I’ve been spending the past few days in Rajasthan and since I will largely be spending the remainder of my trip in this state, I decided that it’s time for another map so you sort of have an idea of what I’m talking about.
So far, I’ve been to Udaipur (in the south), Jaisalmer (in the west), I’m currently north in Bikaner and tonight I take a bus to the middle, Jodhpur. My last two stops will be Pushkar and Jaipur.
In Udaipur, after having spent almost 21 straight hours on a bus, I decided to treat myself to a full body Ayurvedic massage (this is a type of massage from the southern state of Kerala and the focus is on “holistic healing” which I think is key for involving an almost excessive quantity of oil). Nonetheless, it was quite enjoyable. Later that day, I took a three hour one-on-one cooking lesson in a woman’s home kitchen. It was definitely worth while and I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to recreate the dishes with the same success as during the lesson.
One of the highlights from Jaisalmer was looking out at the smallish city from the impressive sandstone fort and seeing windmills spinning in the distance. Wind seems like a good power source for that region since it’s very dry.
Finally, today in Bikaner, I did a day long camel ride/visit to a couple rural Rajasthani villages. In the morning, a nice Italian couple and I were driven several miles outside of Bikaner where our guide explained some things about the ecology in the region and pointed out various plants, birds and antelope. Afterward, we went to a small village where a local guide who spoke their language (not Hindi, Marwari…I think) took us around to a couple houses. The village was primarily agricultural with lots of sheep, goats and camels. In the afternoon, I took a bumpy, but fun, three hour ride on a camel named Moti. Although the ride has left me a little sore, it was fascinating to observe many of the things that I’ve read about in my rural development classes; for example, the use of cow dung for construction and fuel, kitchens in mud/dung huts with poor ventilation, schools where the children are all fed lunch to encourage attendance and government subsidized irrigation schemes (in the desert…I’m not sure how I feel about that). All in all it was a good day.
December 15, 2009 at 8:48 pm |
Samia said you can ride camels in Morocco, too. It sounds like a lot of fun. My mother said when she was a girl, many of her neighbors had chickens, goats, dogs, cats and horses in their yards. Arlington seems kind of tame after all this!
December 17, 2009 at 1:00 am |
Jaisalmer was tonights wikipedia study break of choice. looks beautiful!