Udaipur a feast for your eyes

Udaipur is beyond words. It is magical and charming and intoxicating. We were lucky enough to be here during the Hindu Mewar Festival during which women come out in their most ornate saris to honor Shiva and Parvati's love. Yesterday the town paraded through the streets, and we were able to witness this beautiful ceremony and get pictures of the hypnotizing women and children of Udaipur. Some times all it takes in India is leaving your hotel room, and you have the experience of a lifetime.

Holy Pushkar

Pushkar is a tiny Hindu pilgrimage town in Rajasthan and sight of one of the worlds only Brahma Temples. The Pushkar Lake in the center of town is where Ghandi's ashes were spread and is an extremely spiritual place for Hindus to bathe. Here in this Hindu town there is no booze, no meat, no kissing and you must dress conservatively. It is a small and pious town in the middle of the desert and along with all the pilgrims, are the ever present tourists, like myself, looking for a bit of spirituality or a place to chill. Despite all this holiness you can never escape the shady factor in India. Here in Pushkar you have to dodge even the holiest of people: priests. The town is over flowing with priests of the Brahmin Caste ready and more than willing to make a profit off the spirituality of the pilgrims. They are especially looking for the Western tourists who naively let their guard down in order to experience this so called spirituality. In India everything comes at a price. If you are seeking spirituality and good karma, they are yours, but not without donations. Improving your Karma comes at a price even for Hindus but for American tourists you walk into these spiritual traps, and are asked for US dollars. We received our "blessings" by the ghat down at Pushkar Lake twice, neither time was very holy and both left Rooz and I feeling used. Our first experience with the "priests" was our first day in Pushkar we were approached by a "priest" who forced rose petals into our hand and told us to respect Pushkar and the Pilgrims we must throw petals into the holy lake and then give him a donation for the town. This dude was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, not the white robes of a priest, and barely had his routine down. So we walked away (but not without getting severely cursed out) and later saw this con man selling hashish to some Spanish kids at a pizza restaurant.



Two days later we went to visit the Brahma Temple and after were ushered down to the ghat a second time to supposedly "drop some petals in the holy lake". There we were led to the priests lair. At the main ghat we were taken to the steps of the lake were Rooz and I were split up to receive our blessings from these over eager priests. This time it was the real deal they had the sacraments all set up and they had their speeches down pat. These were real priests so we decided to go through the motions and receive the blessing. We did not want to piss off the priests by being disrespectful. I decided okay, they are going to asked for a donation but its part of the experience. I chose to visit a holy city I invited this aspect of Hindu culture into my trip. The priest was extremely curt and rude to me, he went through the sacraments at rapid speed. He told me to tell him the names of all my family members and repeat a blessing in which I asked for success, good marriage, sweet children etc, etc. He could tell I was very hesitant to participate and that I was acting like a frightened little animal about to run. So he rushed me through the blessing giving me ghat holy water to put on my head and giving me a bindi made of rice and red chalk. He made sure to tell me that everyone who receives this blessing must give a donation to the town (aka his personal pocket book) and kept asking through out the little ceremony how much I would be willing to give. He suggested I give 100 US dollars per family member and this way I would be sure to receive good karma and have a good trip in India. At the end of the ceremony Rooz (the sucker) had already given a donation to his priest of 70 rupees. Mean while, my priest was demanding that if I was to donate in rupees I should give a minimum of 500 rupees per family member. By then I was sooo over being polite and priest or no priest, this had gone far enough. I want to respect all religions but I am on a backpacker's budget my friends, so God is gonna have to take a rain check. I said "No, my friend has given a donation for both our families" and we booked it out of there as fast as possible, praying to everything holy they would not recognize us later.

India, too much for my puny brain

We are now in India and boy do I miss the easy life in China. India is opulent and squalid all at the same time. It is beautiful and miserable and completely frustrating. I complained while in China about it being a tad culturally sterile, well there is nothing sterile about India. We have only been here 6 days and it is taking some serious adjusting. But despite all the negatives India is the most inspiring place I have been. I am excited for the Challenge. We left hectic New Delhi for Rajasthan the state of the Maharajahs and colorful saris. more to come soon....

xie xie (thank you)

China is like your grandparents, quirky, wise, love able, and a sometimes a little backwards. But all in all you respect them and appreciate them. China is the same way. Our route through China was speedy, but it was well worth seeing as much of the country as we did. After Yangshuo we headed to the Yunnan Province and saw the old cities of Dali and Lijiang. Dali had changed a lot since my Dad had been there in the 80s but I am sure even then there were probably old women trying to sell him illicit substances, or dumplings, or both. Both cities are now very touristy with cobble stone roads that lead you straight to the KFC but still worth seeing for the minority food and culture, that is less than abundant elsewhere in China.




