Village safari, Udaipur festival, diarrhea, and bargaining lessons

6/1 – Woke up at 4 AM with Jeeps waiting for us to take us to the rural areas in India. The roads were all rough dirt roads, I had a blast riding on the back, reminds me of off-roading with Reza and Ahmad back in the day. So we met with 3 different village-type of families and was able to see what they do for work and see how they live.

1. The first of families we went to visit was in a Muslim pottery community. They lived very pious lives, nothing extravagant, no cars, no washer or dryer, the woman milked the goat, and one of the children were asleep in an outside cot when we arrived early in the morning. Iqbal Khan greeted us as we showed up, and we noticed the display of pottery all around, from water bowls to elephants to Hindu gods. He showed us how to make pottery using methods that do not require any electricity. It was really interesting and I ended up buying a little clay lamp from him.
2. The second family we visited was from a Vishnoy community. Vishnoy is a religion in which they live by 29 principles, they are environmentalists, women must wear colorful clothing, and they must be farmers and live very simple lives. Many years ago when the British came to cut down the trees in a part of India where Vishnoy’s were, they protested by hugging trees. The British didn’t care and killed them along with the trees, and thousands of Vishnoys were killed in this way. Another educational lesson I learned about the Vishnoys was how they wanted a new generation of stronger/better looking Vishnoys. Since their community provided food to each other a lot of people who joined the religion were the poor and darker Indians. So one of their leaders made a rule and hired a big, strong, and handsome Indian to come to their community. He was paid to have sex with the women of the religion so they could procreate stronger and better looking children. So if the husband of this women came home and saw that this person was in their home they would not enter until the hired man left. The twist though is that after 15 years the man is to be killed because they wouldn’t know who his children are and he cannot have sex with his own daughter. When the 15^th year came the man did what probably any of us would do, he ran away. What a life huh? You get paid to have all the sex you want with any woman you want but you are to be killed after 15 years. Anyways, back to the family. When we met with them they had an OPIUM ceremony where we got to drink opium water. I was given some pure opium to taste, it was very very bitter… but I felt very happy and strong afterwards, lol j/k.
3. The 3^rd family we visited were called Pujabiti’s. They are a co op of a little over 100 weavers who live BPL – below poverty line – so they are subsidized by the Government. They showed us how they weave carpets and we got to participate in the weaving process.

Next we took a long bus ride to the Ranakput Jain Temple. It was very artistic, but I wasn’t that excitied because my stomach was giving me problems. I would have diarrhea for the next couple of days, and just getting better now. Ya, they told us that around 60% of the people who come to India would get some kind of sickness, out of our group it’s around 80% so far. Our tour guide actually had to get a substitute for 2 days because he got really bad diarrhea. That night our tour guide got a little drunk and started singing, next thing we know the hotel people brought out a little sound system so we were taught how to dance Indian Bollywood style... super funny.

6/2 – Woke us early from our jungle resort, it was really cool hearing the animals in the morning and I saw a family of monkeys all traveling through our area and hop into the trees. We took off in the bus again. Since we were in the middle of nowhere we saw many rural families tending to their farms and animals. We stopped our bus as we saw a man irrigating water. He used a cow to turn a wheel which was used as a pulley to operate a wheel that brought up water from the well. As we were watching we some kids ran up and were so excited to see us, they were so nice and gave us some of their fruit that they picked from the nearby trees. Here's a picture of a village woman with her child, i thought you you might enjoy to see the beauty we witness daily:

Afterwards we made our way to Kumbhalgarh Fort which has the 2^nd longest wall in the world, the 1^st being the Great wall of China. We reached Udaipur and went to a Rajastan cultural show… They had some tribal dancing sword fight, it was interesting. The dance by the ladies was very nice. Then there was some lady that danced with 10 water pots on her head, that was cool. Afterwards we had dinner on the lake overlooking the Royal Palace, was super beautiful. We met a guy name Adi who came with us to the hookah bar, then took us cruising in his Jeep that he uses to go hunting with. It was interesting to hear his crazy stories.

6/3 – Today we went to the Shiva Temple where people prayed to their idol gods. Pray to Ghanesh for good luck, pray to the monkey/human god for power and prosperity, pray to Lakshmi for wealth… I forgot which god it is, but a lot of the funny guys said they pray to the god that had thousands of women. Afterwards we went shopping and I got a good lesson in bargaining from the 60 year old lady that is in our group, the energetic Judy. I thought I was good at bargaining because I was cut throat and willing to walk away if I didn’t get what I wanted, but she did this whole routine of being super nice and just saying she couldn’t pay the amount they wanted until they went down to the amount she wanted… it was amazing actually cause she would get something down from 400 rupees to 85 rupees. After shopping and getting some cold coffee, we went to the Kings Palace in Udaipur which is the 2^nd largest Palace in India. We were about to pass out from exhaustion because the Palace was so big and the heat was a killer.

