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Namaste,
After our rather spontaneous departure from Jaipur and the orphanage, we took an overnight bus to Jaisalmer - the "Golden City" in the heart of Thar Desert (The Great Indian Desert). The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone, crowned by a fort, which contains the palace, several ornate Jain temples, numerous guesthouses, restaurants and shops. The most extraordinary part of the Fort which was built in 1156 is that it is the only living fort in India. We arrived in Jaisalmer without any pre-booked accommodation which is the most common way to travel in India for backpackers. Getting off the bus or out of a train station in India always requires strong nerves as a horde of rickshaw drivers (who get commission from certain guest houses) and hotel owners run up to you trying to sell you their place. Once again we were really lucky to meet a person who was worthy our trust. Chandra from Roop Mahal Guest House and Dream The Desert Travel Agency went beyond to provide us with a comfortable bed on the hotel's roof top because the hotel was full the first night. He organized a 3 day/2 night camel safari for us which we will never forget (certainly not the pain in our legs and butt from sitting on a camel). We were taken 60km into the desert, away from all other tourists, to the village where Chandra was born and grew up, from here our guides Nanu and Prem (only 11 years old) took us on an adventure and experience we will cherish forever. We slept under the stars, ate freshly cooked desert food, rode over dunes and saw the sunrise and sunset.
After spending 5 nights (including the desert) in Jaisalmer we took the bus to Pushkar where a big Camel Fair was taking place at the time. The 10 hour bus ride was simply horrible, we were shaken through from head to toe for the entire time and the bus driver refused to stop when we needed to use the bathroom urgently after having each a big pot of Masala Chai for breakfast (that was a mistake we definitely learnt from). Pushkar was just crazy, all you could see was people, camels and horses and we are not sure if there were more people or camels. Pushkar is famous for its holy lake in the centre of town where many Indians go to take a bath to wash away their sins, pray and get blessings from holy men. Once again we were tricked into a situation we only got out by paying money and being mad at ourselves. A young student of the religion simply put a flower in our hand when we walked past him. He offered to show us the ceremony at the Holy Lake and if we wanted we could donate some money to support the organisation who hands out food every day to poor people. We told him straight out from the beginning that we are students (we tend to make up stories about our names, relationship status, and carriers) and don't have any money to donate. He was fine with that but once we got to the lake and took off our shoes, they gave each of us a plate with offerings and separated us which we didn't like at all. In the end they wanted to make us pay 1000Rs. each for blessing us and our families. We were really upset and just gave them 500Rs. to get away.
From Pushkar we took a local bus to get to the 15km further south located city called Ajmer. From here we took the train to Amritsar. It was our first train ride by ourselves, an overnight train in sleeper class. Apart from the fact that we were not quite prepared for the cold night we managed well. Amritsar was an amazing city and on the first day we booked a tour to the Indian - Pakistani border where every evening the "border closing ceremony", an amazing performance by Indian and Pakistani soldiers for tourists takes place. Since everything happened so fast we were not always quite sure what was going on but the atmosphere (lots of singing and dancing) was exhilarating. The next day we visited Jallianwala Bagh, a memorial park and museum in honour of all the innocent civilians that lost their life when the British fired without warning at them; and the Sri Durgiana Temple or "Silver Temple" which is an exact copy of the Golden Temple just a bit smaller and with the difference that it is a Hindu Temple. The Golden Temple, absolutely one of our highlights here in India, is THE holy place which every Sikh person should visit at least once in their life and we visited it 3 times in one day. We headed there in the morning to get a first view. Everyone has to have their head covered (a sign of respect towards God) and their shoes removed before entering the temple area. We donated a bit of money to the "Langer Hall" a place where they serve food all day long to poor people; some volunteer with cleaning all the plates or handing out the food. We were told by Chandra in Jaisalmer that it is good for us to have a meal there and experience it at least once in our life. The second time we visited the temple was in the late afternoon when the light was beautiful and we could take some nice pictures. However the most informative and exciting visit was when we went again at 9pm to see the "book closing ceremony". There we met Channi G, a devoted Sikh Indian who spent 3 hours taking us around and explaining us all about Sikhism.