From Lijiang we took a plane to Chengdu the capital of Sichuan (and my favorite city), the home of hotpot and the Great Panda. Both were amazing and although the Pandas do nothing but eat bamboo and lay on their backs they are the national treasure. Pandas are slowly de-volving and now must be shown how to mate and care for their young. Thank god they are frickin adorable or else the Chinese would not go through the trouble of showing them Panda porn or teaching them how to love their babies.



In Sichuan we went to the Bamboo Sea outside of Yibin with our two friends from Dublin that we met at our hostel. It was a beautiful park full of waterfalls and about enough bamboo I need to see in my life time. Next we headed to Xian where we saw the Terracotta Army that was built by the Emperor Qin Shi Huang so that he could rule China even after death.


Then we took a 14 hour sleeper train to Beijing. Beijing was everything I hoped it would be, the city is massive and everywhere there is so much history its overwhelming. We hit all the sights necessary: The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, Tiannamen Square,The Olympic Arenas and of course the Great Wall. The Great Wall is the most impressive sight in China, I was completely blown away. I thought, oh a stupid wall, whatever but cynics beware, the Great Wall is a powerful place.




Five weeks in China is definitely not enough but it's a good place to start. Needless to say I was sad to leave and hope to be back one day. xie xie China.

Yangshuo "Beautiful Reflection"

Yangshuo is a quaint town by the Li River, it is the countryside for sure. But like many beautiful places in China they have catered their businesses towards tourists both in aiding them and ripping them off. As soon as we walked off the bus we were strong armed into staying at crummy little hostel by a persistent Yangshuo local,who told us to call him "Ping". He "worked" at the Yangshuo Youth Hostel which was in our lonely planet guide, or so he told us. We ended up bargaining a fair price with him for a room and only realized this was not the same place as the hostel mentioned in the book after unpacking. Lesson number one never follow a pushy fellow to a hostel after a miserable eight hour bus ride. He could of set up a tent in the street and we would of slept there. Then as we are walking around the beautiful town that is surrounded by picturesque limestone peaks, "Ping" shows up on his honda motorbike wanting to "take us to get local food, at a good restaurant he knows." By then we were catching on to"Ping" and said thanks, but no thanks. He accepted this grudgingly but as soon as we were back to the hostel he was at our door pushing a ridiculously priced tour of the surrounding peaks by bicycle with a "knowledgeable, English speaking guide" and a boat tour of the Li river where we would see "beautiful reflections." After listening to him plead with us about taking the "amazing tour," and having him point to pictures of the river repeating "beautiful, reflection" about a million times, we talked him down to a third of the price. Finally we agreed to take the flippin tour to stop him from having an emotional breakdown, and to get him to give us some peace. He was persistant and it was only 20 bucks each so either way we would see something, or have a story. After agreeing this little con artist told us after "you will want to kiss me after, or buy me beer" ya right...
We got a story for sure, we ended up spending 4 hours on a bike tour with a lackluster guide who when asked about the region told us he found Yangshuo and the peaks "boring." Half way through the tour he took us to a peak called moon hill where we climbed without our guide (he was at the base chain smoking) for about 40 minutes. The enture trek we were being chased by Chinese village women with water bottles and coke for sale, yelling "lady you want water!" Half way up the peak I ripped my only pair of pants in the crotch, and got laughed at by the tout ladies whom I was trying to out maneuver. The only cool aspect of the tour was that we met a really cool Australian named Nick, who had just come from trekking in Nepal. He was of course miles ahead of us on the hike and decked out in North Face while I was in my ripped Joe's Jeans, a janky windbreaker and a Brass Plum scarf, needless to say I looked like I was dressed for a camp out in my backyard.

The bike tour was an experience and well we still had the "boat"trip up the river to look forward to. The next day we got on a mini bus with chickens and screaming babies to the Li river where we were forced onto a motorized raft made of PVC piping with a bamboo overhang, or as they say in China a "boat". It was freezing and cloudy and there were no bloody "reflections" we rode up the Li to and made a pit stop on a sandbank where people were selling crappy souvenirs. The rafts did have lifevests though, so go China water safety! Overall it was worth seeing and even though we got our first taste of being hustled it was worth the story. And from here on out we are not letting slick talking hostel workers convince us into taking ghetto tours.

After the boat trip "Ping" had the audacity to show up to our room, this time telling us he wanted us to promote the tour to two English dudes staying in the hostel, and if they book that we will get a cut of 100 yuan. what a tricky tricky lil dude. I said "I have my standards, I won't lie to my fellow traveler for under 200 yuan."