Now I am back to Belgium and I actually managed to sort out my pictures in the train today. Here is the link to the final album (a collection of all photos with subtitles / comments...)
Hope you had fun reading / looking at the pictures....
http://picasaweb.google.de/lh/photo/xnTVV7BGa7sv4PMa-3OMCw?authkey=A4aO4O-YYd0&feat=directlink
Monday, January 19, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Back to Delhi...
This is perhaps the last entry before I fly back home.. tomorrow I will visit Ajmer, an important Muslim place of worship (actually for your information and in order to explain this very big mix of religions here) India has 82 per cent of Hindu people, 12 per cent of Muslims, 2 percent of Sikhs, 2,5 per cent of Christians, 0,8 Buddhists and 0,4 Jains) and then in the late afternoon I will take a train (this time first class - to have experienced all the classes except the local class...) to Delhi, where I spent another night, do some more sightseeing and shopping the following day and in the night, or better in the early morning of saturday, I will take my plane back home...
Unfortunately, I did not manage to upload more pictures.. I will make a selection on Sunday, hen I have some time in the train going back from Germany to Brussels and will put them online Sunday night...
Thank you all for following my trip and let's see where my next one will lead me ! See you soon after I am back I hope !!
Unfortunately, I did not manage to upload more pictures.. I will make a selection on Sunday, hen I have some time in the train going back from Germany to Brussels and will put them online Sunday night...
Thank you all for following my trip and let's see where my next one will lead me ! See you soon after I am back I hope !!
Pushkar: kite festival
Now I am in Pushkar, a magic city with a small little lake, where the Hindus worship Brahma. It seems actually to be the only place in the world where there is a Brahma temple (because he misbehaved and his wife made a spell on him that he only be worshipped here...). There are many pilgrims here in town, who come here to take their ritual bath in the lake, which is surrounded by staircases leading into the water, so called "ghats". It is quite impressive if you see the masses bathing, throwing colourful flowers in the water and pouring milk in it... most of the people do it in the early morning and so I got up at 6. Fortunately, my guesthouse is right on the water with a view on the ghats so I could see at 6 from the terrace right in front of my room that it was still too early and went back to bed. By the way, this guesthouse is the worst of my whole trip, while the "Guide Routard" puts it in the sections "medium to fancy" !!!! There is definetely nothing fancy about it,... it looks actually quite dirty and so I sleep in my sleeping bag in order not to have to touch the bedsheets... But I could not fall back asleep as there was too much noise.. actually almost all night through you hear music or drums from the many temples in town. In the end, the masses started arriving at around 7h30... there was a little bit of fog and therefore, it was an especially mystic atmosphere... that is probably also why all these hippies (many with rastas and crazy clothes..), from all around the world, come here and sit in the temples and play drums and move to the sacral music.. quite strange actually... but they seem to enjoy it... ;-)
The kite festival, taking place today, made this day even more special. Already right after sunrise, the first kites started to fly in the sky.. beautiful !!! I observed for a while two boys on the neighbouring roof terrace, one 5 or 6 and probably his younger brother of about 3. They tried to make their kite fly, over and over again, but did not manage.. but they did not get frustrated and even after 40 minutes they kept trying... the younger one, once he saw me, smiled and started to perform the latest Bollywood-dance-moves for me.. really funny !! ;-) His brother got however a bit irritated about this, as he did not get the support he wanted, and therefore blamed him for the lack of succes.. (well, if I unbderstood the body language correctly...)
Later in the afternoon, when I was looking for the post office to finally get all my postcards posted (sorry guys, the cards will arrive much later that I do.. but I never managed to get to the post office anbd it is not that easy to get stamps here..). I therefore entered a more residential area, where there was enourmously loud music playing from the roofs.. I looked upwards and some guys waved at me and asked me to come up.. and that is what I did.. and what a surprise: All roof terraces were packed with people, whole families, many had huge loudspeakers installed (and when I say huge I mean huge.. like in a disco!!!) and played Indian pop and some times even some kind of Indian hip hop / rap and even kind of techno music.. and there were hundreds of kites flying in the sky !!! AMAZING !!!!!!!! And the people had so much fun.. It was more the teenagers than the kids, but also quite some adult men who enjoyed flying the kite, cutting the string of other kites so that they fall down.. then it is the game to get them, pick them up as a trophee and start flying them as well.. Many however end up in trees, on electrical wires, etc... the roof terracre I was one was real fun.. the teenagers actually moved to the musci while flying their kite and wre really professional.. they "won" many many kites... the music was fantastic and so I joined them for some dancing ! GREAT !! Indians really know how to have fun... I stayed almost three hours, until after sunset because I enjoyed it so much !! The festival is called Makar Sankranti and heralds the transition of the sun into the Northern hemisphere. Everyone joins in this riotous celebration on the rooftops to the accompaniment of drums or music and shout " Woh Kata Hai !" as adversaries’ kites are cut down. And everyone’s an adversary! Any kite in the sky is fair game. This was certainly a highlight of my trip and I will never forget the experience !!
