Wow. So India is a knock to the senses. Since arriving, it has challenged us in most ways possible; it takes adjusting to understand the way its keys fit its locks. Four days in, I was highly confused. Two weeks in, I was maybe just about starting to get it.
Mumbai
Mumbai is not just Mumbai in July, it’s monsoon Mumbai. Four straight days of rain preceded our arrival. As our tuk tuk splashed muddy warm water up over our bags on the way from the airport, we had no idea that this rain just doesn’t stop. The hostel was dark, wrapped tightly in tarpaulin from head to toe. It’s dark blue hue filtered the windows, made us feel like day was night and night was day. The tap tap tapping of the rain took me back to the ‘rain app’ I downloaded to help me sleep during stressful times in London. I already felt basic and shallow, questioning my lugubrious life choices, there was more of this to follow.
The hostel dwellers were a confusing bunch of people. Mostly Indians, with any standout westerners quickly scurrying to their rooms. The locals filling the dark, hot downstairs area either stared innocently at us, or the cool looking dudes playing on their smart phones, reading the Hindu Times in English. A beautiful Anna engaged us in conversation: ‘I’ve visited the UK you know’, ‘I was in a west end Bollywood show’. We angled for an invite into mumbai’s famed Bollywood bubble, but it seemed she was on a weekend off.
Anna told us to visit Carter Road. She wasn’t the only one, anyone we spoke to spoke of ‘Carter Road’. So we whipped off through the rain, surprised by Uber’s Mumbai activity, giving the tuk tuks a comfortable run for their money. Carter road, in short, was disappointing. We’d been painted a ‘sunset strip’ portrait of this high end part of town, we envisaged hopping from café to café, from shop to shop examining expensive items directed at Indian and western tourists alike. Instead, things got drab. We wandered, umbrella laden, down the nicely paved promenade, not sure where exactly we were heading. The grey murky ocean flung 6ft waves at craggy rocks. Groups of excited locals teetered amongst them, risking life and limb for that perfect selfie. Orla and I did not want selfies here, it felt slightly apocalyptic. As we approached a little spit going out to sea, we noticed a hustle of trees, mangrove-like in their tangle. It could have been a scene from a ‘Save the Planet’ campaign; plastic, grey blue black, hung from every branch of every tree, giving the beach an eerie, neglected quality. Peering through the trees we noticed the movement of small groups of people amongst the labarynth of roots. What they were doing was not a question we answered. This was our first glimpse into the India that India doesn’t want us to see, like it is holding some big secret that over and over again we find glossed over for its tourists. We slugged our way back to the hostel, this time in a tuk tuk, enjoying weaving our way through the incredible rush-hour with added monsoon traffic. I hope Uber doesn’t erase this.
Jaipur
The hostel dwellers were a confusing bunch of people. Mostly Indians, with any standout westerners quickly scurrying to their rooms. The locals filling the dark, hot downstairs area either stared innocently at us, or the cool looking dudes playing on their smart phones, reading the Hindu Times in English. A beautiful Anna engaged us in conversation: ‘I’ve visited the UK you know’, ‘I was in a west end Bollywood show’. We angled for an invite into mumbai’s famed Bollywood bubble, but it seemed she was on a weekend off.
Anna told us to visit Carter Road. She wasn’t the only one, anyone we spoke to spoke of ‘Carter Road’. So we whipped off through the rain, surprised by Uber’s Mumbai activity, giving the tuk tuks a comfortable run for their money. Carter road, in short, was disappointing. We’d been painted a ‘sunset strip’ portrait of this high end part of town, we envisaged hopping from café to café, from shop to shop examining expensive items directed at Indian and western tourists alike. Instead, things got drab. We wandered, umbrella laden, down the nicely paved promenade, not sure where exactly we were heading. The grey murky ocean flung 6ft waves at craggy rocks. Groups of excited locals teetered amongst them, risking life and limb for that perfect selfie. Orla and I did not want selfies here, it felt slightly apocalyptic. As we approached a little spit going out to sea, we noticed a hustle of trees, mangrove-like in their tangle. It could have been a scene from a ‘Save the Planet’ campaign; plastic, grey blue black, hung from every branch of every tree, giving the beach an eerie, neglected quality. Peering through the trees we noticed the movement of small groups of people amongst the labarynth of roots. What they were doing was not a question we answered. This was our first glimpse into the India that India doesn’t want us to see, like it is holding some big secret that over and over again we find glossed over for its tourists. We slugged our way back to the hostel, this time in a tuk tuk, enjoying weaving our way through the incredible rush-hour with added monsoon traffic. I hope Uber doesn’t erase this.
