My Year of Living Draftily

Udaipur Photo Tour

[October 31-November 4] Arriving in Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan, one morning early off an overnight train it felt like I'd woken up in a different India. It wasn't just that the streets were teeming with tourists - this was my first foray into Rajasthan and while I'd known there'd be more tourists, I hadn't quite realized the degree of contrast with much less touristy Gujarat, where I'd just come from.

And it wasn't just the profusion of onion domes and  scalloped archways and white and ocher washes that crowded into the skyline view from atop my guesthouse ("Highest rooftop restaurant in Udaipur!"), becoming almost a caricature of an 'exotic' Indian city, a caricature of itself. A city doesn't get to be a James Bond movie locale ("Octopussy") without being a little over the top.

As I wandered through the grand City Palace complex, comprising several different palaces now museums and restaurants and guesthouses and, yes, even a residential palace for the current Raja's family, I got this strange feeling that "I don't belong here." It was the first time I had felt this in India. It's not a feeling I get in many places, I'm a pretty comfortable tourist most everywhere I go. The one other place that produced this feeling in me, and so strongly, was many years ago in Monaco. It's ostentatious display of wealth - rows of designer boutiques, yachts in the harbour, fast sports cars careening around the twisty roads, and the beautiful people to go with it all - made me the Euro-backpacker feel distinctly out of place, tatty, unkempt, low-budget and unwanted for it.

On that first day's wander with Jez, a fellow-traveler from Britain I'd met in the train station that morning, I took in the well-maintained palaces, the manicured lawns, the tasteful terrace restaurants with uniformed waiters, the valets at the boat launch waiting to whisk the well-heeled tourists to their rooms in the Palace Hotel out in the middle of glistening Lake Pichola, and it felt like this wasn't a city that wanted to cater to a mere backpacker like me. I felt out of place.

But as we continued to poke about, Udaipur's multiple charms worked their magic on me, making itself irresistible. Each cityscape and intricate detail was more beautiful than the last, until it was all so sweetly pretty you thought your teeth were going to rot right out of your mouth. I was aided by the enthusiasm of Jez, who'd been struggling to like India in the short time he'd had to get to know it, and found in Udaipur a reason to like it and to want to come back to India.

I also did find Udaipur welcoming to the full range of travelers, once I got past the glossy sheen. My $5/night room in a lovely old building gave me dawn access to what really did seem to be the highest rooftop restaurant in the city.

And Octopussy showing every night, just for those of us who may have missed it in the James Bond pantheon (guilty!). What's not to love!

A short photo tour of Udaipur for a vicarious taste of the quintessential exotic India.

Gujarat: a photo tour

[September 25 - October 30] I spent the month of October traveling around Gujarat. It's not nearly as well-touristed as its palace- and fort-strewn neighbour to the north, Rajasthan, and that may be one of the reasons I so liked it. There are enough fellow-travelers in the guesthouses for good conversation and the odd day-trip buddy, but not so many that tourists have become an intensely competed commodity.

I'm also still impressed by how different parts of India show up as so distinct from each other, and Gujarat is one of the more distinctive. From daily attire to handicrafts to room decor to the delicious cinnamon/cardamon-laced thalis (multi-dish set lunches), Gujarat more than many states has its own stamp.

As a tourist, I think I had a greater range of experiences in Gujarat than in any other state so far. Staying for five weeks helps, but still: I visited temples and pilgrimage sites, hung out at the beach to even out my tan, joined in some traditional dancing, visited remote tribal villages with mud huts, saw artisans at work, went on a bird-watching safari, and watched cricket and visited one of my favourite museums ever in big cities. Whew! Rajasthan has a hard act to follow.

Hope you enjoy this pictorial tour of Gujarat.

Chandigarh: Trash imitates art

[August 7] I had a day to kill in Chandigarh, with my bus arriving in the city at 4am and my onward train not leaving until 1am the next morning. A long day.

Chandigarh is one of these strange “Union Territories”, a city administered by the federal government. It is the state capital of both Punjab and Haryana states, but technically part of neither. It was built largely from scratch starting in 1952, shortly after Independence, as a symbol of a new India unencumbered by old tradition and hopeful about a new, modern future. Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier was commissioned to design it.

Leh-Manali: New meaning to the word "highway"

 [August 1-3] For reasons more thoroughly explained in an upcoming blog post the Dharamsala – Kashmir – Leh portion of my journey, or the related blogging, is being delayed. Blame light Thai fingers and lack of photographic evidence, though that will hopefully be rectified in a couple of months as it would be a shame to not be able to share that incredibly special part of my travels with my readers.

