Archive for January 2016

Hi friends and family,

Bundi seems a relatively prosperous town and area. I was initially attracted by the many wall paintings and the claim of 40 or 50 stepwells or baori in the town (of which we could only find a few). Later I found out that a number of our friends and acquaintances had been to Bundi. Our neighbor at Magnolia, Jeannie O'Connor; artists who have done tapestries with us, Andy Diaz-Hope and Laurel Roth-Hope; our intern Ezekiel Narcisi, who created so many great stop-action videos for us, and probably more people who will make themselves known once I post this.

On the way to Bundi, Raj took a shortcut and we made a visit to a very old Hindu or possibly Jain temple (or more accurately 3 temples in a complex) in the small town of Bijolia. They're very old, from the 12th c.

A very nice man, a government employee, according to Raj, showed us around the temple complex.

There was a baori (stepwell) behind the temple, mostly filled with murky water.

I think the self-appointed guide was pointing out a lingam stone to me. As is probably usual in India, more often than not, I have little idea of what I'm looking at. One of our goals in travel is to learn. (This guide didn't speak English.)

Now he is pointing out (I think) what I later read is a famous depiction of Lord Shiva. There are also a lot of erotic art carvings.

There are carvings here of a style I have not seen before.

Slightly chubby deity

We thanked him and were on our way. He was probably thinking, What a dud! She had no clue of what I was showing her. Quite true.

A lot of mustard crops in this area for the mustard seed oil which is so prevalent in Rajasthani cooking.

Pausing for a short breather; those bundles look heavy.

Stopped for lunch at a place Raj knew. We realized that he was for the most part trying to pick cleaner places for bathroom breaks and meals. We would sometimes drive for an hour to get to one of these cleaner places. This particular restaurant seemed slightly perturbed when we ordered a Kingfisher (beer). It wasn't on their menu, but they said they had it. They pulled a curtain across the room and asked us to sit at a table behind the curtain, isolating us from the rest of the restaurant. We were happy to do so, as there was a large and noisy family eating at the restaurant with one child having a tantrum. After a short wait, the waiter returned with the beer in a shopping bag, and when he produced the beer we saw that it had been wrapped in a concealing napkin. When Don poured some beer into a glass, he quickly wrapped the glass with a napkin also, a sort of X-rated treatment. We thought it was interesting and amusing, but Raj was a little annoyed when he heard about it and said he wouldn't be stopping there any longer. The restaurant was masquerading as a Hindu restaurant with a Hindu name, but was actually owned by Muslims. Therefore the discreet alcohol handling.

In Bundi now. The photo is made up of a pano of three shots. This is the Rani ki Baori, the Queen's Stepwell. This image is huge; something over 200 megabytes. Below is a detail.

Rani ki Baori, the Queen's Stepwell is very beautiful and covered with pigeon shit, despite the government (?), the city's (?) best efforts. They've put a lot of screening around it. They've tried. India is actually very kind to our animal friends: monkeys, cows, water buffaloes, birds of all kinds, goats, camels, pigs, horses, donkeys, even elephants in some locations, are found in the cities as well as the countryside. Nobody seems to bother them or tries to eradicate them.

Down a few steps

I've read that these stepwells served as meeting places, community centers, temples in times past, as well as a place to get your water supply, of course.

Rani ki Baori is a very fancy one.

Another Bundi stepwell.

Don showing scale (Don: or showing off - not sure which).

Era; it's big (Don: or Era is small).

The old palace on the hill above Bundi. The old town sits below it, and the new town sprawls below that. We had dinner in the old town with a view of the palace, at a place recommended by Jeannie. It was good and the view was spectacular; in fact, this is the view. Unfortunately, our hotel was in the new town where we had a beautiful big room which was quite filthy. I don't even think the sheets were clean. Fortunately, we didn't pick up any bugs and we were only staying one night.

The next morning we visited the 84 pillared cenotaph. What is a cenotaph, you may ask. It's an empty tomb. This one built by a Raja to honor his foster brother.

Harpies or angels on ceiling.