Jaipur
Stepping out from the airport was our first real taste of another way in which India packs a punch; its heat. Jaipur, the 'Pink city', is the oven baked capital of northern India’s largest state, Rajasthan. 40 degrees greeted us, like a hairdryer to the face, blowing away Mumbai’s monsoon. Jaipur feels like a lot of things in the face. One outstanding feature is it’s namesake hue: pink. The old part of Jaipur is ordered by law to retain its rose-peach coloured city walls, first painted centuries ago under the watchful glamour-puss eyes of a rich-Raj, who wanted everyone impressed by his city. Impressive it remains. However, walking down the high street that evening was, to put it simply, hell on earth. In search of the famed honeycomb architecture of Hawa Mahal, it turned out we had to give a series of passwords to hundreds of gatekeepers to win entry. The answer to each question was simple, ‘no thank you’.
No thank you.
No.
Not today.
Maybe later.
Not now.
Another time.
No thank you.
Please just 🙊 off (said with a smile)
Yes, the main roads of the cursed pink city are covered front to back with bazaar stalls, all selling the same things that, well we just simply didn’t want. Take a side road off the main street and a different, darker story unravels. We stumbled across a bunch of late-teens playing a cricket match in the street. We took a few steps towards them and were quickly told ‘not allowed’. Being the entitled Western Women that we are, we felt offended by this and marched past anyway to jeers of ‘hurry up’. Once through this gauntlet mottle-colour goats blocked the way, a mad-man shooed us off down an alley, and an old lady gesticulated angrily from a balcony. India’s dark secrets poking out from under the colourful carpet once again, just a stone’s throw from it’s most famous tourist hotspots. In contrast, the innocence of kids shined as they ran up for selfies, giggling chatteringly when I called them cheeky. A young boy wanting to practice his pretty impressive English talked to us and soon we had a crowd of 30. Realising we were perhaps a little vulnerable, we took the offer to follow the boy and his uncle to see their temple. The interaction ended 20 minutes later after the uncle managed to turn it into an albeit innocent business proposition, and we squirmed away in a tuk tuk.
That evening we took a punt at a rooftop restaurant. I say punt because you never quite know what you’re going to get when you start up the stairs to a rooftop restaurant. Sometimes you get breezy, colourful calm, sometimes you get stale, brown and hot; it’s a gamble. This time however the gamble paid off, and we enjoyed 360 views of Jaipur’s far-off hills with walls and forts giving crenelated silhouettes against the purplish sky. This, with an illegal beer, ‘dry state’, and a navrata korma: Heaven.
Jaisalmer
Whereas Jaipur offered a respite thunderstorm during our brief 24hrs there, arriving in Jaisalmer turned up the heat on our already roasting oven. We can’t blame it, its star attraction is its hot sprawling desert and the lofty looking humpbacks that reside there. We’d come for the camels and to sleep under the stars on the back of the sand dunes. Alas, India took its moment to deal blow number three of the trip: the notorious, looming cloud that is Dehli belly. Whereas I was enjoying my cool Kingfisher whilst sitting on one of jaisalmer’s hive of rooftop restaurants, Orla was brewing something more than beer. The fever and sweats set in fast, shaking like flu and resp rate through the roof had us both worried. There was no choice but to leave her convalescing in the A/C. And so, for the next couple of days I was a lone traveler.
