different languages, including Japanese (most likely as a result of the high tourist visitation rate to Udiapur). We finally consented to go see the art school where they were painting the miniature paintings Udiapur is know for. After he showed us around the inevitable occurred; we were offered a few select paintings to purchase. No way - hence the lad's motives. When we exited the school without buying anything we also exited sans young school boy.

Udiapur is a city that thrives on tourism so everyone - shop keepers, hoteliers, etc. are all very forward - screaming at you to come into their shop and but their stuff. It got to the point where it was so obnoxious that I was screaming back at the shopkeepers if they bitched when I'd just look and not buy anything. I did manage to price the silver box I'd gotten in Bhuj for Rs250. Udiapur price - Rs600. Tie dyed fabric for Sarah, Bhuj price - Rs50. Udiapur price - Rs175. We made our way to the City Palace in the centre of town and after walking around this marginally impressive building Rich and I left the downtown area and walked to the Saheliyon ki Bari, which is a beautiful set of gardens with fountains interspersed throughout the grounds. It turns out this used to be the place the maharastra would entertain his maids of honour. The place did exude the feeling of the type of place you'd have a black tie Debutante party.

En route back to the city we got to see one of the rickshaws dropping off little girls off at their homes after school. Now a rickshaw only holds three people in the back and maybe one up front in a pinch. Add any backpacks and you've reached max density. The rickshaw I spotted had no less than twenty five school shoulder bags strapped in a fan-like fashion to the outside rear of the vehicle. That means that the corresponding number of little Indian girls should be inside that rickshaw. Unbelievable - the kids were absolutely packed inside the thing and when it stopped to drop them off a small child would pop out of the rickshaw, partially of their own accord and partially by the release of pressure from the inside. The girl grabbed her bag off the back and headed inside as the rickshaw sped down the street. This could have something to do with the reason Indians have no concept of personal space - they experience the sardine can effect early on so it doesn't bother them.

We walked around the city some more and ended our walking tour at the boat jetty for our tour around the lake. Our boat pulled away and we got to view the city from the water (not much change). The boat banked to the port side and we were circling the opulent Lake Palace Hotel, which sits on its own at the centre of the lake. Boring. The boat continued its turn and after glancing at the Udiapur City Palace our tour ended. I think I've lost interest in Udiapur for the moment.