The kite festival, taking place today, made this day even more special. Already right after sunrise, the first kites started to fly in the sky.. beautiful !!! I observed for a while two boys on the neighbouring roof terrace, one 5 or 6 and probably his younger brother of about 3. They tried to make their kite fly, over and over again, but did not manage.. but they did not get frustrated and even after 40 minutes they kept trying... the younger one, once he saw me, smiled and started to perform the latest Bollywood-dance-moves for me.. really funny !! ;-) His brother got however a bit irritated about this, as he did not get the support he wanted, and therefore blamed him for the lack of succes.. (well, if I unbderstood the body language correctly...)
Later in the afternoon, when I was looking for the post office to finally get all my postcards posted (sorry guys, the cards will arrive much later that I do.. but I never managed to get to the post office anbd it is not that easy to get stamps here..). I therefore entered a more residential area, where there was enourmously loud music playing from the roofs.. I looked upwards and some guys waved at me and asked me to come up.. and that is what I did.. and what a surprise: All roof terraces were packed with people, whole families, many had huge loudspeakers installed (and when I say huge I mean huge.. like in a disco!!!) and played Indian pop and some times even some kind of Indian hip hop / rap and even kind of techno music.. and there were hundreds of kites flying in the sky !!! AMAZING !!!!!!!! And the people had so much fun.. It was more the teenagers than the kids, but also quite some adult men who enjoyed flying the kite, cutting the string of other kites so that they fall down.. then it is the game to get them, pick them up as a trophee and start flying them as well.. Many however end up in trees, on electrical wires, etc... the roof terracre I was one was real fun.. the teenagers actually moved to the musci while flying their kite and wre really professional.. they "won" many many kites... the music was fantastic and so I joined them for some dancing ! GREAT !! Indians really know how to have fun... I stayed almost three hours, until after sunset because I enjoyed it so much !! The festival is called Makar Sankranti and heralds the transition of the sun into the Northern hemisphere. Everyone joins in this riotous celebration on the rooftops to the accompaniment of drums or music and shout " Woh Kata Hai !" as adversaries’ kites are cut down. And everyone’s an adversary! Any kite in the sky is fair game. This was certainly a highlight of my trip and I will never forget the experience !!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Photos !!!
Finally I have uploaded some photos (see below in the section "in the bus" and "in the desert". This took too long and I therefore paste a link to a webalbum...
I will try to copy more pictures into the webalbum tomorrow night.. This time I only copied a selection of pictures and spare you with all the other stuff that I take photos of.
Here is the link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/muellju/India1?authkey=7bQZo-kXmto&feat=directlink
I will try to copy more pictures into the webalbum tomorrow night.. This time I only copied a selection of pictures and spare you with all the other stuff that I take photos of.
Here is the link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/muellju/India1?authkey=7bQZo-kXmto&feat=directlink
Saturday, January 10, 2009
In the bus
Today I travelled by bus for 6 hours from Mount Abu to Udaipur. Mount Abu - as the name says - is in the mountains (around 1200m) and has a very famous and extremely beautiful Jain-Temple. Jain is a minority religion here in India, which produced however the most beautiful temples of the country: the Dilwara temple of Mount Abu is a set of 5 temples, of which two are entirely built in white marble with amazing carvings: it was supposed to be a kind of "picture book" about religious stories and myths for those who could not read.. AMAZING.. Some people compare the artistic value of the temple with the Taj Mahal.. For the rest, Mount Abu is one of the preferred destinations of Indians for their honeymoons but also for school children for school trips, because of its beautiful and romatic setting on the shore of a small lake and surrounded by mountains. There were almost no non-Indian tourists around..
Sunset over Nakki Lake (Mount Abu) and view on the lake from my hotel room and some pilgrims meditating on the mountain at sunset...
