The best souvenirs I got from our Udaipur-Mt Abu trip would have to be the collection of life stories told by amazing people we met along the way, which both inspired and humbled me at the same time.
We had the privilege of meeting...
the 31-year old Kiwi lady in Udaipur who was travelling around India for three months by herself,
the couple from Belgium who are spending a year in India to learn about the secrets of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) so that they can set up a mobile Ayurvedic clinic back home,
the Isreali guy whose first trip out of his country is a two month trip around India alone,
the mom and her two-year old from the UK who have been travelling buddies even before this two month stay in India,
the Kashmiri shopkeeper in Udaipur whose cousin married a Singaporean traveller
...among many others who made our own stories pale in comparison.
Our first mini victory (and I know I keep repeating this but it's cos I'm really proud of myself) happened in Udaipur when we haggled down the auto price from the quoted rs50 to rs20. heehee. I was working on mini victories so the next one came when we were able to locate the guest house we planned to stay at, as recommended by Lonely Planet. The view of Fateh Sagar lake from the balcony outside our room was excellent.
Though the room itself was nothing to shout about...
We endured the cold shower for one night before moving out to Hotel Ganguar Palace. Nowhere near palace standards, but at least we got our hot bath.
My first meal after the 6-hour journey on a suspension-less bus was cheese tomato spaghetti and my favourite soft drink here..LIMCA!!
At Jagdish Temple.
And of course we couldn't escape from bits of Karma Sutra carvings..
Boat ride along Lake Pichola.
The famous Cafe Edelweiss, always brimming with budget backpackers every morning who are suckers to the description provided by Lonely Planet: "..little piece of Europe that appeals to both homesick and discerning travellers." Perhaps the only piece of Europe you can get there is seeing other angmohs cos the food is just expensive and not that great.
Holy cow!
Holy cow dung! (Kash stepped on a pile before. Heehee.)
City Palace Museum, where we didn't pay the camera fee but still took photos anyway.
There was a Muslim festival going on during the time we were there, not sure what it was though. But it was pretty scary cos boys/men were running along the streets and shouting. It could pass off as a protest. There were policemen for crowd control as well.
The street where we could get silk scarves for S$4 and shawls for S$8, depending on how fiercely you bargain.
We managed to catch the Dharohar performance at Bagoreki Haveli just in time. The entire audience consisted of foreigners and we sat on mats for the one hour performance which cost a total of..........S$2.30!! (I took down accounts for everything.)
This woman was amazing. She didn't pile on all those pots at the same time so everytime she added more the crowd oohed and ahhed. She even danced on broken glass with those pots on her head.
Kash got a nose stud despite my warnings about the hygiene levels and inappropriate metal used. Oh well, she lost it in the bathroom when we got back so maybe it's for the better.
Treated myself on the last day in Udaipur with a massage at Tiger Spa where I was marinated with Ayurvedic oils while folksy music played softly in the background. Thankfully mine wasn't as 'intimate' as the one Marine got though I think I was still a little tense as a reflex defense mechanism.
After a gruelling 6 hour bus ride up to Mt Abu, we only managed to reach there at about 3pm, which meant that we missed the city tour and other sites were closed by the time we were ready to get out of Shri Ganesh Hotel. Mt Abu is more of a weekend getaway for locals so there weren't as many foreign-looking tourists as compared to Udaipur.
Saving grace came in the form of...Cafe Coffee Day! (CCD here for short) The strawberry shake was heavenly but I couldn't fully appreciate it with the weather being the way it was. I keep forgetting it's freezing outside so I always order cold drinks and suffer the consequences later.
The next day was much more eventful. We first visited the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Musuem and had the weirdest experience ever. Even weirder than the WYWI session.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?? THE PUZZLE OF LIFE IS SOLVED!
We were made to sit in pitch darkness with a laser beam aimed at our foreheads while a voice fed us with lines like:
"God is like this point of light. He is in every one of us."
"Everyone is intrinsically good."
"Om Shiva"
They even offer a three day course about this philosophy which calls for acceptance for all religions because God is the same for everyone, He just takes different forms. Followers wear white and have (or seem to have) a certain kind of calm about the world.
A little too confused for me though.
Later in the afternoon we went on two treks up the hill (mountain?), which was more walking than I ever did in the entire year before. The first one was 4 hours long O_o and promised bear or panther sightings, though this was what we actually saw...
I forgive them even if they made the scratch marks themselves as a kind of "if all else fails" back-up plan.
There was a bigger group for the second trek, which was fortunately less physically taxing and only two hours long.
Meet Baby Ada and Supermom Amy. They've been around the UK and Spain and now they're here in India. Whenever I am faced with problems over here, I just need to think of them and it'll all seem so trivial.
