Feb 15, 2014 - Udaiper to Jodpur
We have had a busy few days! On Thursday, Feb 13th More of Tia's friends and family arrived from Kolkutta for the wedding. Tia's cousin Peckam took us to Shilpgram which is like a fort Edmonton type place but showing what village life was like over the years. It was funny though as there were many shops trying to sell things to us, they all said that the government gives them a free spot to sell their goods as they are all artists from villages in the surrounding areas. Many of our group have become very good negotiators which is fun as well all leverage our buying power together. I am still struggling with the moral dilemma of trying to score a good deal when things are so cheap already, but Tia keeps reminding us that they are trying to take advantage of us and that it would be foolish to pay too much. Some of the couples had their photos taken while dressed in traditional Rajasthani dress which was fun.
After the Shilpgram we went to the city palace of udaiper which I have MANY pictures of and we could also see it from across the lake at chunda palace wherever wedding was held. It is always quite cool to see the palaces and forts as they are very old. We should have had a tour guide as we didn't have the same experience just wandering around and reading signs, but it was cool nonetheless. I find it quite interesting that they don't have gift shops or things set up selling books or pictures of the tourist attractions. Sometimes there are people standing outside trying to sell trinkets and other things, but not quite the same as we are used to in North America or Europe.
That day was quite chaotic as we had a bunch of people transferring to thee chunda palace so we had to get luggage moved and people checked into rooms right after breakfast, so the handful of us that didn't move to chunda palace that day ended up waiting around for what felt like hours. We were told to be ready for 9:00am but didn't leave until nearly 10, by the time we got everyone checked in and rooms sorted out we didn't leave until after noon. Spent an hour or so at Shilpgram and then made it to he city palace by about 3:30 but it closed at 5:00 so we had to rush a bit more than we would have liked. When we left the palace we headed back to our first hotel Mahendra Prakash for dinner as we hadn't eaten all day. Tia was sweet and preordered food for us as she knew we would be starving. We also had to make it to a cultural dance and puppet show for 7:00pm which was about 25 minutes from our hotel. Our group managed to scarf our food and jump in our cars to get to the show just minutes before it started. The show was unbelievable! I posted some video clips of the dancing and puppets, which was very cool as it was representing various areas throughout Rajasthan. We have learnt many interesting facts about this region that seem to go in one ear and out the other at times - it is the ultimate level of distraction here, there is always so much action going on around you at all times it is hard to concentrate on anything!
Friday, February 14th
Wedding day! We were up early to eat breakfast and check out of our hotel and make our way to chunda palace to check in and be ready for a 10:00 am wedding tradition ceremony. We were very impressed with the accommodation at Chunda Palace as our room has a jetted bath tub made of marble and a Huge rainfall shower, blow drier, etc. the downside to all marble floors and walls is that sound travels very far, thankfully we were exhausted after the wedding that night so we slept like rocks! We have actually slept very well our whole trip so far, likely due to the busy days!
The ceremony in the morning was for the family and friends to wish the bride and groom well and to place turmeric and sandalwood on them as turmeric is for health as it is believed to have healing and medicinal properties.
After the ceremony we headed to the hotel next door for Chinese food for lunch on the rooftop restaurant (Chinese food is very popular here). It was quite funny as we sat down and were served some appetizers and soup and pop and then they came over with so,e water in a metal jug. He filled all of our glasses and we all kind of looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders as we have been warned about not drinking water unless it comes out of a sealed bottle and avoiding ice and sanitizing your cutlery and dishes if they are wet. Troy was sitting with Eva and I and decided to have a big gulp and we all joked that "fingers crossed we don't get sick" (we all joke about this constantly) and then Greg (the groom) comes over and sits with Tia at the next table and sees the waiter pouring water and shoos him away as he asks if it is mineral water and the guy says no....to which Eva and I both immediately turn to Troy and say OH MY GOD and start laughing at Troy. Turns out that the water at that hotel is uv filtered and reverse osmosis as it is a 5 star hotel that caters to tourists and is safe, but we all had a good chuckle. We finished lunch and they had an icecream station which Eva was all excited about as she loves ice-cream and it isn't common as freezers are a luxury. So Eva and Troy were one of the first to get icecream. They were helping themselves when all of a sudden Eva lost the grip of her bowl and spoon while she was trying to scoop the ice cream - yes she was trying to hold everything and scoop hard ice cream out of a container LOL - well she got everyone's attention as she dropped eh spoon and bowl and it sounded like she broke a dish and startled everyone. One of the waiter ran over and pushed her out of the way and served her ice cream and them ended up serving the rest of the people in line...but she only got one scoop of ice cream and we all got two...which Eva pouted about LOL.
