North India Tour Part One-Rajasthan

North India Tour

The north tour like the Gujarat tour was amazing, but of the two the north tour was my favorite. Each day was jammed pack full of things to see or lots of travel time where we were able to cover tons of beautiful country. Over my month of touring I was able to hit all the extremes from the desert in Rajasthan, to the beautiful beaches at Diu, the lovely Himalayan peaks and forests in Dharamshala, the hard core city in New Delhi, and everything in between passing through terrain on the bus.

After some sad goodbyes to all of the short term Malaysians who weren’t going to join us for the North India tour, all 17 (5 from the US, Brazil, and France, and 1 from Japan and Mexico) of the exchange students departed on the train destined for Jodhpur, Rajasthan. We spent the night on the train which for those who have not spent the night in and Indian train it is quite an experience. Till about 11:00 at night people are walking through the Boogies yelling for people to buy soup, snacks, water normally in a really loud, high, nasally voice. In the particular tier that I was staying in there are 3 levels to beds to sleep in on two side for one side of the compartment and then on the other there are two levels of beds and they are both facing in the direction of the train. We ate train food tray dinners, and then after a little bit of chatting we all went to sleep, and magically woke up in Jodhpur.

From Jodhpur we took a desert drive in the bus to Jaisalmer where shortly after arriving we visited an ancient burial site. The interesting thing about the burial site was the more recent graves where a couple of us looking around found what looked like cut hair all around. Well the Indian girl who joined us from Bombay (she went to Florida last year on exchange) told us it was from coconuts, but none of us bought it, and now it remains a mystery.

After visiting the burial site, and each of us finding one ferile puppy that we wanted to take home in our purses we went to Gadisar lake where we had a film director ask us to be in his movie the next day. Apparently it was going to be “a frickin’ big movie,” but with language like that and the absence of a cast who would believe him. At the lake we rented boats to take us out at sunset, and enjoy the evening surroundings. It was so much fun to be out on the lake, and look over and see the lighted temples in the distance and on the other side trees emerged in water full of cormorants all haloed by the purple sunset lighting up the sky.

The next day was one full of sightseeing and we jumped from the Golden Fort, and then bunch of Havelis. the Haveli’s (big ornately designed old mansions) we went shopping, and I think everyone got to work on their bargaining. Bargaining in India is quite an event that normally starts with the merchant calling the buyer in to look at their things “oh madam! Come and have a look at my shop,” “today is my birthday I will give you special price,” “You are looking so beautiful today madam I think you need to treat yourself,” “I will give you indian price madam, come and shop”. If you ask the price; the first price is always ridiculously high, and if you laugh and walk away they normally automatically give you a lower price by a couple hundred rupees followed by “lowest price” or “don’t tell anyone, but this is only for you”. Once the Merchants mark it down once you know they will do it again, and so begins the chase. After some complaints about how they won’t break even if they give you a certain price yada yada yada, and some complaints on my side about how “I am just a student I can’t afford that ridiculous price.” Then after some time they hopefully ask you (if you start to walk away one last time) “fine. what is your price?” you give him a price, and they hopefully accept it. Sometimes bargaining can get quite heated, and I have seen Indians start yelling at each other during bargaining.

For the rest of the afternoon we then went camel riding out in the desert to enjoy the sunset and the sand. I think even more than the camel ride people enjoyed the sand, and a couple people were buried full body in the sand. Most of the people arrived back in the hotel with their clothes and hair full of sand, and desperate for a shower. Actually my friend Mayara had sand the pair of pants she was wearing for the rest of the trip. I managed to escape unscathed.

The next morning we left bright and early for a drive back to Jodhpur to see the fort and spend one night before heading up to Jaipur. On the drive to Jodhpur it was interesting because we kept on seeing all these military vehicles. Before anyone gets freaked out I should mention that about 80% of the desert inhabitants join the armed forces (the rest are in agriculture, tourism, or other industries) and also Jaisalmer is only like 150 km from Pakistan. Once we reached Jodhpur we toured through the fort which is full of palaces and has a great view of the “blue city” (which is literally the blue city almost every building is painted blue). During the evening in our hotel we juggled time spying on a wedding reception and watching a scary movie. Amazingly enough I sat through the entire scary movie, and didn’t have any nightmares!! (but I did scream when someone jumped out at me when I was walking out of the bathroom).

On the way to Jaipur we were back on the road again only to stop for the bathroom and then once to see a holy wishing tree. The wishing tree is special because if you make a wish and tie a string all the way around its trunk when your wish comes true you have to come back and remove the string you tied. Sadly there were a lot of strings on the 5,000 year old tree, but there is always hope. During the process of tying one of the holy men came up to me, and rushed his had up to give me a tika and then ran away. He left me standing there startled, left only with a red dot on my forehead.

In the evening we arrived to Jaipur, and in the evening we celebrated the last day of Hanukkah. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but one of the American girls from New York is Jewish, and every other night or so we will celebrate one of the days of Hanukkah with her by lighting the candles saying a prayer and then playing Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song.” For the last night of Hanukkah she went all out giving everyone dreidels, lighting all the candles on our make shift menorah, some prayers, Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song,” traditional songs, and then playing dreidel for “gelt.” So I can now say I have celebrated Hanukkah in India with 6 different nationalities.


The next day in Jaipur we spent the entire day sightseeing, and then finished if off by a lot of shopping. To start off the day we went up to a huge fort on top of a hill looking out over a lake and the city and palace of Amer. We then drove down to go to Amer Palace, and RIDE ELEPHANTS!! Riding elephants up to the Palace was really cool, but throughout the ride up our driver was harassing us to exchange his euros, and then to give him a tip. The harassment continued when we got down, and a bunch of merchants stormed us to buy postcards, elephant statues, and paintings.

At the top of the palace, just before the entry most of our group decided they didn’t want to go into the palace. This left a small group of 5 to rush through in 30 minutes in this maze of a Palace (there was actually a maze in the palace called in hindi a Bhool Bhalaiya, which is also a hindi movie that was in cinemas a while back) and even though we had the shortest amount of time to look around I think we had the most fun because we had to rush. My personal favorite part was when we were running down the road where the elephants came up and one of the girls lost her sandal for a minute. When we reached the bottom, afraid we were going to be the last ones we were actually the first and a group of people was lost. Everyone finally found each other in time for lectures on the bus.

Our next destination was the city palace, and then shortly following a shopping extravaganza. The city palace was interesting, but what made it the most fun was meeting a group of French people with one of the French exchange students and then touring with their group (we then saw the same people when they were at the Taj Mahal). Mainly the city palace was a museum exhibit, and they had an amazing collection of paintings and decorative carpets. Afterwards shopping was crazy! There are so many things to choose, and everyone trying to convince you to come to their shop. Personally I had A LOT of fun shopping, and by the end of our shopping excursion I had several bags full of things. That night we did one last stop to see the evening view of a monument before returning to our hotel for the evening. Next stop AGRA!!!