India: days 5-14

I slowly woke up to the thumping sound of local women beating the stains out of their laundry along the water’s edge. I peered from my window, looking down at the hardworking women and then out to a floating white palace in the middle of the lake. It was if it came from a James Bond movie and it had. In 007’s Octopussy movie, the royal palace was used in the film as well as other parts of Udaipur, an Indian city in south Rajasthan.

With its islands, boats and bridges, Udaipur is affectionately known as the Venice of India. It’s a beautiful city and numerous rooftop restaurants allow tourists to catch its spectacular scenery.

At street level, however, the city is a different story. Aggressive touts yell for your attention as you walk the streets, lined with beggars, stray dogs and unpredictable cows. It can be tricky to pass a cow along the narrow passageways, since they sometimes jolt their heads upward toward your body. I’ve been head-butted a few times already. One night, I dodged cows and touts to watch a cultural show with Rajasthani performers, which included dancers balancing bowls of fire on their heads and men dressed in drag.

After a few days of sightseeing in the romantic but hectic city, I ventured to the blue city of Jodhpur in a quite comfortable sleeper cabin on a bus. Jodhpur has a fort that seemed to be etched from the top of a hill overlooking hundreds of buildings painted baby blue. From a bird’s eye view, the sight is remarkable. The reason they are painted blue is uncertain but some think it relates to a certain caste class, who are closely associated with the color. No matter what, there must have been a strict homeowner’s association to enforce the color coding of the buildings.

While killing time in the maze of streets, I walked up to a rooftop restaurant that had Rajasthani entertainment. It was far less professional compared to Udaipur’s performers but still entertaining in its own way. The band, sitting on a rug, would play traditional tunes then stop abruptly. One time, the lead musician stopped while the others followed suit because he had an incoming call on his cell phone. The managers eyed annoyingly at him as he took the call. The dancers were fun, though, and even dragged me up in front to shake my hips along with theirs.

I eventually took an overnight bus to the western desert city of Jaisalmer near Pakistan. Camel safari touts are very aggressive here as they vie for tourist cash. Unfortunately, I couldn’t escape their wrath. Once I jumped off the bus at 4 a.m., at least 20 peddlers surrounded me. I agreed to have one drive me to my hotel but as we drove off, he insisted that I go to his hotel and take his camel safari. I kept saying no, so he stopped the jeep and said it was as far as he could go, which was complete bullshit. So, there I was, in the dark, empty streets about a kilometer or two from my hotel. I stuck to the main streets, with no idea where to go. Stray dogs then began to bark and pursue me. One of them would nip at my ankle, luckily, not breaking the skin. It took an hour or so to finally reach the hotel inside the city fort, where I would only pay $5 a night for an en-suite room.

When the sun was up, the view from the hotel was first class. I could see most of the so-called golden city, spread below the steep walls of the fort. I signed up for an overnight camel safari and left with seven others the next day.

Once I saddled up on my camel, he grunted and acted reluctant to port another tourist. For six hours, I weaved back and forth as the camel trudged the uneven terrain. Our caravan stopped for lunch under a large tree, then went through a nomad village and stopped at the edge of a long stretch of sand dunes.

As the sun set behind the rolling dunes, our camel drivers cooked up simple Indian dishes and belted out desert songs, with one of them using a water jug to set the beat. We all sat around a fire, enjoying the entertainment and the clear sky that was full of stars.

Following a 13-hour bus ride and a 6-hour train ride, I made it back to Delhi to complete the “Golden Triangle” circuit around Rajasthan. Delhi was inundated with crowds as India’s biggest holiday, Diwali, approached. On the first day of Diwali, I would fly out comfortably on a jumbo jet with many empty seats onboard.