A more recognizable lingam and yoni.

We've mentioned the cows recycling the garbage. This is some of the not too pretty side of India. Again, a problem with the caste system and only untouchables allowed to pick up garbage. This is a not uncommon sight. All of these cows have owners; many of the cows are allowed to roam free in the cities, countryside and along and in the roads. They are fed by the general public, who seem to love them, as well as grazing on plants and garbage. They return home to be milked.

Sometimes a bit of a challenge to get around them.

Back to the beauty. The Bundi palace gates.

The Bundi palace architecture has a distinct elephant theme.

Painted ceiling

If you look closely, or click to enlarge, you can see that these paintings have been deliberately defaced, although some of it is normal wear through the ages.

So the need to lock up a number of the rooms. A young government employee appeared and unlocked some of the doors for us.

Inside we weren't allowed to take photos. The Courtauld Art Institute was coming next month to do restoration work. Then everything will be protected with plexi, no doubt, and lighting installed. While we were inside, some young European tourists came in (not Americans this time) and started touching the paintings. The employee ushered them out and locked up after us.

Our guide wanted me to notice that the old paintings had a Chinese style and that the people depicted had a Chinese look. I couldn't see it myself, but kept that opinion to myself.

The ceiling; we were allowed to take pictures in this room, which actually had superior paintings. The guide agreed. Both Bundi and the old palace in Dungarpur had so many more paintings than we are showing you. Small wonder that marvel fatigue has set in.

View from the old palace of the older city of Bundi; the newer part is down the hill.

We enjoyed Bundi, but had to get back on the road. It's even scarier driving in India at night.

Love to all,

Era and Don

Dear friends and family,

Still in a somewhat altered reality, we find ourselves in Udaipur. The German couple at our last stop, Dungarpur, were wild about Udaipur. She said she had been once before and couldn't wait to go back. She was less thrilled with Dungarpur. We did not see much of the city or village of Dungarpur, but absolutely loved the palaces. Udaipur is a beautiful city, but also challenging.

Arrived in time for dinner. About 3 different people told us to go to Ambrai, so we did. It was a short distance from our hotel, on the lake. Very good food and lovely location.

There was a jetty nearby with a temple. People gathered there and were singing. Lovely.

The City Palace, seat of the younger branch of the Mewar family. I believe I read they are the longest continuous ruling family in India. The entry fee is quartered with ¼ going to upkeep of the building, ¼ to a hospital, ¼ to another charity, and the Maharaja or Maharawal keeping ¼ for himself.

Another Ganesh

These window screens are ubiquitous and easy to overlook, but they are intricately carved by hand, of course, from marble. I wonder how many shattered before they got a good one? That orange spot on my forehead was applied by a Hindu priest at the City Palace. It smelled wonderfully of sandalwood.

A roof garden; technically not. The huge palace is built on a hill, so even though we have gone up flights of stairs and this appears to be a roof, it is actually the top of the cliff exposed.

A rather bad photo of a painting behind glass showing an elephant in armor and grasping a weapon in its trunk. In the background you can see a rider on a horse fitted with an elephant mask.

I've seen these horses with trunks before and never knew what it was. Our guide explained that in battle, the elephants would see the horses with the trunks and become confused, thinking it might be a baby elephant, and so refuse to attack them.

A cardboard cutout of one of the Maharawals in his later years.

A scale.

The room where the Rani kept her singing birds.

The Royal Swing

I think Udaipur is when we first noticed "marvel fatigue" begin to set in, as in "Oh, there's another marvel." You see so much in India, it's all so amazing and so different. Such highs and such lows. I feel badly that I have reached a point where I can no longer really appreciate and absorb all this incredible beauty and craftsmanship. Sensory overload.

Another example of less than stable scaffolding.

Inventive facial hair; he's a guard at the palace.

We stayed at a hotel popular with Indian families: Shree Orchid Vilas. It had a beautiful location on one of Udaipur's lakes, Lake Pichola. We are told this is the main lake of Udaipur's three man-made lakes. Another mammoth project taken up sometime in India's colorful history.