I imagined that being by myself in India as a lone female would be even harder work than traveling as a two. I was wrong. I found there was generally less harassment on my own, perhaps it was my steely expression, wearing shades, playing it cool. However, I found that locals would help me pass the imposing, revered cows with foot-long horns that rule the alleyways, I would be invited in for a chai and a life story. I explained to many that my travel buddy was sick, hand motion and all, and received a multitude of sympathetic suggestions on how to beat the Dehli belly. Options included drinking a pint of buttermilk, lemon water, banana milkshake or paneer spinach curry. Sadly, none of them worked. The bug kept emptying my friend of all her nutrients and energy for three days straight.
Jaisalmer, to its credit, has a lot more to it than just the camels. By the time I left I didn’t regret not doing them at all. Instead I busied myself pottering around the twists and turns of the proud sandcastle fort which dominates the skyline. India’s hassle dies away within the fort walls, sellers employing a more human tactic for sales. Meena was one lady I met who attracted me in with some small talk about how her baby, healthy and playing beside her, was born 7 weeks early. I mean, if there’s one way to get a children’s nurse into your shop. She told me about the sufferance of young women in India, often married off between 8 and 14 to older men, widowed by 30. The widow status is a black mark in much of India, with the ladies often shunned from society and unable to make a living in what is, realistically, still a largely male dominated country. Obviously Meena’s story came with a side salad of sales, but I was happy to support her cause. Papu was another less-brazen seller who was selling magic carpets made in a desert factory (yes, seriously this was his ‘in’). Papu really put his back into the sale, taking us to a back courtyard and laying out over a hundred of the tapestries with the added theatre of a man-sized fan causing them to blow in the wind. Each one was laid down with a side-shake to the head saying ‘don’t worry be happy, no buy? I still smile’. Who knows if there were truth behind it, because the magic carpets were hard to resist. The fort shopping was punctuated with cool lassi’s in rooftop Haveli-style restaurants, where you could look out at the city through Aladdin-esque ornate windows. I’m not gonna lie, there was a charm, and I was charmed.
Orla finally regained some energy and was equally taken with the inside of the fort. Thankfully, she was well enough to catch our 12hr sleeper train on to Ajmer/Pushkar. It was a surprisingly pleasant ride; I had heard some horror stories and when greeted by heads poking out from the three story bunks to cop a look at the white girls, I feared it may not be a relaxed night. That said, we had gone for 3A (still don’t know what it means but had beds and a/c) and my lack of sleep turned out to be my own fault, trying to use a 12kg backpack as a pillow. First world problems.
I imagined that being by myself in India as a lone female would be even harder work than traveling as a two. I was wrong. I found there was generally less harassment on my own, perhaps it was my steely expression, wearing shades, playing it cool. However, I found that locals would help me pass the imposing, revered cows with foot-long horns that rule the alleyways, I would be invited in for a chai and a life story. I explained to many that my travel buddy was sick, hand motion and all, and received a multitude of sympathetic suggestions on how to beat the Dehli belly. Options included drinking a pint of buttermilk, lemon water, banana milkshake or paneer spinach curry. Sadly, none of them worked. The bug kept emptying my friend of all her nutrients and energy for three days straight.
Jaisalmer, to its credit, has a lot more to it than just the camels. By the time I left I didn’t regret not doing them at all. Instead I busied myself pottering around the twists and turns of the proud sandcastle fort which dominates the skyline. India’s hassle dies away within the fort walls, sellers employing a more human tactic for sales. Meena was one lady I met who attracted me in with some small talk about how her baby, healthy and playing beside her, was born 7 weeks early. I mean, if there’s one way to get a children’s nurse into your shop. She told me about the sufferance of young women in India, often married off between 8 and 14 to older men, widowed by 30. The widow status is a black mark in much of India, with the ladies often shunned from society and unable to make a living in what is, realistically, still a largely male dominated country. Obviously Meena’s story came with a side salad of sales, but I was happy to support her cause. Papu was another less-brazen seller who was selling magic carpets made in a desert factory (yes, seriously this was his ‘in’). Papu really put his back into the sale, taking us to a back courtyard and laying out over a hundred of the tapestries with the added theatre of a man-sized fan causing them to blow in the wind. Each one was laid down with a side-shake to the head saying ‘don’t worry be happy, no buy? I still smile’. Who knows if there were truth behind it, because the magic carpets were hard to resist. The fort shopping was punctuated with cool lassi’s in rooftop Haveli-style restaurants, where you could look out at the city through Aladdin-esque ornate windows. I’m not gonna lie, there was a charm, and I was charmed.