After lunch a few of us headed out to the market to see what we could find. We caught up with Renada and Gustavo which we were thankful for as we feel more comfortable having a man with us when we are out and about. Lots of women go out together but Eva and I are chickens! Anyway, the market near Chunda palace was a little rougher than we were used to and not very busy, so we ended up jumping in a rickshaw (tuktuk) to Hathipole bazaar (hathi stands for elephant in Hindi and pole means gate). Anyway, we were helping Gustavo find shoes for the wedding and thought maybe we would check out some bangles and jewelry or others things that caught our eye. We tried on bangles at one place but apparently I am a monster and they didn't have any that fit me, LOL. They were asking for too much money so we left and found another store that a few minutes away that had the same jewelry set and the posted price was a few hundred rupees less, typical. Our rule of thumb thanks to Tia and Greg is to offer half of what they say the price is and meet them somewhere in the middle depending on how much you like or really want the item. We came across a shoe store that had shoes that Gustavo liked and Renata found a few pairs too, and I wanted to get a pair of sandals for Taylor that were Rajasthani style. The owner wanted 1150 rupees for 4 pairs of shoes and wasn't negotiating with us so Gustavo pulled out a 1000 rupee bill and said I will give this to you for all four pairs or we leave and sure enough he accepted the offer. Even saving a bit is a victory for us :) some items have more negotiating room than others as you are paying for their effort/time/materials. We have discovered that there are many "artists" claiming to have original artwork on silkscreen but they all somehow are using the exact same templates even though they all claim to paint the art themselves...it is interesting how they try to justify the prices by saying how detailed the work Is and use of gold leaf,etc. we were fortunate enough to have some very smart people with us and have taught us some tricks for checking art such as the size of the silk it is painted on as you need more than most leave for edges to get a good mounting and framing done at home, also to look at the detail and quality of paint,etc as some seem to maybe add paint to a print,etc. one other fun thing we experienced was a short rain - it is very dry and dusty here and we seem rain clouds rolling in and then it actually rained! Just lightly, but rain nonetheless.
After the market we headed back to chunda palace to get ready for the wedding. We caught a tuk tuk and said chunda palace but somehow he thought city palace and we noticed we were getting close to city palace and said "no chunda palace" and the driver stopped and said he couldn't take us there so we jumped out and had to walk back to the bazaar. There were quite a few that said that but we think it is either because only certain ones can go there or that it is too far from the bazaars so they don't want to go so far. We finally got one and we all squished in, he didn't know where we were going as he couldn't read and didn't understand us or know where it was so he drove around asking other drivers. He pulled over to a shop and asked someone who could read our address and name and then we were on our way! We were about three blocks from chunda palace when we came upon a huge herd of cows in the street. He driver honked his horn (in true Indian style) and ally he cows started running as they were all startled (which isn't common as most of the cows just ignore the horns and people and everything else and just roam where they want - many just lay down in the middle of busy roads. So they all started running and then two bulls started to fight with their horns and I'm not going to lie, it freaked me out as we were feet away and in a tiny rickshaw with no protection. Our driver found a break in the herd and gunned it through and then a bunch of people on the street started yelling and running towards the cows and they all calmed back down.
