Later on this week, MarkontheMap heads to the glitzy disco ball of India – Mumbai!
Big Shots: Ranakpur
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Category Archives: responsible travel
Why Udaipur is the Most Romantic City in the East
Udaipur exudes a peacefulness that’s hard to find in India. The lavish palaces and cobblestone streets of this luxurious lakeside city offer visitors a tantalizing taste of the region’s glorious past.
Approaching town, Udaipur is like a mirage on the edge of the desert. It’s the richest kingdom of Rajasthan and feels it. Within the old city walls, the streets overflow with artisans, jewelers, and craftsmen.
One of the highlights of India’s growing upmarket tourism sector, Udaipur boasts world-class resorts and five-star culinary delights. It also boasts quiet lakefront guesthouses and casual rooftop restaurants.
In a country less known for its romantic getaways, Udaipur offers tranquil nights, splendid strolls, and an exotic seduction that’s hard to resist.
Gypsy Music
Rajasthani folk music is some of the most haunting, romantic, and heart-wrenching music on the planet. It’s believed that gypsy music has its origins in Rajasthan, India. While little is known about the culture that generated the Gypsies, linguists and historians believe that the Gypsies were originally from North Central India and began their great migration around 300 BC. It’s said that the Gypsies entered southeastern Europe in the end of the 13th century. Because they were assumed to be from Egypt, Europeans began calling them “Gyptians” and then simply “Gypsies.” The Gypsy tradition is very much alive and well in Rajasthan and it’s not uncommon for a musician to sit down next to you on the street and begin playing the Sarangi.
Art
The Maru-Gurjar painting style of Rajasthan began in the 5th century and, under royal patronage, various forms developed. Arts in Rajasthan reached their pinnacle between the 15th and 17th centuries. The major style practiced in Udaipur today is miniature painting, which captures in small scale much of what makes the place so harsh and enchanting. If you want to have a mural painted on your fingernails or your name on a piece of rice, there is, perhaps, nowhere better on earth than Udaipur. Traditionally, miniature artists use paint that’s made naturally, mixed from minerals and vegetables found in the area – ochre for red, coal for black, aventurine for green. The style of paintings found in Rajasthan, miniature or otherwise, are typical of what many Westerners imagine when they think of Indian art.
Theater
Drawing upon the rich culture of Rajasthani art, music, and dance, performance is a big part of the culture in Rajasthan. Today, actors and dancers no longer perform for royal audiences, but share their talents for all to see. Many like the Bopa and Kalbellya Gypsies were born into the craft and carry on a longstanding family tradition of dancing with fire, handling marionettes, and twirling around while balancing an unthinkable amount of bowls on their heads.
A Storied History
Formerly known as Mewar, Udaipur was founded in 1559 when Maharaja Udia Singh I took flight from the final sacking of the fort at Chittor by the notorious Mughal emperor Akbar. As Udai Singh and his followers resisted Muslim might, the city grew a reputation for patriotism and independence. The city has a proud heritage and boasts the longest lineage of any modern ruler. A walk through the streets of Udaipur reveals a myriad of ways to explore the fabled history.
Lakefront Setting
Known as the “Venice of the East,” Udaipur encircles the blue waters of Lake Pichola. The lake reflects the delicate marble architecture of the buildings above, which themselves sit below one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges, the Aravelli Hills. Within the lake are two palace-covered islands, Jag Niwas and Jag Mandir. Lake Pichola, which is thrillingly out of place in this desert landscape, was artificially created in 1362. It’s now one of several contiguous lakes developed over the past few centuries in and around Udaipur, each of which make lovely backdrops for a sunset stroll.
Edge of the Desert
While downtown Udaipur boasts elegant shops and riverside cafes, just five miles outside of the city you’ll find untouched wilderness in the Aravalli Hills. Sajjangarh Wildlife Sanctuary, which surrounds the Monsoon Palace overlooking Udaipur City, provides jaw-dropping views of town and a chance to see panthers, sambars, blue bulls, hyenas and a variety of birds and reptiles. Head a little further north and you can go on a safari through the Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary. Head south, and you can laze away along the world famous Jaisamand Lake in Jaisamand Wildlife Sanctuary. A brush with the wild is never far away in Udaipur.
Architectural Marvels
Not only is Udaipur home to India’s second largest palace, City Palace, but it boasts the oft-photographed Lake Palace and the luxurious Fateh Prakash Palace. Scattered about the town, you can also find the dazzling Hivalis (mansions) of the noble elite. Because of a marble quarry nearby, much of Udaipur is built like a fairytale city; the white glistens under the desert’s spitting sun, dancing from roof to roof around the sky blue lake.