But I wanted to talk about the bus trip! It was supposed to be an Express-bus, which usually stops only at very few and precise places as opposed to local buses basically stopping everywhere where people want to get on or off. You also have an assigned seat. However, this express-bus turned out to be a local bus, which meant that we stopped, during the 6 hours, I don't know exactly but at least a hundred times (I swear this is true!!) The advantage, if you want to call it like this, is that you meet lots of people in these buses. Actually, people communicate much more with each other in public transport than in Europa, where everybody just sits there, reads on stares around. Here, travelling is a social event and the bus is like a mini-society, with very poor but also more wealthy people, with very young (several newly born) and extremely old people (difficult to guess, 90 perhaps??), some behaving others not at all, some respecting other travellers and others imposing their will on others.. I can tell you, even if you do not speak Hindi, this is quite an adventure.. 
I put two pictures of the inside of the bus for you to get an impression.... ;-)
I just want to highlight two of the little stories I experiences. The first one is the my seat neighbour for most part of the trip, who was one of the few speaking English in the bus. His name was Narpat and he is a police man, a constable actually as he proudly told me. He was on his way from close to Jaisalmer to a place 100 km from Udaipur for a 9 months training course. He actually has a Master degree in Hindi literature and we chatted quite a bit during the long trip., not only how someone with a degree in Hindi literature ends up as a policeman (well, some of you might say "how does someone with a university degree in French literature end up as a Eurocrat?" and maybe you are right, the situations are perhaps not that different... ;-)
The second one is about a big paper box that somebody put in front of me (as I was sitting in the first row of the bus, this was the only space where people could put their luggage or whatever else they brought along..). It was a box which formerly contained packages of baby food and had a big smiling baby face on it.. As people continued to come in the bus, the mysterious box had to be moved several times and as it was not completely closed, people peaked in, but I could never see what was in it.. and some of you know how curious I can be... ;-) I suspected that there was some kind of animals in it, a chicken or soemthing.. but strangely enough I did not hear any noise.. I thought that I could smell aomething animal-like, but in India you never know where exactly a smell comes from.. it is always an enormous cocktail of (good and bad) smells.. At some point, on of the guys sitting next to the driver all in the front realised that his bag had gone wet by something and investigated where this came from.. it was not really clear... I took this as a confirmation for my hypothesis and immediately suspected that it it came from the animal in the box.. Once Narpat had peaked in the box and had talked to other people about it, I asked him what it was and he told me that it was a scientific model, which a group of four young students bring to a science competition taking place in Udaipur.. ;-) He opened the box a bot but I could not really figure out what it was.. after some time, we also knew where the liquid came from: it was actually one of the pots with food which had a leak and so some of the greasy sauce got out...
It is also remarkable how well bus drivers manage the very difficult traffic conditions here.. the road we took today was especially difficult as it went throught the Araveli-mountains, where they are building a four lane highway, which is a project of an enormous scope. All along the road there were works, trucks (oh no, I should say "lorries", trying to keep up with my British English..;-) ), people working on the road. Especially once it was dark this was a real challenge. There are actually many of these major road-construction projects ongoing as currently in Rajasthan, even between the very big cities, there are no good roads and that's why it takes so long getting from one place to another.. this will change soon, when these projects will be finished. This shows that India is preparing for increased traffic which will soon become a reality with the 2000 Euro car by the Indian car manufacturer Tata, called Tata Nao, which will be released in March. (see for more info on this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article3164205.ece) Not to imagine how traffic in India will look like in 5 or 10 years...
Well, this was my story of the day.. I am now normally for three nights in a hotel with internet access (Wow !!!) and so I might even manage to upload - as promised a long time ago already - some pictures..
Now, I will have a nice lamb curry (some meat for a change after all this Veggy-food) on the hotel's roof terrace zith a nice view on Lake Pichota and the beautifully lit castle on an island in the lake, which was one of the places of the James Bond movie "Octopussy"... ;-)
The second one is about a big paper box that somebody put in front of me (as I was sitting in the first row of the bus, this was the only space where people could put their luggage or whatever else they brought along..). It was a box which formerly contained packages of baby food and had a big smiling baby face on it.. As people continued to come in the bus, the mysterious box had to be moved several times and as it was not completely closed, people peaked in, but I could never see what was in it.. and some of you know how curious I can be... ;-) I suspected that there was some kind of animals in it, a chicken or soemthing.. but strangely enough I did not hear any noise.. I thought that I could smell aomething animal-like, but in India you never know where exactly a smell comes from.. it is always an enormous cocktail of (good and bad) smells.. At some point, on of the guys sitting next to the driver all in the front realised that his bag had gone wet by something and investigated where this came from.. it was not really clear... I took this as a confirmation for my hypothesis and immediately suspected that it it came from the animal in the box.. Once Narpat had peaked in the box and had talked to other people about it, I asked him what it was and he told me that it was a scientific model, which a group of four young students bring to a science competition taking place in Udaipur.. ;-) He opened the box a bot but I could not really figure out what it was.. after some time, we also knew where the liquid came from: it was actually one of the pots with food which had a leak and so some of the greasy sauce got out...