An overnight bus brought us from Amritsar to Delhi. Back in India's capital we took it easy for the first couple of days and sorted out some transportation. We also met up with Harsh again who took us on a day of both culinary and cultural experiences - thanks for that!
Many who travel through India just go to Agra on a day-trip from Delhi but we wanted to devote a couple of nights to this city who is the home to the Agra Fort but more important to the Taj Mahal!!! Since the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays we had a full day to linger in some of the roof top cafes and restaurants with view over the Taj and visit the Fort before getting up for sunrise the next day. We were early and had not too many people in front of us. Everyone waited with anticipation for the moment to see the Taj Mahal, a symbol of love, built in 1653 from Emperor Shah Jahan as permanent mausoleum for his beloved 3rd wife Mumtaz Mahal who died while giving birth to their 14th child. Mumtaz Mahal is lying in a golden casket in an underground tomb on top of which the Taj Mahal was built. In order to get into the area surrounding the Taj, everybody has to go through security. After we passed the body scans Ann went ahead to get THE perfect photo while Sabrina stayed back and waited for the bags to get checked. Unfortunately Sabrina got stuck in security for 30 minutes because cookies were not allowed inside!!! In a way it felt very natural to stand in front of the Taj Mahal, a sight more than 3 million tourists visit each year, we are in India, of course we visit the Taj; but there was this moment when we stood right in front of it and got goose bumps - it is the freakin' TAJ MAHAL!!!!
The last stop on our "North India"-Tour was "Holy Varanasi". Varanasi, a 12 hour train ride east of Agra is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities and is regarded as one of Hinduism's seven holy cities. Pilgrims come to the ghats (long stretch of steps leading down to the water) lining the River Ganges here to wash away a lifetime of sins in the sacred waters or to cremate their loved ones. It's particularly auspicious place to die, since expiring here offers moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death), making Varanasi the beating heart of the Hindu universe. It is quite normal that when you sit at the Blue Lassi Shop (no matter of the time of the day) and enjoy the world's best lassi, a parade of Indians (men only) walks past you, chanting prayers and carrying a body to Manikarnika Ghat (main burning Ghat). We found Varanasi one of the strangest places to visit. Why would anybody want to infringe on these people's privacy? But so many tourists (including us) are fascinated by these strange rituals and watch the cremation; some are really outrageous/shameful and do take pictures which is forbidden and causes conflicts with the mourning families. Our main point of interest was to watch people in their daily rituals (meditating, doing laundry, taking a bath, wash their water buffalos etc.) and explore the cities culinary sites.
One of our biggest challenges here in India is public transportation and with that we don't mean rickshaws, metros or city buses. We are talking about getting from A to B. If you ask any Indian or read your travel guide, they will all tell you that traveling by train is the easiest, fastest and most convenient way of getting around. Indians book their train tickets sometimes months in advance which is the total opposite of what we would like to do. We got ourselves an Indian cell phone number which is mandatory if you want to create your own account with the official Indian Railway website. After many failed attempts (nobody told us that they don't accept foreign credit cards) and even failing to book through an in-between website, we gave up and went to Travel Agents. Some might have put a little service charge on the bill (which is still better than losing your nerves over trying to do it yourself) but others could get us on a train last minute which seemed hopeless! Traveling in India is always quite exhausting, you never know what will happen (in 99.9% the train or bus leaves late) or what to expect but one thing is certain, once you get to your destination all the hassle is worth it.
Our trip through the northern part of India is over and within 3.5 weeks we travelled a distance of approx. 5600km. The Gateway to our South India Tour is Mumbai which will be a 30 hour train ride from Varanasi.
Cheerio,
Ann & Sabrina
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