Yoga
Going to India and not doing yoga is like going to Italy and not trying the pasta. Whether you’re a novice or a master, start each day off right with some of the best Yoga instructors in India. A great studio is never far away and you’ll find classes from sun up to sun down. From the roof of a palace, to the edge of the lake, there’s no better place on Earth to stretch, relax, and salute the sun!
Rajasthani Food
Rajasthan is a land of sweets and spices – and you may need the sweet to cool off your mouth after the spice. Sweets are never called desserts in Rajasthan because they’re had before, after and during the meal. The streets of Udaipur are full of small sweet shops selling fudge-like treats. The spice content of Rajasthani meals is even hotter than that of other Indian regions. Luckily, it’s slightly cooled down by the cooking method. Because Rajasthan is a desert region, there’s a scarcity of water. Therefore, most dishes are cooked with milk, buttermilk, and butter. Even better than the food is the setting in which you eat it. The skyline of Udaipur is capped with numerous rooftop restaurants offering stunning views of the lakeside city below.
James Bond was Here
You know a city is sexy if it was prominently featured in a James Bond film – especially if that film was one with a name like “Octopussy.” Don’t think this fact is lost on the locals. You’re guaranteed to see “Octopussy” projected onto the walls of at least one rooftop restaurant you visit. Watching the film, you soon realize that not much has changed in Udaipur in the last thirty years. This place is truly timeless!
Big Shots: Jaisalmer – Edge of the Desert
Later on this week MarkontheMap heads to Udaipur, the “Venice of the East.”
The Forts of Rajasthan
The Maharajas once ruled Rajasthan with bejeweled fists from the security of their imposing forts. The passionate monarchs had an affinity for all things exquisite and the splendor and extravagance of these erstwhile rulers lives on in the forts of this fabled land.
The castles of Europe have nothing on the forts of Rajasthan. If you’re after truly massive structures with enough opulence to please the king and queen of any country, Rajasthan is the spot.
Built of burnished sandstone and marble, these architectural marvels contain intricate carvings, elegant facades, majestic domes, and elaborate balconies.
The great Rajput rulers of Rajasthan fought off the Arabs, Turks, and, most notably, the great warriors of the Mughal Empire. It was not until the British came in and offered their protection that the maharajas slowly lost their power.
When the leaders struck deals with the rulers of the British East India Company, the maharajas were reduced to puppet rulers. Rajasthan soon became a part of the newly independent India in 1948 when the “desert kingdoms” were incorporated.
The role of the Maharaja continued its slow fade until the title itself was officially squashed in 1971 when royal entitlements were abolished along with privy purses through a constitutional amendment.
Today, the erstwhile Maharajas are considered political, cultural, and religious icons in modern Rajasthan. They play the role of philanthropist, conservationist, and keeper of traditions.
Here’s a look at three of the Maharajas’ great forts of Rajasthan:
Jodhpur
The muscular fort at Jodhpur is a beautiful beacon on the flat landscape. The formidable walls grow organically out of its rocky perch. From the top, the view over the city of Brahmin-blue buildings is striking. The decadence of Jodhpur’s fort is unmatched. Behind Mehrangarh’s seven gates is a terra-cotta-colored palace complex dotted with elegant courtyards and lined with intricate carvings. The 15th century fort is truly the most impressive example of Rajput grandeur in Rajasthan and the theatrical, award-winning audio tour may be one of the best on the planet.
Jaisalmer
A lighthouse on the edge of the desert, 99 colossal bastions encircle the still-inhabited streets of this massive fort. Within the fort walls are seven meticulously carved Jain temples dating from the 12th to 16th centuries. There are also several lavish Havelis and the elegant seven-storey Maharaja’s Palace. Sadly, the fort at Jaisalmer is an example of what can happen with unchecked development. Unlike Rajasthan’s other historical monuments, the narrow alleyways of the fort now house numerous gift shops, restaurants, and guesthouses. Overcrowding and poor drainage have seen the fort sinking into Trikuta hill.
Kumbalgarh
Nestled 1100 meters skyward in the Aravalli Hills, this 15th century fort is perhaps the least visited of the forts of Rajasthan – and that’s a shame. Kumbalgarh was the most important Mewar fort after Chittor. Kumbalgarh was only taken once in history and it took the combined forces of Mughal emperor Akbar and of Amber and Marwar to breach its defenses. Even then, they only managed to hold onto the fort for two days. Understandably, rulers would retreat within the massive stone fort in times of danger. It is a testament to the romantic expectations of Rajput grandeur. The massive fort walls stretch some 36 kilometers and enclose roughly 360 temples, palaces, gardens, and bunkers.