The wedding was to start at 4:00, but didn't get started until almost 5:30 as the wedding planner was terrible and wasn't getting everyone to where they needed to be. The wedding was beautiful though so we all quickly forgot about the wait. Tia was breathtaking in her red and gold saree, and the groom looked very fancy in his coordinating traditional suit (don't know the name of it). The look on Greg's face when he seen Tia was heartwarming as you could see how in love he is with his beautiful bride. After the wedding ceremony they had pictures and there was appetizers and drinks served by waiters while we waited. Did I mention the wedding and reception/dinner/dance was on a rooftop overlooking the lake and city castle, lake palace, and monsoon palace in the distance (it is a palace on the top of a mountain that has been converted to a nature preservation area). As the sun set behind the mountains and all the lights turned on it was truly a fairy tale setting and incredibly breathtaking. We had an awesome Indian buffet dinner and yummy desserts too followed by beautiful and heartwarming (and tear jerking) speeches from the family and groomsmen and bridesmaids. The people we have met are all incredible, so warm and friendly and happy! Tia's family and friends are so lovely and kind, they all wanted to take pictures with us and hang around with us and offered to have us at their homes if we ever come back to visit. It was quite sad to say good bye to everyone as we spent a few days with them and quite enjoyed talking about our different lives. The dance was so much fun! Everyone was dancing and having a great time and nobody cared what they looked like, they all just had fun. The dj was pretty good too he played a great mix of Indian music with our top 40 and classic hits. He told Tia he was surprised that everyone stayed the whole night and danced as he has never experienced that before. We weren't even drunk and we were all dancing like fools and having a blast. (I dread seeing the photo proof of the evening LMAO). It wa too funny though as he played YMCA but it was the minion version from despicable me! All of us with kids were killing ourselves laughing as we recognized it right away...I'm sure many of the Indian guests thought we were nuts but they tried to join in even if they didn't know what we were doing with our arm motions to make the letters. It was funny though as the Dj played it again as the last song of the night (which was 10:00 due to it being rooftop and their being sound rules in the area).
This morning we checked out and jumped on our tour bus for our long journey to Jodhpur. We stopped at Chittogarh fort which was very cool and we had a tour guide and rickshaws to take us around to the important stops so we skipped the less interesting spots and focused on the highlights which was nice. There is a cool story about he queen padmini (sorry bad spelling and no internet to Google as I write this on the bus). She was apparently the most beautiful women in all the land and she had to be covered at all times as her beauty would make people mad. Only her husband the maharaja and her immediate family had seen her face. The sultan in Dehli apparently heard about her beauty from a painter that caught a glimpse of her while he painted her portrait, so he cut off the food supply to the fort as he wanted to bargain with the maharaja's that if he allowed him to see his beautiful wife them he would bring them back food supply. So the maharaja agreed but only allowed him to view her by looking In a mirror to see her reflection in the water and could not look at her directly. So the sultan agreed, and then he seen her face and was mad with desire for her so he ended up starting a war. The queen found out that her husband had died in battle and tr sultan was coming to collect his prize, but because being a widow was the equivalent of being dead (not permitted to weddings, celebrations, etc and most women were burned to death following the death of their husbands, she decided she would rather die than live a life like that as a Slave to the sultan, so she decided to jump off a Tower into a pit and all of the women in the area all followed her as their husbands all died and the children and young girls didn't want to be captive of the sultan - so there was a mass suicide there.
We also seen friendly monkeys and the kids (Emma and Austin) fed them chickpeas that women were selling. We also seen many school children touring and they all crowded around us and stared at us like we were a freak show, it is so funny. Many of our group members were asked to pose in pictures with people, it is so strange! After the fort we went for lunch at a palace where we caught the rickshaws to the fort (the tour bus wouldn't fit up the roads and thought the gates- there were 7 gates and it is at the top of a Rocky Mountainside. We had butter chicken for the first time which was very good :) it's so funny as we all just cross our fingers every time we eat a meal that we don't get sick!
Now we are on a 400km bus ride to Jodpur, it doesn't sound far, but when you pass through tiny villages full of people and have cows and carts and such to dodge along the way mad highway speeds are 80kms/hr it takes a LONG time!
PS- the bindi I had at the first fort we went to was an orangey colour which apparently means sacred and is on many of the shrines and symbols at the temples.
Hope you are all enjoying the photos and blog so far, it is so hard to remember everything and write it all down, but there are so many nuances and funny things that we see we can't possibly explain and describe them all!
Day one of the tour!