It is also remarkable how well bus drivers manage the very difficult traffic conditions here.. the road we took today was especially difficult as it went throught the Araveli-mountains, where they are building a four lane highway, which is a project of an enormous scope. All along the road there were works, trucks (oh no, I should say "lorries", trying to keep up with my British English..;-) ), people working on the road. Especially once it was dark this was a real challenge. There are actually many of these major road-construction projects ongoing as currently in Rajasthan, even between the very big cities, there are no good roads and that's why it takes so long getting from one place to another.. this will change soon, when these projects will be finished. This shows that India is preparing for increased traffic which will soon become a reality with the 2000 Euro car by the Indian car manufacturer Tata, called Tata Nao, which will be released in March. (see for more info on this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article3164205.ece) Not to imagine how traffic in India will look like in 5 or 10 years...
Well, this was my story of the day.. I am now normally for three nights in a hotel with internet access (Wow !!!) and so I might even manage to upload - as promised a long time ago already - some pictures..
Now, I will have a nice lamb curry (some meat for a change after all this Veggy-food) on the hotel's roof terrace zith a nice view on Lake Pichota and the beautifully lit castle on an island in the lake, which was one of the places of the James Bond movie "Octopussy"... ;-)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Desert: Jaisalmer
Yesterday morning I arrived in Jaisalmer, the "carcassonne" of India. It has a very nice Fort with an entirely preserved city wall and it is ion the middle of the Thar-desert.
The trip in the "sleeper class" by train was not so pleasant actually. There was a very bad smell of pee and it was extremely dirty, but with the sleeping bag it was fine: I covered my nose with it and then it was bearable. At dinner I had met a French family, who also wanted to take this train and we socialised a bit. Their daughter is studying for a year here in India and the parents came for a visit together with the daughter's best friend. We actually met again at the train station and discovered that we had places in the same compartment (each compartment is for 6 people and we had 5 of the places..) that was quite a coincidence. As the train was one hour late, we spent the waiting time together, which was really nice.. The parents were quite shocked when we entered the train: the dirt, the smell, the cold. They were not happy at all, but did not say anything.. I have to say (and, hello Mom!, thuis is nothing against you..) I cannot imagine what my mother would have said in such a situation... ;-) I slept at least a bit, eve if it was very noisy.. but at leat my sleaping bag kept me worm.. the French family did not sleep at all as they were not properly equipped...
When I arrived at my nice hotel, (which is a nice Haveli, built for a young boy before he became Maharaja), I took breakfast on the roof terrace with a beautiful view on the fort. When I finished, my room was ready and I could take a nice hot shower... that feels good !!
Today, I went on a camel tour (or "camel safari" as they call it here..) my camel driver, Suban, and his camel, Rocket (a racing camel I was told...), showed me around.. Fortunately I was not in a group, so it was nice and quiet as it should be in the desert.. just the melancholic songs of Suban sometimes broke the silence.. He was only 15. I learned that a camel lives around 25 years if it is well kept and only 15 if not. A camel costs 30.000 Rupees (a little bit less than 500 Euros - which is- if it is true - really a lot for local standards..)
Another thing which impressed me quite a bit is the presence of military here close to the border to Pakistan. The city actually lives from tourism and the military. Once or twice twicea day and in the evening, fighter jets make control flights. But with the current tensions between the two countries,this seems normal. Still, it left a strange impression on me. I talked to several people about the relations between India and Pakistan and I was quite surprised that almost everybody thinks that all terrorists come from Pakistan and that the Pakistani government finances them.. There was no way I could convince them that generalising was perhaps not appropriate.