That's it! For the first time in three weeks I was actually happy to see the gates of MICA. I guess it takes going away to miss familiarity.
Til the next adventure.
We had the privilege of meeting...
the 31-year old Kiwi lady in Udaipur who was travelling around India for three months by herself,
the couple from Belgium who are spending a year in India to learn about the secrets of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) so that they can set up a mobile Ayurvedic clinic back home,
the Isreali guy whose first trip out of his country is a two month trip around India alone,
the mom and her two-year old from the UK who have been travelling buddies even before this two month stay in India,
the Kashmiri shopkeeper in Udaipur whose cousin married a Singaporean traveller
...among many others who made our own stories pale in comparison.
Our first mini victory (and I know I keep repeating this but it's cos I'm really proud of myself) happened in Udaipur when we haggled down the auto price from the quoted rs50 to rs20. heehee. I was working on mini victories so the next one came when we were able to locate the guest house we planned to stay at, as recommended by Lonely Planet. The view of Fateh Sagar lake from the balcony outside our room was excellent.
Though the room itself was nothing to shout about...
We endured the cold shower for one night before moving out to Hotel Ganguar Palace. Nowhere near palace standards, but at least we got our hot bath.
My first meal after the 6-hour journey on a suspension-less bus was cheese tomato spaghetti and my favourite soft drink here..LIMCA!!
At Jagdish Temple.
And of course we couldn't escape from bits of Karma Sutra carvings..
Boat ride along Lake Pichola.
The famous Cafe Edelweiss, always brimming with budget backpackers every morning who are suckers to the description provided by Lonely Planet: "..little piece of Europe that appeals to both homesick and discerning travellers." Perhaps the only piece of Europe you can get there is seeing other angmohs cos the food is just expensive and not that great.
Holy cow!
Holy cow dung! (Kash stepped on a pile before. Heehee.)
City Palace Museum, where we didn't pay the camera fee but still took photos anyway.
There was a Muslim festival going on during the time we were there, not sure what it was though. But it was pretty scary cos boys/men were running along the streets and shouting. It could pass off as a protest. There were policemen for crowd control as well.
The street where we could get silk scarves for S$4 and shawls for S$8, depending on how fiercely you bargain.
We managed to catch the Dharohar performance at Bagoreki Haveli just in time. The entire audience consisted of foreigners and we sat on mats for the one hour performance which cost a total of..........S$2.30!! (I took down accounts for everything.)
This woman was amazing. She didn't pile on all those pots at the same time so everytime she added more the crowd oohed and ahhed. She even danced on broken glass with those pots on her head.
Kash got a nose stud despite my warnings about the hygiene levels and inappropriate metal used. Oh well, she lost it in the bathroom when we got back so maybe it's for the better.
Treated myself on the last day in Udaipur with a massage at Tiger Spa where I was marinated with Ayurvedic oils while folksy music played softly in the background. Thankfully mine wasn't as 'intimate' as the one Marine got though I think I was still a little tense as a reflex defense mechanism.
After a gruelling 6 hour bus ride up to Mt Abu, we only managed to reach there at about 3pm, which meant that we missed the city tour and other sites were closed by the time we were ready to get out of Shri Ganesh Hotel. Mt Abu is more of a weekend getaway for locals so there weren't as many foreign-looking tourists as compared to Udaipur.
Saving grace came in the form of...Cafe Coffee Day! (CCD here for short) The strawberry shake was heavenly but I couldn't fully appreciate it with the weather being the way it was. I keep forgetting it's freezing outside so I always order cold drinks and suffer the consequences later.
The next day was much more eventful. We first visited the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Musuem and had the weirdest experience ever. Even weirder than the WYWI session.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?? THE PUZZLE OF LIFE IS SOLVED!
We were made to sit in pitch darkness with a laser beam aimed at our foreheads while a voice fed us with lines like:
"God is like this point of light. He is in every one of us."
"Everyone is intrinsically good."
"Om Shiva"
They even offer a three day course about this philosophy which calls for acceptance for all religions because God is the same for everyone, He just takes different forms. Followers wear white and have (or seem to have) a certain kind of calm about the world.
A little too confused for me though.
Later in the afternoon we went on two treks up the hill (mountain?), which was more walking than I ever did in the entire year before. The first one was 4 hours long O_o and promised bear or panther sightings, though this was what we actually saw...
I forgive them even if they made the scratch marks themselves as a kind of "if all else fails" back-up plan.
There was a bigger group for the second trek, which was fortunately less physically taxing and only two hours long.
Meet Baby Ada and Supermom Amy. They've been around the UK and Spain and now they're here in India. Whenever I am faced with problems over here, I just need to think of them and it'll all seem so trivial.
That's it! For the first time in three weeks I was actually happy to see the gates of MICA. I guess it takes going away to miss familiarity.
Til the next adventure.
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