Big Shots: The Colors of Jodhpur
Later on this week MarkontheMap explores the forts of Rajashtan.
Playing in the Giant Sandbox along the Pakistani Border
People often think that the desert is a barren, lifeless landscape of unending repetition, but that couldn’t be more wrong.
The sand itself is an amalgamation of thousands of different colors that join together to give off a unified appearance. But, even that changes as the sun paints the sand in different hues from sun-up to sundown.
The desert is full of surprises. It’s a land in constant motion – an ocean of sand cascading in waves toward an unseen shore.
It’s a “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” adventure park. It’s a pale-blue-sea-sand-baby-landscape of rippling waves and blinding skies. It’s constantly changing, upgrading, and modifying its look.
It’s also a land of extremes. The blistering sun bakes the sand by day while the dark-sky-moon grabs it by night, holding it captive in its icy grip and whispering secrets into the wind.
There are prickly burs, nature’s landmines. There are also prickly flowers whose pastel colors belie a pointy petal. There are buzzing bees, and fluttering flies. And, of course, there are people.
My first trip deep into a desert took me time traveling to my childhood sandbox. I’d always wondered what it must have felt like to be one of the little green army men that I played with in the sand. What did their world look like from the vastness of my bucket-shaped landscapes?
Now, I felt I understood.
Muslim men in long tunics led me along a desert “road” through small gypsy villages of dark-skinned and florescent-clothed desert dwellers. Their modest homes, made of mud and sticks, barely visible against the backdrop.
In the Great Thar desert of India, the only shade comes under mushroom-topped trees. Your bathroom is a bush and your food comes with dry, tasteless chapatti bread – both your fork and spoon for the accompanying mush.
No matter how much my bum hurt and no matter how often my testicles complained, the bumpy ride atop the humpy camel could not stop me from staring in awe at the sun-baked sands.
You hear stories of camels being violent, nasty creatures but my impression was the total opposite. They’re some of the goofiest creatures you will ever meet and, when domesticated, have an almost doglike playfulness and affinity for humans.
They roll around in the sand, kick their feet up like giant dogs, and regularly jiggle their jowls in a comical motion that I generally reserve for late night party pictures.
Certain moments bring you back to reality. Others catapult you into the realms of the bizarre.
The gypsy children, sensing a foreigner, seemed to know just one phrase in English, “school pen,” which they repeated endlessly with hands outstretched.
Though my group of travelers came from different corners of the world (1 North American, 2 South Americans, 2 Asians, and 2 Europeans), they looked at us all as one thing only – foreign.
In an already unfamiliar landscape, I came across one of the strangest communities I have ever seen.
As we approached a small village to water our camels, a group of young children rushed up to ask for “school pens.” I began wondering why these kids wanted pens (What would they write on? Wouldn’t they prefer something a bit better than that?). But I soon realized that what I had first thought to be a group of young girls was actually a crowd of both boys and girls. Yet, the boys were all dressed in saris or other traditional Indian women’s outfits, complete with the necessary bangles, piercing, jewelry and makeup.
What could possibly be going on in this village and why were there just three boys in the whole town who dressed like boys?
In this far western corner of the country, women are married off at alarmingly young ages. 14, is considered old – too old. Would these young boys be sent off to marry like their female counterparts in Rajasthan?
I never got an explanation. My guides shrugged it off – or perhaps misunderstood my question entirely.
Some mysteries must stay in the desert.
Every now and again when you’re traveling you have one of these AHA! moments where you grasp the magnitude of your journey. You realize that that little boy in the sandbox in Virginia is riding a camel through the desert along the Pakistani border… and that’s pretty wild!
You remove yourself from the moment to step outside and look back in on it.
You dream big as a kid, but so often there’s a Grand Canyon between your dreams and your realities.
So when you find yourself swept up in a foreign desert, picking the grains of sand from your growing beard, you try and seal up the moment in some remote memory box. You pick and choose the elements, creating a miniature shoebox diorama in your mind to dig out at a later date when you’re buried in bills and threatened with the insanities of everyday monotony – so that one day, you can say AHA!, flip the switch, hike up your drawers, and jump back on that camel for a journey to the unknown.
Big Shots: Ode to Agra – Taj Mahal and Agra Fort
Diarrhea Diaries: A Guide to Surviving Traveler’s Diarrhea
***Caution! This post contains serious potty humor that may not be suitable for those with a weak stomach. Reader discretion is advised.
