Udaipur

After some refreshing days in the city with the (mostly) empty lakes, I'll leave tonight for Diu. But first let me talk of Udaipur.




My hotel (Lakeshore and some water buffalos in the plant covered lake. You can see on the walls how high the water used to be.




The famous lake palace, now a 4-star hotel.




Main actress of a TV show being filmed at the lake today.



View from my hotel, on the right the huge City Palace, at sunset.



Jules, a captain from Gibraltar, who is going to move to his girlfriend in Switzerland soon, and me, still wet from bathing in the river with some local kids after a few hours of trekking/climbing/walking down a rocky stream some 40kms out of the city.



The big red TATA truck in which the three of us comfortably hitchhiked back to town.




Jules meditating underneath a very steep passage of the climb. Luckily the water became crystal clear some time later.



Kid jumping into a river in which we were taking a bath during a bicycle ride two days before the climbing. Some guys from local TV were there too, and we got promptly interviewed during swimming and now everybody in town knows us from the news that evening.




Katy (the third in our group) from Sydney, an trapeze/rope artist who traveled with the circus for some time and myself in the river.

After they left for Pushkar I spent some more nice days till I fortunately met Leane from Jaisalmer who convinced me to leave for Diu with her, so I'm gonna board the bus tonight to a formerly Portuguese colony. A small tropical Island, a few hundred kms(16 hrs bus ride) south from here.

Jaisalmer Photo Update

Some more pics!



Osaka girl with camel



other Osaka girl with camel



16th century stone sculpture, Palace Museum



Jaisalmer City Palace detail



Jaisalmer (view from my balcony)



Fort with city



Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer

After some refreshing days (the safari ones less than the others) in the desert jewel of Jaisalmer I will probably head for Udaipur tomorrow.
But first I'll tell you all what I lived through here.

After the usual hassle at the bus station I finally found a nice hotel inside the fort, situated directly at the outer wall with a great view over all the city (pop. 55.000) outside the fort. Though there aren't that many tourists around in September you meet nice (and not that nice) people all the time. E.g. there were the two girls from the Czech Republic who were insanely impolite and extremely annoying. Anyway, a day later Aldi (aged 28 and living all over the world for several years now) from Columbia and Emma from England who met in Delhi and traveled together since then arrived and we had a lot of fun together.

As everywhere you can rent bikes for a day and ride out to the desert.







Of course I had to participate in the obligatory camel safari which every tourist coming to Jaisalmer has to do. So I went with Inon (Tel Aviv), Leane (Essex) and two Japanese girls (Osaka) and two camel guys on 6 camels into the desert. It's hot, painful, dirty, sandy, and not that much fun at all. Still the stars in the nightly sky over a dark desert are so intense that it is worth the trip. And of course it's nice to sleep in the dunes and sit around the campfire drinking self made chai and eating fresh chapati. Even though speaking very little English the Japanese girls were hilariously funny and after some time Inon and myself finally found a remote village with a fridge where we could buy cold pepsi for a lot of rupees.

After the most refreshing shower of my life and two days and one night in the desert you never want to ride a camel again and you are quite happy that it's over.


Inon, Leane, Osaka girls and camel guys (from left to right), some of our camels in the background


Me + dunes


Me + camel


Leane + dunes


desert gypsies

Yesterday on the rooftop there was finally a group of six having dinner. Mario from Dresden, Leane (look above), Johanna aus Graz and Ella from Wales. I was just about to start a huge discussion about the difference of a goat being sacrificed at a religious event which Ella wanted to attend and all the animals who die for my food (since she was vegetarian) when my phone rang and stopped me. Mario who turned out to be quite an annoying idiot and Johanna spoke all the time in German, and dragged me into it, which was quite rude towards the other girls of course. Anyway Mario and Leane and Johanna left this morning and I'll follow them tomorrow hoping to meet Aldi and Emma again in Udaipur.

My attempts of buying a Hero Honda or renting a Royal Enfield have been canceled due to the high prices and almost no used bikes being offered for sale in Jaisalmer.

That's it for now. Have fun and stay cool.

PS. Try not to read Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot' since it's far too long and too many characters are involved.

Pushkar Update

Bin immer noch hier.
Aber laesst sich trotz der Hitze gut aushalten. Vor allem mit dem Wissen, dass es Richtung Westen, wo ich hin will nur noch heisser und wuestiger wird.
Ausserdem hat sich hier eine nette Runde eingefunden. Nachdem Bu-Jong weg ist (leider) sind auch Juergen und Janina, von denen man auf meinem deviantart account lesen kann weg. Er war Informatikstudent und sie studiert Kunst und Mathe auf Gymnasiallehramt. Dann sind auch noch Barbara und Lena weg, 2 Studentinnen aus Wuerzburg die beide Grundschullehrerin mit Schwerpunkt kath. Theologie machen. Uff. Anstrengend. Dafuer hab ich noch ne Ausgabe von Dawkin's The God Delusion in einem Buchladen gefunden. Nachdem die ganzen Quaelgesiter weg sind, findet sich jetzt abends auf der Dachterrasse immer eine Runde ein, bestehend aus mir, Ittei aus N.Y. der aber bald abreist, und Zeta aus Melbourne, Lethan aus Edinburgh und Hanna aus London, wobei die letzteren drei 3-4 Wochen bleiben und in einer Art Tierkrankenhaus arbeiten. Irgendwie als Praktikum fuer ihr Tiermedizinstudium.
Ittei und ich ham sie heute per TVS besucht (jetzt weiss ich au wien Kickstarter funktioniert. Und er weiss, dass man moeglichst wenig bremsen sollte, wenn man auf riesigen Felsen mit einer duennen Sandschicht und ~25% Steigung/Gefaelle rumbrettert. Aber dem Motorrad is zum Glueck net viel passiert. Ihm au net. Macht nen Mordsspass btw.) Auf jeden Fall war Zeta grad dabei ein riesiges Eiter-Ekzem (oder so aehnlich) am After einer Kuh zu entfernen. Waehrend Hanna in der Surgery Strassenhunde am Fliessband kastriert und Lethan sich um diverse andere Leckereien kuemmert. Sind dann nicht lang geblieben und ham doch noch den Shiva-Tempel gefunden.

Ittei und meine TVS auf einer "Bruecke" actually one of the best parts of the whole 'road'.


Roadsign in India