Jodhpur, Udaipur & Nepal

Jodhpur

I hadn't actually written much about Jaipur itself, it was in fact the most interesting place we'd been to so far. The elephant ride (whose name was jamelia), the lake, the walls, all spectacular. The guide, who was lovely, being the only one who indulged and helped me shop on the streets, then nearly put me into a coma however because we went through about twelve sun dials, all of which he was sadly very knowledgable in.

On our last night in Jaipur we also went to a buffet called barbecue nation, recommended to us by Aneeta. You're given all the skewers of meat first, then you have a buffet. I went through about four skewers. Tom went through ten. Then we had the buffet. Then we had dessert. Then I nearly threw up in the elevator back to our room. And I'm pretty sure it cost us twenty five bucks for the two of us. I ate so much I then had the most frightening reflux induced nightmare of my life. I dreamt that the whole wedding was a practice run, and the celebrant tells me, 'that was a good trial, now let's do the real thing,' before I woke up Munch's Scream style.

In Jodhpur the petulant fog lifted somewhat and we were able to see atop the Greek blue acropolis, and for once a guide who didn't know any of his dates, and therefore didn't recount the entire history of his region. What I liked about him was how proud he was of this place, a genuine love for his city. He would walk calmly into the middle of the traffic, like a local cow, slowly, with sanctity. And we would try to follow him, like squirrels, frantically, with our nuts clenched.

At the base of the fort were the hand prints of the thirty something wives of the maharajas who'd committed stuti upon their husbands' deaths, which is self immolation. Tom asks if I would do the same, and to be honest I can barely say the word, much less perform it. One more reason why I'd like to be the one who dies first.

The place we stayed at had a massive balcony and overlooked the garden, where a band of men played traditional music. The drumming was good, but unluckily for Tom, who went to bed early, they played well into the night, and the main singer's inspiration seemed to come from the sounds of root canal surgery.

Udaipur

On our way to Udaipur, India tried fairly hard to kill Tom with gastro, to the point where he didn't eat breakfast, lunch of dinner. That's like saying Seth McFarlane didn't make fun of black people, fat people, and women. You know it's either a doppelgänger from an alternate universe, or he's about to die. And since we were previously speaking about stuti, I'd very much like to keep my week-old husband alive so I don't have to set myself on fire. We were able to get our hands on some decent antibiotics in Australia, so he'll go back to eating 12 kilos of meat and chasing poultry like he did to one particularly slow peacock that roamed the hotel garden at Agra. The next day I'm sure the staff were talking about us because I was ordered and ate all the meals while the big man I was with only had bread or fish and chips. 

The hotel we're staying at is ridiculously gorgeous, with a view of the lake and the mountains. I'm sorry my blog is so void of pictures, I'm using a camera instead of my phone so uploads will have to come later. You won't be missing much as I'm a an ordinary photographer, every now and then you'll see a photo that's both straight AND in focus. 

Cross what I said about Jaipur, this place is the cleanest and clearest by far. I managed not to get the infection Tom got, as I most likely have enough germs inside my digestive tract to host the Bacteria U.N., a place where E. Coli, Salmonella and The Bubonic Plague convene to discuss macro economics. 

The guide was highly enthusiastic at showing me the lakes, the palaces, the camels, the temples, to the point where he grabbed a random street sweeper and pointed out the different types of jewellery on her face and didn't notice she had all her front teeth missing and Tom Selleck's moustache.

Leaving India and Udaipur turned out to be hard, and I don't mean emotionally or gastronomically. A fog from The Bold and the Beautiful prevented us from flying out and Roger Ramjeet had to drive us six hours back to Jaipur and another five hours to New Delhi the next morning so we could make our flight to Kathmandu. Overall, I enjoyed my time, from the breakfast dosas to the surprise blackouts, the guava juice, the coccyx-bumping rickshaw ride, the confusion between the number four and the number six (chaar? Char?) and even that awkward moment where you need to tip the toilet attendant after you've just washed your hands but don't want to touch the money so you hold it through your sleeves like a leper. Goodbye, and thanks for all the saris.

Nepal

Despite losing a whole day in Nepal our guide there was able to shuffle things around so we didn't miss anything. Unfortunately we missed the mountain flight to see Everest but our fortunes turned at Chitwan National Park where we saw more than the normal share of wildlife. On our elephant ride we saw cute nuclear families of deer and rhino, along with peacocks. One Chinese husband also asked his wife, 

'hey look at the beautiful flowers on the elephant, do you think they were drawn on?'

to which she responded with, 'nahhhh they're born with colourful flowers on their faces...'

On the jeep safari we saw herds of spotted deer with very impressive, fuzzy antlers, more peacocks and plenty of crocodiles. An extra treat was a large rhino, who for a moment, charged right at us. Then we all held our breaths as we saw a leopard crossing our paths.

As I'm writing something wicked is surely going to befall Tom. Bad things come in threes. First I (accidentally) chucked his toothbrush on the ground. Then Fatty sat on his sunglasses. So who knows what'll happen next. I'll probably give him mono.

The food had all been prepared at the lodge we're staying at, there was fried fish heads, fried chicken, tempura veggies, buffalo sausages, most of which I enjoyed. They even packed us the most adorable lunch that had a juice popper in it, they wrapped everything up, including the salt.

One of the guides we had was describing a local house made from made and cow dung, and knocked off a piece of their house in he process of waving his stick emphatically about. Another took us bird watching, which is about as interesting as it sounds, we managed to laugh immaturely about spotting tits, though at one stage the youngest baby elephant of the national park walked over to us and sniffed Tom's crotch.

On our jungle walk we spotted more spotty deers and on our canoe ride there were many crocodiles eyeing us out, and way too many mosquitoes sniffing me out.

In the evening we went to a cultural dance where it seemed they got the local teenagers to perform for us. They might be doing it in exchange for getting out of detention, i.e. write an essay on global warming or dance for the foreigners. I joined them as a part of audience joint humiliation for the world's longest dance ever, it was fun.

I would certainly come back to Nepal against. The place is beautiful, the people friendly, children smile and say namaste not because they want anything, they seem to be happy to look at the funny tourists who buy their elephant dung paper (yeah you bet I got me some). Nothing in this place is afraid of humans, not the deer, not the rhinos, certainly not the chickens and the dogs (and Japanese Spitzes! Nepalese Manny!), so much so that I fear That the Nepalese people might be taken advantage of by others who are greedier. It doesn't help that they sit in between China and India, and from what I've seen of both those countries, Nepal is certainly the David to their Goliathian powers. 

On our last day at Kathmandu we visited a lot of temples, and saw a beautiful purple sunset of the Himalayan mountains which was surprisingly, only about 50km away. Then the guide took us to a local place and we ate all the momos, a dumpling with buffalo meat, along with fried paneer and an assortment of other fried meats, including buffalo lungs (and you know how much I like offal). Now we're heading back home, where far fewer people will be my height, or wear The North Face. I've been really lucky to visit these places, and if our plane crashes, someone 'rescue' my dog from my mother who's no doubt over feeding her because Manny 'looks so hungry'.