Now I will go for dinner and then I will go to the train station , where I will get a night train to Jodhpur. Fortunately this time in 3rd class (which is better than the sleeper class I have already experienced.., at least that is what people say.. let's see... ) The dinner was with this beautiful view on the fort:
On the health front, for those of you worried, my stomach is doing fine (after some initial adaptation problems, if you understand what I mean...), I cought however a cold (at least I have a soar throat and I start sneezing now.) I got some strepsils here.. which have a local Indian taste with ginger, lemon, honey etc...
The trip in the "sleeper class" by train was not so pleasant actually. There was a very bad smell of pee and it was extremely dirty, but with the sleeping bag it was fine: I covered my nose with it and then it was bearable. At dinner I had met a French family, who also wanted to take this train and we socialised a bit. Their daughter is studying for a year here in India and the parents came for a visit together with the daughter's best friend. We actually met again at the train station and discovered that we had places in the same compartment (each compartment is for 6 people and we had 5 of the places..) that was quite a coincidence. As the train was one hour late, we spent the waiting time together, which was really nice.. The parents were quite shocked when we entered the train: the dirt, the smell, the cold. They were not happy at all, but did not say anything.. I have to say (and, hello Mom!, thuis is nothing against you..) I cannot imagine what my mother would have said in such a situation... ;-) I slept at least a bit, eve if it was very noisy.. but at leat my sleaping bag kept me worm.. the French family did not sleep at all as they were not properly equipped...
When I arrived at my nice hotel, (which is a nice Haveli, built for a young boy before he became Maharaja), I took breakfast on the roof terrace with a beautiful view on the fort. When I finished, my room was ready and I could take a nice hot shower... that feels good !!
Today, I went on a camel tour (or "camel safari" as they call it here..) my camel driver, Suban, and his camel, Rocket (a racing camel I was told...), showed me around.. Fortunately I was not in a group, so it was nice and quiet as it should be in the desert.. just the melancholic songs of Suban sometimes broke the silence.. He was only 15. I learned that a camel lives around 25 years if it is well kept and only 15 if not. A camel costs 30.000 Rupees (a little bit less than 500 Euros - which is- if it is true - really a lot for local standards..)
Another thing which impressed me quite a bit is the presence of military here close to the border to Pakistan. The city actually lives from tourism and the military. Once or twice twicea day and in the evening, fighter jets make control flights. But with the current tensions between the two countries,this seems normal. Still, it left a strange impression on me. I talked to several people about the relations between India and Pakistan and I was quite surprised that almost everybody thinks that all terrorists come from Pakistan and that the Pakistani government finances them.. There was no way I could convince them that generalising was perhaps not appropriate.
Now I will go for dinner and then I will go to the train station , where I will get a night train to Jodhpur. Fortunately this time in 3rd class (which is better than the sleeper class I have already experienced.., at least that is what people say.. let's see... ) The dinner was with this beautiful view on the fort:
On the health front, for those of you worried, my stomach is doing fine (after some initial adaptation problems, if you understand what I mean...), I cought however a cold (at least I have a soar throat and I start sneezing now.) I got some strepsils here.. which have a local Indian taste with ginger, lemon, honey etc...
Monday, January 5, 2009
News !!
Finally I have the possibility to give you some news as I found an Internet Cafe here in Bikaner, a city of 800 000 inhabitants in the North-West of Rajasthan, not too far from the Pakistani border. I have some time before going to dinner and then taking the night train to Jaisalmer, even further to the West and closer to the border. Both cities are on the edge of the desert. Bikaner has a very special flair as there are Camels and Camel Charts all over the place, carrying all kind of goods. It has a huge and very beautiful fort/castle built by the local Maharaja in the 16th century. It seems like one in a fairy tale.
My travel experiences are so far very positive: people are extremely friendly and helpful, which is really necessary as most indications are only in hindi and and therefore I need help to get on the right bus, find my way through the labyrinths of the cities, notably the old parts.
I am very surprised how few tourists there are in this area, especially tourists travelling on their own , meaning not with a tour operator or a guide. I have to admit that I had been thinking in some situations how easy it would be just to hire a driver in order to make my life easy, but then, you do not really experience the life of this amazing country.