So fast forward to my departure from Leh, Ladakh, high up in the Himalayas. So far north that the Himalayas define the southern horizon. Which means that to head south back into the rest of India you get to (have to) drive through that formidable wall of snow and granite. At least I think it’s granite. Pretty hard rock, anyways.

India: old meets new

"The impression was of a plodding, indefatigable, and distant past that had crashed intact, through barriers of time, into its own future. I liked it."

Gregory David Roberts,
Shantaram

Valley of Flowers: Blissful solitude on a crowded trail

[June 2-7, 2008] I love it when things turn out completely different than you expected, but so much better. I had it in my head that my little trek to the Valley of Flowers in northern Uttaranchal state, my own pilgrimage to wildflowers, would be quite a solitary affair unless I could come up with some fellow travelers as happened in Darjeeling. I was concerned that if didn't run into them on the bus or by the time I got to Govind Ghat, I might be forced by prudence to hire a guide just so I wasn't hiking alone 13km up a mountain to the next town, Ghangaria, the jumping off point for the Valley of Flowers.

What I hadn't realized was that the remote, snow-bound lake in the next valley east of Valley of Flowers, Hem Kund, which I knew to be a Sikh holy place, is a really popular Sikh holy place.

Puri and Konarak: the sacred and the prurient

[May 13-16]  And yes, I had to look up "prurient" as well, but I'll explain later.

I was running out of stamina for the heat and humidity of the east Indian coast in May. Before making a run for the hills I decided to make one last stop, at the temple town of Puri, in Orissa, with the famous sun temple of Konarak nearby.

Two months earlier and I think Puri would have been one of those towns I could get stuck in for a long time. An important pilgrimage site for its temple of Lord Jaggernath, the town was packed with Indian tourists and steaming hot. Over the years, though, it appears a fairly distinct Western tourist enclave has evolved further north up the beach, just  before the fishing village takes over, and there were very few of us there at the height of Indian summer. I had the lovely Hotel Z (pronounced "jed"), a converted Maharaja's summer house, almost all to myself for the four days I was there.

So you wanna be in pictures...

No, I've not been offered a part in a Bollywood blockbuster. Yet.

As many of my friends have been made painfully aware over the years, I take a lot of photos when I travel. But I've always been a bit wary of taking people photos, unless I can be sure I won't be caught (LOVE my 300mm sniper lens!). Or I'll ask permission. Or I'll buy coconuts or cheap curios then ask to take a photo.

But I noticed on my first trip to India that kids or families at Indian tourist sites will often ask me to take their photo. With my camera, not theirs. Young boys will block my path and demand "Photo! Photo!", defiantly clutching each other. They don't even care to see the photo on the camera screen as they run off shouting of their triumph once the shutter clicks.

This was only an occasional phenomenon on my first trip. It's become the norm on this trip, at least at certain sites. I think this time I'm hitting more particularly Indian tourist/pilgrimage sites, and I'm there during their summer holiday/high tourist season: unbearably hot for most mere mortals, which is why I'm often the only mad dog foreigner on the scene. It also seems that as a female traveling alone, and with a conspicuous camera - no mini point & shoot for me - I'm very approachable, especially for families and groups of young women.

A tour of Tamil Nadu

[April 23 - May 6, 2008] Well, I'm so far behind in getting my blog postings up, I thought I'd cover off all of Tamil Nadu in a photo album. I was there from mid-April to early May, that's how far behind I am. I think it's been published now (check the list on the right), but the internet place I'm at is having connection "issues" so I'm not getting full access to my blog tools. I'll update this little posting, even if only to pretty it up with a photo, as soon as I get better access.

I've also updated my "Where's Lisa" map, so you can get better idea of where I've been in the meantime. Early entries have photos, later ones not yet due to access issues. Will try to add those soon. And I don't have a current Weather Pixie because there isn't one for the region I'm in. But it's hot  where I am, and I'm hoping it will be cool where I'm going. And the 'published' date on all my blogs is changing to approximately when I was there rather than I wrote them, it's a more accurate record of my trip that way.

And get back from the mountains. I'm currently in Rishikesh in northern India, and about to head up into the Himalayas to take a few moutain walks, breaths of cool air and pictures of spring flowers. Darjeeling was a lovely break from the heat of the plains, and I'm looking forward to escaping the heat again.