Miranda (aka. Mindy)
We have had a busy few days! On Thursday, Feb 13th More of Tia's friends and family arrived from Kolkutta for the wedding. Tia's cousin Peckam took us to Shilpgram which is like a fort Edmonton type place but showing what village life was like over the years. It was funny though as there were many shops trying to sell things to us, they all said that the government gives them a free spot to sell their goods as they are all artists from villages in the surrounding areas. Many of our group have become very good negotiators which is fun as well all leverage our buying power together. I am still struggling with the moral dilemma of trying to score a good deal when things are so cheap already, but Tia keeps reminding us that they are trying to take advantage of us and that it would be foolish to pay too much. Some of the couples had their photos taken while dressed in traditional Rajasthani dress which was fun.
After the Shilpgram we went to the city palace of udaiper which I have MANY pictures of and we could also see it from across the lake at chunda palace wherever wedding was held. It is always quite cool to see the palaces and forts as they are very old. We should have had a tour guide as we didn't have the same experience just wandering around and reading signs, but it was cool nonetheless. I find it quite interesting that they don't have gift shops or things set up selling books or pictures of the tourist attractions. Sometimes there are people standing outside trying to sell trinkets and other things, but not quite the same as we are used to in North America or Europe.
That day was quite chaotic as we had a bunch of people transferring to thee chunda palace so we had to get luggage moved and people checked into rooms right after breakfast, so the handful of us that didn't move to chunda palace that day ended up waiting around for what felt like hours. We were told to be ready for 9:00am but didn't leave until nearly 10, by the time we got everyone checked in and rooms sorted out we didn't leave until after noon. Spent an hour or so at Shilpgram and then made it to he city palace by about 3:30 but it closed at 5:00 so we had to rush a bit more than we would have liked. When we left the palace we headed back to our first hotel Mahendra Prakash for dinner as we hadn't eaten all day. Tia was sweet and preordered food for us as she knew we would be starving. We also had to make it to a cultural dance and puppet show for 7:00pm which was about 25 minutes from our hotel. Our group managed to scarf our food and jump in our cars to get to the show just minutes before it started. The show was unbelievable! I posted some video clips of the dancing and puppets, which was very cool as it was representing various areas throughout Rajasthan. We have learnt many interesting facts about this region that seem to go in one ear and out the other at times - it is the ultimate level of distraction here, there is always so much action going on around you at all times it is hard to concentrate on anything!
Friday, February 14th
Wedding day! We were up early to eat breakfast and check out of our hotel and make our way to chunda palace to check in and be ready for a 10:00 am wedding tradition ceremony. We were very impressed with the accommodation at Chunda Palace as our room has a jetted bath tub made of marble and a Huge rainfall shower, blow drier, etc. the downside to all marble floors and walls is that sound travels very far, thankfully we were exhausted after the wedding that night so we slept like rocks! We have actually slept very well our whole trip so far, likely due to the busy days!
The ceremony in the morning was for the family and friends to wish the bride and groom well and to place turmeric and sandalwood on them as turmeric is for health as it is believed to have healing and medicinal properties.
After the ceremony we headed to the hotel next door for Chinese food for lunch on the rooftop restaurant (Chinese food is very popular here). It was quite funny as we sat down and were served some appetizers and soup and pop and then they came over with so,e water in a metal jug. He filled all of our glasses and we all kind of looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders as we have been warned about not drinking water unless it comes out of a sealed bottle and avoiding ice and sanitizing your cutlery and dishes if they are wet. Troy was sitting with Eva and I and decided to have a big gulp and we all joked that "fingers crossed we don't get sick" (we all joke about this constantly) and then Greg (the groom) comes over and sits with Tia at the next table and sees the waiter pouring water and shoos him away as he asks if it is mineral water and the guy says no....to which Eva and I both immediately turn to Troy and say OH MY GOD and start laughing at Troy. Turns out that the water at that hotel is uv filtered and reverse osmosis as it is a 5 star hotel that caters to tourists and is safe, but we all had a good chuckle. We finished lunch and they had an icecream station which Eva was all excited about as she loves ice-cream and it isn't common as freezers are a luxury. So Eva and Troy were one of the first to get icecream. They were helping themselves when all of a sudden Eva lost the grip of her bowl and spoon while she was trying to scoop the ice cream - yes she was trying to hold everything and scoop hard ice cream out of a container LOL - well she got everyone's attention as she dropped eh spoon and bowl and it sounded like she broke a dish and startled everyone. One of the waiter ran over and pushed her out of the way and served her ice cream and them ended up serving the rest of the people in line...but she only got one scoop of ice cream and we all got two...which Eva pouted about LOL.