The lake was gorgeous. There is a downside. Raw sewage flows into the lakes. The Indian government is working on cleaning up this situation, which would be another mammoth project. Meanwhile, they have banned people from bathing in it and washing in it, but it still happens on a daily basis. A couple young fishermen could be seen trying their luck near the large tree.

The hotel has a sort of resort look, little cottages with canvas roofs. Unfortunately, it does not work very well as sound-dampening and didn't keep out the almost constant din of vacationing Indian families; partying late into the night, and then cricket games starting at 7 in the morning. Also, they had bonfires nightly on the beach, so we had smoke filtering into our room and the occasional mosquito. We were there on a weekend so people were also celebrating weddings by lighting off fireworks and cherry bombs over the lake. Indian people seem to have a different concept of noise than we do. I looked at the reviews of this hotel (almost all written by Indian people) and literally nobody complained about the noise or the smoke (one person, an Indian from London, complained about dogs barking, which was almost constant).

Almost everyone did mention that you cannot get to the hotel by small car. The lanes are so narrow that you have to walk or take a tuktuk (one of those small Indian vehicles). The little stinking lanes are pretty daunting; garbage, overflowing sewage, dog shit, cow shit (which is more like dog shit, since the city cows eat garbage), people throwing liquids out the window into the street (we only saw this once), as we hear was common practice in Elizabethan England.

A boat ride around Lake Pichola, which also takes in the Lake Palace, former pleasure palace of one of the Maharawals. He had his wives, he had his harem, but the pleasure palace was that little extra something.

Went by the Ambrai restaurant and the temple where the young people were singing last night. People are bathing in the lake.

Wash day for the vividly colored saris.

The luxurious and isolated Lake Palace Hotel, reached only by boat. I looked up the rates once; I think it's upward of a thousand dollars a night. We had a fair cappuccino here; nothing special.

Yes, it's beautiful, but what do you do all day?

Not sure if this is the royal barge or a replica of the royal barge. Lake Palace Hotel in background.

We are generally eating 2 meals a day in India. This is partially because our breakfasts are so huge, and we think partially because of all the spices in the food. Somehow we just don't feel that hungry, and it is not remotely nausea. The food is often delicious. (Tip: We never eat any raw vegetables. Era eats fruit, esp. papaya regularly, and Don does occasionally). No salads ever. We stopped for lunch at a rooftop restaurant far above one of Udaipur's busiest intersections with a Hindu temple across the street. Don witnessed a tourist getting butted by one of the cows strolling around Udaipur, of which there are many.

A movie of the intersection above, taken at ground level. You get a sense of traffic in Udaipur, anyway. Traffic in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur is much, much worse. Interestingly, the rather awful movie, Octopussy, had a chase scene through Udaipur streets, and this same intersection and temple were shown. The movie has been compressed so much that if you try to make it bigger, it won't look too great. Sorry.

Another view from the restaurant.

Having fun at Jai Laxmi Handicrafts. These people were so nice and their prices so reasonable that we paid their asking price. It probably helped that we didn't come in with a driver or a guide. Guides and drivers always, always get a commission if they bring you to a shop. And we recently heard that your travel agent company also gets a commission. What a system! In India, we hear, if a doctor prescribes medicine for you and you purchase it, the doctor gets a kickback. I don't know if this is uniformly the case.

We try to avoid the supposed Government Handicraft stores. They seem to be pretty expensive across the board. American prices. The guides and drivers always try to steer you there; I think they have agreed to do so. The "Government Handicraft stores" (I am not at all sure that they have anything to do with the government) must offer the biggest kickbacks.

Don went next door to use their credit card machine, as Jai Laxmi's was broken. While he was there, a cow came by to get its daily chapati. Don said the woman had it all ready for the animal. Yes, I know it has horns. Apparently cows do have horns and in the West they are removed from the cows at a young age.

The cow hung out and blocked the doorway for a while, so finally the woman sprayed some water on it and Don could get out the door.

Back at Ambrai

Love from India,

Era and Don

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