Today I visited the Rat Temple of Deshnoke, where the local Hindus adore rats (following a legend they are reincarnations of children of the area). There are thousands of rats running around and you have to take off the shoes before entering the temple, tourists and some locals however leave on their socks, which is advisable as the rats leave their excrements a little bot all over.. worshippers bring food for the rat and the people in the temple boil milk for them in huge pots and afterwards you see the rats around the pot drinking milk. Quite amazing actually. The first 10 minutes I was a bit hysteric and each time a rat approached I went away but at some point it is just not possible. And in any case they are very peaceful... after a while I got used to it and some rats even came to sniff my feet !! (I swear that I washed them this morning !!) I even saw the white rat, which , in the local belief, means that I will now be lucky for all my life ! Fortunately I came here !! ;-)
During the last two days I had been visiting the Shekavati-area, which is an area where many merchants lived who built beautiful houses, which have mural paintings everywhere outside and inside. Unfortunately they are quite in a bad state as the merchants went later to Calcota and Bombay because trade was much better there.. most of the owners do not invest anything in them and so they are slowly falling apart. I stayed in an Ecolodge (http://apanidhani.com/), which is a pioneer project here in India. It is not only beautiful but quite impressive what the owner built up in the last 20 years. It was also very sociable as all the guests have dinner together, sitting on a long table. He explained a lot and we had interesting discussions.
In jaipur I went to the cinema together with my very nice rickshaw driver in a nice kitch-like Bollywood film. It was just a great experience !! Another interesting ecperience that I was able to get the LCD of my digital camera (which somehow broke and so I could not take any picture anymore as I do not have a separate viewer) within 24 hours. After having tried 5 or 6 shops, we finally found one, who was able to get it seems the only LCD for my camera model in India (all the others said it would take 3 to 5 days..) delivered from Delhi and built in... This was a big relief as I had already feared that I would not be able to take any reasonable pictures. But in the end I have to admit that the pictures that I took on the afternoon before the camera was repaired (without seing what I was photographing...) were not too bad..;-)
Well, enough for today. I am getting hungry ...
Hope to be able to write soon and then also to have some time to upload pictures...
My travel experiences are so far very positive: people are extremely friendly and helpful, which is really necessary as most indications are only in hindi and and therefore I need help to get on the right bus, find my way through the labyrinths of the cities, notably the old parts.
I am very surprised how few tourists there are in this area, especially tourists travelling on their own , meaning not with a tour operator or a guide. I have to admit that I had been thinking in some situations how easy it would be just to hire a driver in order to make my life easy, but then, you do not really experience the life of this amazing country.
Today I visited the Rat Temple of Deshnoke, where the local Hindus adore rats (following a legend they are reincarnations of children of the area). There are thousands of rats running around and you have to take off the shoes before entering the temple, tourists and some locals however leave on their socks, which is advisable as the rats leave their excrements a little bot all over.. worshippers bring food for the rat and the people in the temple boil milk for them in huge pots and afterwards you see the rats around the pot drinking milk. Quite amazing actually. The first 10 minutes I was a bit hysteric and each time a rat approached I went away but at some point it is just not possible. And in any case they are very peaceful... after a while I got used to it and some rats even came to sniff my feet !! (I swear that I washed them this morning !!) I even saw the white rat, which , in the local belief, means that I will now be lucky for all my life ! Fortunately I came here !! ;-)
During the last two days I had been visiting the Shekavati-area, which is an area where many merchants lived who built beautiful houses, which have mural paintings everywhere outside and inside. Unfortunately they are quite in a bad state as the merchants went later to Calcota and Bombay because trade was much better there.. most of the owners do not invest anything in them and so they are slowly falling apart. I stayed in an Ecolodge (http://apanidhani.com/), which is a pioneer project here in India. It is not only beautiful but quite impressive what the owner built up in the last 20 years. It was also very sociable as all the guests have dinner together, sitting on a long table. He explained a lot and we had interesting discussions.
In jaipur I went to the cinema together with my very nice rickshaw driver in a nice kitch-like Bollywood film. It was just a great experience !! Another interesting ecperience that I was able to get the LCD of my digital camera (which somehow broke and so I could not take any picture anymore as I do not have a separate viewer) within 24 hours. After having tried 5 or 6 shops, we finally found one, who was able to get it seems the only LCD for my camera model in India (all the others said it would take 3 to 5 days..) delivered from Delhi and built in... This was a big relief as I had already feared that I would not be able to take any reasonable pictures. But in the end I have to admit that the pictures that I took on the afternoon before the camera was repaired (without seing what I was photographing...) were not too bad..;-)
Well, enough for today. I am getting hungry ...
Hope to be able to write soon and then also to have some time to upload pictures...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)