After lunch a few of us headed out to the market to see what we could find. We caught up with Renada and Gustavo which we were thankful for as we feel more comfortable having a man with us when we are out and about. Lots of women go out together but Eva and I are chickens! Anyway, the market near Chunda palace was a little rougher than we were used to and not very busy, so we ended up jumping in a rickshaw (tuktuk) to Hathipole bazaar (hathi stands for elephant in Hindi and pole means gate). Anyway, we were helping Gustavo find shoes for the wedding and thought maybe we would check out some bangles and jewelry or others things that caught our eye. We tried on bangles at one place but apparently I am a monster and they didn't have any that fit me, LOL. They were asking for too much money so we left and found another store that a few minutes away that had the same jewelry set and the posted price was a few hundred rupees less, typical. Our rule of thumb thanks to Tia and Greg is to offer half of what they say the price is and meet them somewhere in the middle depending on how much you like or really want the item. We came across a shoe store that had shoes that Gustavo liked and Renata found a few pairs too, and I wanted to get a pair of sandals for Taylor that were Rajasthani style. The owner wanted 1150 rupees for 4 pairs of shoes and wasn't negotiating with us so Gustavo pulled out a 1000 rupee bill and said I will give this to you for all four pairs or we leave and sure enough he accepted the offer. Even saving a bit is a victory for us :) some items have more negotiating room than others as you are paying for their effort/time/materials. We have discovered that there are many "artists" claiming to have original artwork on silkscreen but they all somehow are using the exact same templates even though they all claim to paint the art themselves...it is interesting how they try to justify the prices by saying how detailed the work Is and use of gold leaf,etc. we were fortunate enough to have some very smart people with us and have taught us some tricks for checking art such as the size of the silk it is painted on as you need more than most leave for edges to get a good mounting and framing done at home, also to look at the detail and quality of paint,etc as some seem to maybe add paint to a print,etc. one other fun thing we experienced was a short rain - it is very dry and dusty here and we seem rain clouds rolling in and then it actually rained! Just lightly, but rain nonetheless.
After the market we headed back to chunda palace to get ready for the wedding. We caught a tuk tuk and said chunda palace but somehow he thought city palace and we noticed we were getting close to city palace and said "no chunda palace" and the driver stopped and said he couldn't take us there so we jumped out and had to walk back to the bazaar. There were quite a few that said that but we think it is either because only certain ones can go there or that it is too far from the bazaars so they don't want to go so far. We finally got one and we all squished in, he didn't know where we were going as he couldn't read and didn't understand us or know where it was so he drove around asking other drivers. He pulled over to a shop and asked someone who could read our address and name and then we were on our way! We were about three blocks from chunda palace when we came upon a huge herd of cows in the street. He driver honked his horn (in true Indian style) and ally he cows started running as they were all startled (which isn't common as most of the cows just ignore the horns and people and everything else and just roam where they want - many just lay down in the middle of busy roads. So they all started running and then two bulls started to fight with their horns and I'm not going to lie, it freaked me out as we were feet away and in a tiny rickshaw with no protection. Our driver found a break in the herd and gunned it through and then a bunch of people on the street started yelling and running towards the cows and they all calmed back down.