It all started in Agra when I discovered the best deal ever: breakfast for 15 rupees. For 15 rupees (roughly 30 cents) I got two eggs any style, four pieces of toast, butter or jam, and coffee.
Amazing, right?
Wrong! And here’s why: I wouldn’t have a solid poo for the next two weeks.
Now, solid poos were already few and far between on my trip through Asia, but two days after that breakfast I went from having what doctors call “loose stools” to what I call “sporadic waterfalls.”
I had Yosemites, I had Niagaras, I had all sorts of waterfalls – and lots of them. If they sold Depends adult diapers in India, I would have bought them in a heartbeat -it was that bad.
But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s go back to that café in Agra, as there are a few details I forgot to mention.
The first thing you should know is that I ate at this café four times. It’s not that the food was good (it wasn’t), or the coffee (it was made from powder and had mysterious oily swirls in it), but I certainly filled up on the eggs, butter, and toast. Also, I came back for dinner and ate more extremely cheap food of questionable quality. Call me incredibly cheap or call me a glutton for pain. Either would be accurate.
The next thing you need to know is that the restaurant was run by a seven-year-old and his five-year-old brother. They both worked in their pajamas.
You may be thinking to yourself, what were you doing at a restaurant run with child labor? The answer is simple: I was in India.
The five-year-old worked in the kitchen while the seven-year-old served the tables at the rooftop restaurant overlooking the Taj Mahal. He seemed rather sick, but then again, most of the kids I saw in Agra looked pretty sick.
An old man overlooked the operation from a mauve couch in his house below the restaurant. He didn’t move, but he barked orders (at what were presumably his kids) throughout each meal.
Looking back, I should never have eaten at that place. But, it had a great view and I kinda felt sorry for the kids when they lured me in with their 15-rupee deal.
“Best deal in town,” they said, and I couldn’t argue with them. It was true.
Fast-forward 36 hours later. I’m on an overnight train headed from Agra to Jodhpur, “The Blue City” on the edge of the Great Thar Desert. I awake in the middle of the night feeling funny, search for my dung roll (aka toilet paper) and head to the toilet. Squatting over a filthy stainless steel hole, feeling the breeze from the tracks below, it began.
I wasn’t in waterfall mode yet, but that time was fast approaching.
When I arrived in Jodhpur, every guesthouse was booked… except the Green Guesthouse. The concrete walls were textured with chipping flakes of sea foam green paint and the door to my room was made of mesh. Oh, and the toilet just so happened to be up two sets of stairs and on the far side of a rooftop patio.
The next two days were a workout in more ways than one. Not only was I running up and down stairs, but once I got there, I spent several minutes in squat position (a serious quad builder). And let’s be honest, this wasn’t the kind of toilet you read your Chicken Soup for the Soul on.
I still managed to roam the town. What can I say? I’m a zealous traveler who won’t let massive stomach cramps and bouts of waterfalls cascading out of my bum let me down – not when I can go to the pharmacy and self prescribe myself a magic cocktail.
After spending most of my first day in Jodhpur in bed, I vowed to walk around the second day, exploring both the massive fort and the hilltop Umaid Bhawan Palace. I clocked in three waterfalls at the fort and thought I had nothing left when I reached the palace. Right after taking a decidedly bizarre picture with a wildly mustachioed palace guard, I turned in a panic and made a mad dash for the outhouse. It seems there was a never-ending supply of geysers just waiting to erupt from my butt.
On an evening walk through town on my last night in Jodpur, I did something I haven’t done in 26 years. I pood my pants. Not a lot. But enough. It wasn’t Niagara Falls; it was more like leaky faucet.
Miraculously, things improved after that. The waterfalls became less frequent and more bearable and slowly I graduated to loose stools (a vast improvement).
Once you poo your pants, you’ve hit rock bottom. It’s all uphill from there!
——–
Back home I never talk about my poo, but on the road in less developed countries, it’s a daily topic. Sometimes an hourly topic. And it’s not just me. Strike up a conversation with strangers in a café in India and the conversation will inevitably harken back to poo.
“Did you get sick yet?”
“Whole day on the toilet?”
“Hospitalized!?!?”
Just when you’re knee deep in a stranger’s poo story, someone in the group excuses themselves, reaching into their bag for some toilet paper with a knowing smile.
“Wish me luck,” they say, winking.
Your gunna need it buddy!
Indians Taking Pictures of Indians at the Taj Mahal
Big Shots: The Surreal Sites of Varanasi
Later on this week:
MarkontheMap heads to the Taj Mahal