After eating dinner and relaxing, we were refreshed and went to the lake and on the way back there was a festival going on with fireworks and everything. The others left back to the hotel but I stayed to check it out. It was a little crazy. A blindfolded man hopped around on 1 leg, in his other leg he had a knife between his toes. Another man lies on the ground with a cut up banana: 2 on his knee caps, 2 on his nipples, and 2 on his eyes. The blindfolded man with sounds of drums in the background would hop around, feel where the other guy is, then stick the knife right into the banana, barely missing and stabbing the guy. The last piece of banana on the guys’ right eye I think went through the banana and nicked the top of the guys eyelid. Thank God it didn’t go through and stab him in the eye. Next there were other performances, people spitting fire, sword dancing, and more ghetto fireworks, some even messed up and burst early, sending the fireworks straight at the crowd, one which barely missed me.

On my way home I saw a barber shop, and I needed a haircut anyways so I went in. They knew right away I was a foreigner. I asked the price and they said 60 rupees, which is like $1.50… so I was in. Getting the haircut was unique… the guy was talking to me and we were having a good time… suddenly he’s talking about some hair treatment and stuff… I didn’t pay too much attention cause I was getting a face massage and it was feeling soooo good. I notice I’m staying there longer than usual, getting a full-on facial, head massage, some special treatment in my hair. The whole thing ended up taking 2 hours. I knew that it probably wouldn’t be 60 rupees because he did some extra stuff… but he never told me the price… so when I asked at the end finally how much it would be, he gave me a price of 1,300 rupees!!! I was like WTF, that’s like $30. He said some stuff about using special ointments that cost a lot and blah blah… And I was like crap, I just got played. I told him that he should’ve told me the price before doing that, and he started talking and I just paid and left really mad. It was now around 11 PM and I was walking the dark streets so pissed off that I passed my hotel without even noticing. After asking for direction I found my way back. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, and you learn from everything. At least the diarrhea is over.

New Delhi Monkeys and Jodhpur Magic

To sum up India in a couple of words is impossible. Imagine a place with a ton of people… Men and young boys working all over the streets either cleaning, construction work, or selling, women fashionably dressed with vibrant colors and jewelry, impoverished men, women, and children all around sleeping anywhere they can find, rickshaws (mini-taxis) trying to solicit you to jump and ride with them, and everyone staring because they know you are a tourist. If they are brave enough they will wave, come up and start speaking English, or even as for a picture. Next thing you know there will be a crowd around you. They are very nice people and the kids are adorable.
I really noticed was the diversity of religions. You will see a typical Hindi family standing next to a man with a turban (Sikh) and a Muslim hijabi walking by. The city is full of temples and mosques… but also you can feel tension between different religions. I was at Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur playing next to some Indians playing music, one was playing tabla and the other was playing the Persian santoor. We spoke and everything was so cool and he was playing really well, but after he finished a little performance I said Mashallah, and suddenly his smile went away and he looked at me all weird. Then while we were at the train station waiting, it was prayer time so I found a guy with a Muslim cap and long beard and asked him the direction for namaaz… he was happy that a white looking guy wanted to prayer, he told me the direction with a really sweet smile, shook my hand and told me to pray for him. I kinda wish we could be like that with everyone, not just because someone is Muslim. This happened to me another time in the hotel in New Delhi, the guy who worked there found out I was Muslim as was like my best friend, saying we are brothers… haha. It was a unique experience.

First day 5/28 - Me and Jacky (my travel partner for the tour and long-time school friend) started out our Indian experience by checking into a 5-star hotel, she actually had a ton of points built up on her card which allowed for us to get a room there for free. We were mostly tired from the long airplane ride so we just checked in, had a nice chai downstairs and went to bed.

5/29 - We woke up at 6 AM very refreshed and hit up the gym before setting off into India. Since it was Sunday most places were closed, but we found a really awesome travel tour guide guy (he was a midget but really cool), and after eating some awesome authentic Indian food he took us to a Hindu Temple (Lkshmi Narain Temple), India Gate, and the Presidential Palace. We saw so much during this time, even MONKEYS! We met up with our tour buddies, but left them at night to have dinner with my friend Rohit who I met on the plane. We had a blast with him as he took us out for food, hookah, and cruising the city at night where I saw the Jumma Masjid at night, and saw many many poor people sleeping all over the sidewalks and any area where there is grass. We didn’t get back till 5AM.