Orla finally regained some energy and was equally taken with the inside of the fort. Thankfully, she was well enough to catch our 12hr sleeper train on to Ajmer/Pushkar. It was a surprisingly pleasant ride; I had heard some horror stories and when greeted by heads poking out from the three story bunks to cop a look at the white girls, I feared it may not be a relaxed night. That said, we had gone for 3A (still don’t know what it means but had beds and a/c) and my lack of sleep turned out to be my own fault, trying to use a 12kg backpack as a pillow. First world problems.
Pushkar
Pushkar nestles deep in central Rajasthan, home to India’s most holy Hindu pilgrimage destination; Brahma temple and lake Pushkar spilling blue across its centre. With Orla’s bug still coming and going, we wanted to take it easy, and this was the place to do it; its ‘hippy’ chilled vibe resulting in many dreadlocks, hareem pants and their enlightened owners.
‘Puja’, or prayers, take place each evening around the lake surrounded on three sides by 52 famed ghats, the bathing ponds used both for holy anointment, and everyday washing alike. The peace of walking around it was somewhat hole-punched by eagle eyed rulekeepers who had an endless list of rules that we were breaking. Taking off shoes ‘for cleanliness’ was an easy one, we would carry them around with us, dodging our way around the corn-filled cow pats and green pigeon poo. Stopping to take a photo, we were warned a) not to take photos and b) not to stop moving with the shoes. So to placate, we would shuffle around holding our shoes trying to enjoy the views, whilst limboing in and out of pictures that excited locals were trying to take of our rare white skins. Puja started at 7, rules tightened further and gongs gonged. Orange, yellow and red robed men appeared from nowhere, waving incense and small burning candles above their chosen ghats with small gatherings around them. It was intimate, smaller than expected, but together and reverent.
The rain started thick and fast, thankfully we were sheltered in a rooftop cafe for its short, sharp spell. We watched over a little square where marketeers were interrupted mid-mango sale by the heavy downpour. They dove for cover under the colourful verandas lining the square. All that was left were the holy cows that fill every space not taken by mopeds or people, and even they sought shelter after a few minutes, hooves slowly sucked by the rising water. When it ended, our only escape from the cafe was to wade ankle-deep through the water as the square resumed its buzz. A dreadlocked bystander enjoying a chai with locals advised in a calm voice ‘I’d wash your feet after this, that’s sewage you’re wading through’. We did note the corn dotted throughout the water after this, undigested corn perhaps?
Our days passed calmly in Pushkar. We befriended some awesome Indian people running the lively hostel, and swam in its discoloured pool. We got trapped by a storm during a visit to a hill temple and were hit with the most selfie requests to date. We watched the colourful Sadhu monks sit calmly abstaining from their everything, beards ever lengthening. We saw the city lights flash like Christmas on and off from rooftops as the regular power cuts took hold. India’s idiosyncrasies were charming us ever more.
The rain started thick and fast, thankfully we were sheltered in a rooftop cafe for its short, sharp spell. We watched over a little square where marketeers were interrupted mid-mango sale by the heavy downpour. They dove for cover under the colourful verandas lining the square. All that was left were the holy cows that fill every space not taken by mopeds or people, and even they sought shelter after a few minutes, hooves slowly sucked by the rising water. When it ended, our only escape from the cafe was to wade ankle-deep through the water as the square resumed its buzz. A dreadlocked bystander enjoying a chai with locals advised in a calm voice ‘I’d wash your feet after this, that’s sewage you’re wading through’. We did note the corn dotted throughout the water after this, undigested corn perhaps?