The wedding was to start at 4:00, but didn't get started until almost 5:30 as the wedding planner was terrible and wasn't getting everyone to where they needed to be. The wedding was beautiful though so we all quickly forgot about the wait. Tia was breathtaking in her red and gold saree, and the groom looked very fancy in his coordinating traditional suit (don't know the name of it). The look on Greg's face when he seen Tia was heartwarming as you could see how in love he is with his beautiful bride. After the wedding ceremony they had pictures and there was appetizers and drinks served by waiters while we waited. Did I mention the wedding and reception/dinner/dance was on a rooftop overlooking the lake and city castle, lake palace, and monsoon palace in the distance (it is a palace on the top of a mountain that has been converted to a nature preservation area). As the sun set behind the mountains and all the lights turned on it was truly a fairy tale setting and incredibly breathtaking. We had an awesome Indian buffet dinner and yummy desserts too followed by beautiful and heartwarming (and tear jerking) speeches from the family and groomsmen and bridesmaids. The people we have met are all incredible, so warm and friendly and happy! Tia's family and friends are so lovely and kind, they all wanted to take pictures with us and hang around with us and offered to have us at their homes if we ever come back to visit. It was quite sad to say good bye to everyone as we spent a few days with them and quite enjoyed talking about our different lives. The dance was so much fun! Everyone was dancing and having a great time and nobody cared what they looked like, they all just had fun. The dj was pretty good too he played a great mix of Indian music with our top 40 and classic hits. He told Tia he was surprised that everyone stayed the whole night and danced as he has never experienced that before. We weren't even drunk and we were all dancing like fools and having a blast. (I dread seeing the photo proof of the evening LMAO). It wa too funny though as he played YMCA but it was the minion version from despicable me! All of us with kids were killing ourselves laughing as we recognized it right away...I'm sure many of the Indian guests thought we were nuts but they tried to join in even if they didn't know what we were doing with our arm motions to make the letters. It was funny though as the Dj played it again as the last song of the night (which was 10:00 due to it being rooftop and their being sound rules in the area).
This morning we checked out and jumped on our tour bus for our long journey to Jodhpur. We stopped at Chittogarh fort which was very cool and we had a tour guide and rickshaws to take us around to the important stops so we skipped the less interesting spots and focused on the highlights which was nice. There is a cool story about he queen padmini (sorry bad spelling and no internet to Google as I write this on the bus). She was apparently the most beautiful women in all the land and she had to be covered at all times as her beauty would make people mad. Only her husband the maharaja and her immediate family had seen her face. The sultan in Dehli apparently heard about her beauty from a painter that caught a glimpse of her while he painted her portrait, so he cut off the food supply to the fort as he wanted to bargain with the maharaja's that if he allowed him to see his beautiful wife them he would bring them back food supply. So the maharaja agreed but only allowed him to view her by looking In a mirror to see her reflection in the water and could not look at her directly. So the sultan agreed, and then he seen her face and was mad with desire for her so he ended up starting a war. The queen found out that her husband had died in battle and tr sultan was coming to collect his prize, but because being a widow was the equivalent of being dead (not permitted to weddings, celebrations, etc and most women were burned to death following the death of their husbands, she decided she would rather die than live a life like that as a Slave to the sultan, so she decided to jump off a Tower into a pit and all of the women in the area all followed her as their husbands all died and the children and young girls didn't want to be captive of the sultan - so there was a mass suicide there.
We also seen friendly monkeys and the kids (Emma and Austin) fed them chickpeas that women were selling. We also seen many school children touring and they all crowded around us and stared at us like we were a freak show, it is so funny. Many of our group members were asked to pose in pictures with people, it is so strange! After the fort we went for lunch at a palace where we caught the rickshaws to the fort (the tour bus wouldn't fit up the roads and thought the gates- there were 7 gates and it is at the top of a Rocky Mountainside. We had butter chicken for the first time which was very good :) it's so funny as we all just cross our fingers every time we eat a meal that we don't get sick!
Now we are on a 400km bus ride to Jodpur, it doesn't sound far, but when you pass through tiny villages full of people and have cows and carts and such to dodge along the way mad highway speeds are 80kms/hr it takes a LONG time!
PS- the bindi I had at the first fort we went to was an orangey colour which apparently means sacred and is on many of the shrines and symbols at the temples.
Hope you are all enjoying the photos and blog so far, it is so hard to remember everything and write it all down, but there are so many nuances and funny things that we see we can't possibly explain and describe them all!
Day one of the tour!
Miranda (aka. Mindy)
Wow, you are good at story telling. I enjoy all of your stories.. I can almost picture myself there. They should have better roads and modes of transportation over there.
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