My first Indian bus ride. From Jaipur to Ajmer. Not too scarring.
We left the hotel (3 nights, 3 meals, and 3 hours of internet was 2300 rupees or about $50 dollars... not too shabby) and walked to the "bus station." I guess there was a building that Max went in to get tickets while I got some munchies, but from what I saw, it was a few roads intersecting with a dirt patch in the middle.
We had reserved seats, thankfully on the shady side of the bus, and it trotted along for a little less than three hours. The rest stop was a few huts on the side of the road serving food, and I continued my exploration of Indian bathrooms with a latrine with the typical hole in the ground with places to put your feet so they are slightly above the funk. I've gotten over it.
In fact, I've heard that the squatting style is actually healthier for you. It is the natural way to sastify one's call of nature.
(Thankfully, all the hotels we've stayed at have had European-style toilets.)
I could write more about the bathrooms I've gotten to experience (such as seeing the ground move between your feet while doing your business on a train), but I'll try to show some restraint. And I'm definitely just talking it all with a sense of humor.
Ajmer is this small town right before the pass over the hills into Pushkar. We were going to spend a full day, but decided sleeping in Pushkar would be better.
First we visited the Red Temple, a Jain temple in the middle of town. The attraction there is a large diorama of what they believe the ancient world looked like. There were rings around a center tower, with flying geese and elephant gondolas. It was glitzy and very intricate, but I was expecting a model train to come around the corner at any time.
We headed toward the lake to look at the parks and some marble pavilions that Shah Jahan built. (He's the same guy that did the Red Fort in Delhi and the Taj Mahal.)
A hawker on the street directed us toward buses to Pushkar, and we decided to leave the rest of Ajmer for another day so we could get to Pushkar before it was dark.
The bus drivers are skilled, but only because they are impatient. On one-lane-each-way roads, instead of waiting for it to be clear to try to pass a truck (that does not want to passed), they zoom right next to it, causing cars and motorcycles coming the other direction to veer off to the shoulder. Everyone is honking, but we never hit anything, and made it in about 45 minutes over the pass (which itself was a narrow, winding road) and to Pushkar.
We bargained for a room, then went off to explore. Pushkar is a tourist-y town, but I didn't believe it until I got here. There are quite a few other white people, and the majority of them are dreadlocked, rainbow- and bangle-bedecked hippies. It is quite funny the two breeds of people that visit India (with the other being the bus-fulls of tour groups).
The lake, as we heard yesterday, was drained and dried up, so the temples along the lake where looking out at the muddy bottom instead.
So we roamed the markets. I got a skirt and some sunglasses; Max got a haircut. A bite to eat, some desserts off the street, and we were pretty much entertained the rest of the day.
A few pictures to "speak a thousand words" about Indian, though.
A monkey, a dog, and a cow chilling at the front of a temple... where else are these street animals just wandering around?
We stopped to rubberneck at a crane moving a huge statue (or something) into some neon-lit temple. There was a crowd of onlookers, a group of about ten that were actually doing the task, and another dozen that thought that they were helping with the task. For example, someone chocked the wheel, then the driver couldn't figure out why the crane wasn't backing up until another few guys figured it out and yelled at him.
Just another classic day in India.
There is a possibility we are taking a night bus or train to Agra tomorrow night, so no guarantees on an update, but internet cafes are pretty cheap, so you never know... could get lucky!
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