Our days passed calmly in Pushkar. We befriended some awesome Indian people running the lively hostel, and swam in its discoloured pool. We got trapped by a storm during a visit to a hill temple and were hit with the most selfie requests to date. We watched the colourful Sadhu monks sit calmly abstaining from their everything, beards ever lengthening. We saw the city lights flash like Christmas on and off from rooftops as the regular power cuts took hold. India’s idiosyncrasies were charming us ever more.
Udaipur
Surrounded by infinite hills fading from blue to cyan to white, Udaipur has a reputation for being India’s most romantic city. The multiple lakes which splash across the dynamic green surroundings gave us a bit of what we had been missing in the rest of dry, dusty Rajasthan. A young Delhi-ite got chatting to us on the rooftop of the hostel, his name was Karan and this was his first solo trip away from work and home. Karan is the picture of modern India; an extroverted, infinitely ambitious technophile with an impressive level of knowledge and wisdom for his age. Chatting to him opened the floor for questions that we had yet been unable to ask. He joined our gang and the next few days were spent roaming the hills and lakes of Udaipur in good company. Karan denied that he was a romantic, declaring a love for thriller films and his corporate job. But when the topic turned to love, we were all equally curious about how it is found and conquered in our different countries. We learned that tinder has as much of a hold in metropolitan India as in the UK. We learned that the issue of arranged vs love marriages is becoming more of a contentious topic as Western influences take hold. We also learned the hard way that a young liberal Delhi-ite is lying when he says he’s not a romantic...
Due to having Karan in our gang, Udaipur was done slightly differently to our usual ‘avoid all tourism’ method of exploration. Keen to show us Indian culture, we were encouraged to see a traditional Rajasthani dance show which included some dexterous puppetry, a woman dancing with 7 pots on her head and more women with fire on their heads. It’s was a colourful experience. We also climbed a hill, selfie requests pouring in as we sweated to death at the top, and took a boat trip around lake Pichola and it’s palace hotels. The city palace was another a highlight, as we learned a little about Udaipur’s many maharani’s. Karan acted as an inadvertent guide for us, helping to pull down tourist prices as we waited in the wings to surprise the unsuspecting vendors. He also gave us little interesting facts, for example Orla’s name is a type of taxi service and mine is a type of cold paratha.
Alas our time in India came to a slow close sipping beers on rooftops looking out over the lakes. Udaipur was a different experience, we had to bend our rigid traveling habits to accommodate this kind Indian who had never before even spoken to a westerner. He, like all the characters we had met wanted nothing but us to be impressed by his country which holds its dark secrets so close to its chest. We were charmed, we were confused, we were quite literally bowled over many times by the force of travelling here. But I guess most importantly, we’d 100% be back for more.
Due to having Karan in our gang, Udaipur was done slightly differently to our usual ‘avoid all tourism’ method of exploration. Keen to show us Indian culture, we were encouraged to see a traditional Rajasthani dance show which included some dexterous puppetry, a woman dancing with 7 pots on her head and more women with fire on their heads. It’s was a colourful experience. We also climbed a hill, selfie requests pouring in as we sweated to death at the top, and took a boat trip around lake Pichola and it’s palace hotels. The city palace was another a highlight, as we learned a little about Udaipur’s many maharani’s. Karan acted as an inadvertent guide for us, helping to pull down tourist prices as we waited in the wings to surprise the unsuspecting vendors. He also gave us little interesting facts, for example Orla’s name is a type of taxi service and mine is a type of cold paratha.
Alas our time in India came to a slow close sipping beers on rooftops looking out over the lakes. Udaipur was a different experience, we had to bend our rigid traveling habits to accommodate this kind Indian who had never before even spoken to a westerner. He, like all the characters we had met wanted nothing but us to be impressed by his country which holds its dark secrets so close to its chest. We were charmed, we were confused, we were quite literally bowled over many times by the force of travelling here. But I guess most importantly, we’d 100% be back for more.
