After Ahmedabad….where to begin?

First, please excuse the lapse of blog entries. We’ve been without internet access for the past few days….thus the lack of additions and notations.

At the end of our one week stay in the Gugarati city of Ahmedabad, where Barbara and I focused most of our energies on her photographic documentation regarding the changing role of women in India (our unending thanks to Urvashi, who helped us SO much), we managed to squeeze in visits to a very few of the museums the city has to offer….these being the Kite museum (which was closed, but a kindly man opted to open it up for the two of us to view the exhibition privately), the Gandhi Ashram and museum, the N. C. Mehta Gallery (which houses an amazing collection of miniature paintings from around the 16th through the 19thcenturies.), and finally the adjoining museum with an astounding collection of stone, metal as well as wooden sculpture plus some other exquisite pieces made of other processes and media. As per recommendations, we additionally dined at the House of M G, one of the meals being WAY over the top!!! We could barely stand up to return to our hotel AND the following day we remained so completely stuffed that we didn’t eat again until the following evening….VERY lightly as well. And before we knew it, we were off by 2nd class sleeper train (there wasn’t a 1st class option) to Udaipur in Rajastan.

There’s no question that Udaipur is a spectacle of a city that’s built not only on the human-made Lake Pichola….but built also on major portions of Asian history. It’s actually comprised of two additional islands that function at some level as part of the city. But I’ll leave all of this alone for now. In any case, we were both very much amazed when first seeing the city. We participated in just three of the many requisite tourist-related things to do and see while in Udaipur …realizing that so many simply didn’t fit our travel style. We at least did visit the City Palace, the Jagdish Temple (noted as being an Indo-Aryan temple), and finally a boat ride making a circuit around Lake Pichola which included a stop at the island of Jag Mandir. As we often do, we set out on foot making our way through the city…following our own instincts. In doing so, on our second day, we arrived at the non-tourist bazaar and ended up making a small purchase. Given that the transaction was being paid by credit card, I suddenly found myself facing a strange dilemma….whether or not I should accept the role of being a passenger on a motorcycle in order to get to the place where the credit card terminal was located and then back to the shop….all of this in the ultra-chaotic traffic situations of India. Unless a person has been to India, there’s probably not a way to understand the gravity of the decision I had to make. I recall exiting the shop to the street and being pointed to the motorcycle. The words coming out my mouth were, “Oh, NO!” Searching my soul during the following few seconds, I let go to the point that I climbed onto the back of the motorcycle, again tossing my fate to the wind, so to speak, much as I did when I initially found myself needing to get around in Hyderabad by auto-rickshaw the first day we arrived in India several years ago. In any case, after two motorcycle rides in the traffic of Udaipur, I’m still here to write about it.

During our stay in Udaipur, we ate at a restaurant that has been suggested as one of the best in the city that’s perched at the edge of the lake, its name being Ambrai. Our waiter was a wonderful and friendly young man, probably in his early twenties who helped to make our experience there even more exceptional. Amidst our conversations, he asked us if we’d be interested in coming with him to visit a crafts-related village just outside of Udaipur the following day. Having no definite plans for the day, we decided to join him. So, at the appointed time of 10:00, we met him at a specific bridge and caught a tup-tup (otherwise referred to as an auto-rickshaw) to an end of the town we’d not yet visited and then up a fairly steep hill. The location we arrived at housed a couple of serious showrooms as well as some workshops in which block printing was being done on fabrics. My understanding was that the shops exist as part of a cooperative of the general community and that they watch out for their own….making certain that all the craftspeople producing work that’s sold there will be honestly and adequately paid, unlike so many of the situations found throughout India as well as many other places in the world. The quality of what was being sold there was in every way outstanding….AND the prices seemed very reasonable. The better part of the remainder of the day we just kicked back and relaxed until catching a cab to the train station, where we caught our train now taking us to Jaipur, again in Rajastan….about 300 miles to the east of Udaipur. Other than the fact that we’re now in a 1st class sleeper (which is MUCH more comfortable than the 2nd class counterpart), there’s not a lot more that I can share….other than the fact that, while in Jaipur, there will be the occurrences of the Elephant Festival on 28 February followed the following day by Holi. We’ll definitely be involved in the Holi festival…and perhaps the Elephant festival. We need to find out more about that one before making a decision. In any case, we’ve got lots of things already lined up during our stay of less than a week in Jaipur. We’ll share more as we’re able.