Diarrhea, Vomitting, and an Overnight Bus

Megan and i successfully made it out of nepal and into india! first stop was delhi. it's a hyperactive city with much to see, but we're not big-city kinda gals, so we really only spent one afternoon/night there. the street we stayed on was right outside the new delhi train station, and to be perfectly honest, it looked like a war zone. the front walls of literally every building on the street had fallen, and the rubble was in piles on the dirt street. megan and i have both traveled in developing countries, but neither of us had ever seen anything quite like this. it was a little off putting. the street had been bombed in 2005 and a number of people were killed, but that was a relatively small explosive. we never figured out why the street looked so decrepit. the hotel we stayed in was dingy, hot, and overpriced, but the staff was friendly and it seemed safe. that was enough for us! we had an interesting evening that climaxed with our rickshaw driver stopping on the middle of the bridge on our way back from a late dinner. "300 rupees more!" he insisted. we declined and threatened to walk, in which case he would've lost the entire fare... so he had a quick change of heart. for a second though, i thought she and i would be walking the mile or so back to our ground-zero street in the dark... i was relieved that he changed his mind!



the next morning we took an early train to agra, home of the lovely Taj Mahal. Our hotel here was a little nicer, with a beautiful rooftop view of the Taj. (Side note, it has to be 105F here and we are traveling sans AC. kudos to us. it really puts a value on magically cool air blowing on you all night!) Agra is a very conservative town, mostly because of its muslim roots. it is the only place we've seen women completely covered, and heard the call to prayer every day. we got a guide and payed the expensive entry fee for the Taj, and it comes with a cute little gift bag with a bottle of water and shoe covers for the tomb! It is even more beautiful than it looks in all the photos! It was refreshing, too, that such a masterpiece wasn't built for God, as they usually are. don't get me wrong. people build really beautiful things for their love of God, and i appreciate that... but to know that a man built such a work of art for love of his WIFE!! now that's romantic! (she was his third wife, gave him 14 children, and died in labor. not so romantic.)



the next morning we took a 5:00am train to jaipur, the pink city, thus completing the "Golden Triangle" tourist circuit. jaipur was okay... it's the capital city of Rajasthan, the desert state, and it's most famous for shopping. some guy painted it pink, the color of hospitality, to welcome british royalty. it's very dirty and overpriced, and we had to use too many rickshaws. however, we were most impressed by the famous Raj Mandir Theater! we watched a bollywood movie called Milenge Milenge, a story of young love and serendipity and fate and mishaps and all that stuff. no, neither of us speaks hindi, but it was still pretty easy to follow and the dance scenes were AWESOME!



from jaipur we went south to a small pilgrimage site called Pushkar. it's most famous for its Brahma temple, which is one of only a few in the world. they say that Brahma dropped a lotus on the earth and Pushkar was the result. Usually there's a beautiful lake in the center of town with bathing ghats all around for Brahma worshippers to cleanse themselves in the sacred waters. as luck would have it, the indian government is spending $10million to make the lake bigger and cleaner, so the lake was drained this year to start the project. right now there are just bulldozers and cows in a dirt field.



i got really sick in pushkar. i must've accidentally swallowed some tap water or eaten something wrong. i never knew you could go through an entire roll of toilet paper in just one night. megan explored the town while i stayed in our sticky bathroom. the worst of my discomfort lasted about 24 hours. being sick in india in july definitely makes you miss your mom, AC, and soft toilet paper. we gambled on my recovery and bought tickets for an overnight bus to udaipur. my tummy had 'til 7:00pm to throw its fit, and then it had to stop, or i was in trouble. so, of course... i started vomiting!

fortunately, by 7 i was nearly normal, so we packed our bags and went to the bus station. the overnighter was the cheapest option, and the description from the travel agency made it seem like a piece of cake! NOT cake at all. the first bus we piled into was a double decker sleeper bus, and it was really nice! the driver took us to a desolate parking lot in Ajmer, kicked us off, and said "udaipur!" as he made a waving gesture towards the highway. there was nothing for a really long way... so we just sat and waited. after about 25 minutes, he allowed us back onto his bus and he drove us to a small bus stop in town. by then it was about 9:30 at night, and we were starting to get a little confused. there were instructed to just wait 5 or 15 minutes... so we waited... and waited... and waited...

eventually we were herded into the back of a small 3-wheeled autorickshaw truck thing. the driver started to insist we pay him, but as we had already payed the travel company, we refused. this just disappointed him, resulting in a short lived standoff. "200 rupees!" he said. "one million rupees, i'll pay you tomorrow!" i said. silence... staring competition... he caved, so we won! he carried us about 6km through the city to what was our bus to udaipur. the other bus had been pretty clean, but this bus was DISGUSTING! there were seats along the aisles and then sleeper compartments dangling omenously over the seats, and it looked and felt as though it hadn't been cleaned in a decade. with sour faces, megan and i climbed into our compartment, got down on the grungy felt-covered bed, and started laughing. we settled down and the bus started to drive away, so i closed my eyes in hopes of sleep. i hadn't slept the night before, as i was on the toilet, so i was hoping to get at least a couple hours. just as i was starting to relax, i got a funny feeling... one of those intuitive "something isn't right" feelings. so, i open my eyes and a hand is reaching up through the window by my face!! i shrieked, megan shrieked, and i grabbed by book from under my head and started judo chopping the hand in the window! the hand quickly retreated. i closed my window. later, megan got diarrhea in the parking lot where we stopped a couple hours into the ride, then almost fainted onto a cow. it was not a great night, but that's what you get for $7, i suppose.

miraculously, arrived safely in Udaipur at 5:30. we went to a hotel that had been recommended to us by a dutch woman we met in pushkar, and checked-in immediately to a room WITH AC!!! and we slept until 12:30 on the most comfortable pillows we had found in a week.

We're currently still in Udaipur. it's a really beautiful city, situated right on a lake and surrounded by steep hills. the locals don't let you go 10 steps without reminding you that the James Bond film "Octopussy" was filmed here! It's much cleaner than other cities we've been to, and there seems to be a lot more public works happening. there are safe sex signs, water preservation signs, cleanliness signs, anti-littering signs. the people are very friendly and say "namaste" without inviting you into their shop or restaurant or rickshaw or hotel, etc. The city palace is beautifully maintained and the mosaics inside are well worth the entry fee. it's all a nice break from the rest of india, which is essentially covered in cow shit, reeks of urine and curry, and won't let you walk a half step without being offered 3 saris, an wooden elephant, a pashmina, and some leather slippers.

tomorrow we're taking a 3hr taxi ride to a 1,000yr old Jain temple. then megan goes back to china and i venture out on my own. i'm headed WAAAY north to an outdoorsy town called Manali. can't wait for mountains, moisture, and cool air.

miss you all! email me with news and addresses so i can send postcards! xxx jojo_jensen@yahoo.com