5/30 - We got to take the Indian metro… was very busy but a fun experience at the least. We then walked down the oldest road in India to the largest mosque in India, the Jumma Masjid. I got to pray there and see the beautiful architecture. Next we went to the Sikh temple which was very beautiful. They were reciting prayers and cooking food for everyone… we got to help cook the food but didn’t eat anything because it would make our weak western stomachs upset. At night we headed to the train station where we would make an overnight trip to Jodhpur. This was a very unique experience to say the least. There were 6 people per train cubicle, divided into 2 sections, with a triple bunk-bed setup… so each person had 2 feet max above them till you hit the roof. I slept on the top, and I didn’t have room to sit up or I would hit the roof of the train… but since I slept most of the time it wasn’t that bad… sometimes you have to live like the poor… since we stayed at the 5-star hotel this was the opposite extreme side (and really not even that bad since I am not experiencing sleeping outside w/out a shower, bathroom, etc. Regarding bathrooms, they have outdoor bathrooms in which people can basically see you as they are passing by. It’s like a stall without doors, but outside in the public lol.

5/31 - From Jodhpur after we checked in, we left towards Meherangarh fort which was the house of the major rulers. It was very old and beautiful. In addition it was nice to have live music and we went about it. From here we went ToJaswant Thada where all members of the royal family are cremated… so that was pretty cool to see. After coming back to rest I was able to get to the computer story to help me fix my internet in which I paid a lot of money for so I can have internet. Then we all went to the Sadar Bazaar. We were dropped off down the street and as we were walking a Muslim ceremony/parade was passing. Kids on Camels, and other people holding up an embroded cloth… and it seemed like the respected elders walked in front of it. Then a strange thing happened. I saw everyone gathering as an Indian guy put a sharp object into his eyesock, and twisted it and his eye seemed like it was going to popout. Then another Indian guy stole the spotlight as he stuck the sharp object through his neck, then another man got on top of him and did the same thing with the same sharp object. So there were two men on top of each other with a sharp object going through their neck. This was very very fascinating for me and I got a pretty good closeup of everything in which I’m trying to load up onto youtube right now and I will show the link later. I picked up some really good Kashmiri tea w/Saffron from the bazaar and saw a small motocycle acciddent. After having a wonderful dinner we took the rickshaw’s back, driving in India is the most craziest/funnest things to do. Anyways, that’s all I have till now… tomorrow morning we should be heading out towards Ranakpur to visit a Jain Temple.

Starting the Blog for the Trip

Alright, getting everything squared away before I take off on Friday. Got a new laptop, charging my camera betteries, bought some fresh underwear. Anyways, stay tuned for all the exciting pics and everything. I should post most of them here, and on facebook if I get a chance.

Also will be able to skype me: kidman018

Please keep me in your prayers, Here's my itenerary:

1. India - May 28th -June 24th or 25th.

Will start of in New Delhi and go with a tour to Jodhpur, Ranakpur (Jain Temples), Udaipur (Lake Palace), Jojawar, Pushkar (Brahma temple), Jaipur (Hawa Mahal - Palace of the Winds), Bharatpur, Agra (Taj Mahal), and return to Delhi. This is 14 days, so after this trip I can do whatever till i leave. Will probably hit up Bombay and other places that will just come up as I am there.

2. Pakistan - June 25th - July 10th

I will have to find a way to get to Pakistan from India since their are no flights. So far I have found a train that does that, so most likely i will be traveling via train (Keep me in ur prayers lol). Then I will get to Karachi for my boy Dannesh Kassamali's wedding.. a good 3 weeks of celebrations (and some exploring in Karachi). Oh, here's a convo from me and Dannesh:

Me: Yo Dannesh, Is Pakistan dangerous bro? Dannesh: Nah bro, but just bring a crappy sell phone in case someone tries to rob you at gun point, just give them the crappy on and keep your good one. Me: WTF?

3. Egypt - July 10th - July 17th

Ok this was like a last minute add-on... I really fell in love with Egypt last time I went... especially the horseback riding in the desert sands behind the pyramids at midnight.. and sitting and watching the pyramids which are lit up at night while smoking hookah and drinking tea. Best memories of Egypt. Anyways, my homegirl Salma and her family are treating me :) So we will be in Cairo for a couple days and will head to Alexandria for another wedding going on over there... going to be sooooo fun, can't wait!

4. Head home... but there's more???

Oh ya, after i get home on July 17th, i have to get ready for Grad School which starts August 18th... I will be going to Costa Rica for an MA program: International Law and Dispute Resolution at the University for Peace. How will I get there??? Driving baby - yupppp, going to probably leaving around the end of July or beginning of August and just road trip down to Costa Rica, going through Mexico City and a bunch of other cities in Mexico, Guatemale, maybe Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua before hitting Costa Rica!

Keep me in ur dua's, peace!