My good friend Peter came to visit me in India for 2 weeks, and he just left this very morning. Yet another goodbye, but I am getting used to it by now I think 🙂
We had sooo much fun! Peter arrived in Delhi 2 weeks ago, and we had no fixed plans, but quickly agreed that what was going to happen was that we would tour Rajastan for 2 weeks, and trust me – we choose right 🙂
We spend a few days initially visiting New Delhi, sightseeing, planning the Rajastan tour, and basically letting the culture chock sink in for Peter. I have to say I was impressed – he handled everything very well!
After a few days we headed for Jaipur – the pink city, our first destination in Rajastan. We had good fun here, did some textile shopping, rode elefants and enjoyed the city. However the real fun began once we left Jaipur and took the epic overnight bus journey from Jaipur to Jaisalmer – the golden city.
The bus was a sleeper bus – of course sized to accommodate the Indian people – meaning I did not remotely fit in any dimensions: Meaning one very squashed me! It was also extremely cold at night due to the windows constantly sliding open during the trip. However we had so much fun! Never have I laughed so much. To be honnest I don’t remember what we laughed about – we where just talking a lot of bullshit – making jokes about the situation, the indian culture, the terrible bus. The locals must have thought we where retarded!
In the morning when we had to step outside of our sleeper compartment, I wanted to warn Peter that there was a lot of shit luying around on the floor of the bus (I was refering to rubbish), only just before opening my mouth I realised the was actual human shit in rather big quantities on the floor. That is the first time I experienced that in my 6 visits to India 🙂
Jaisalmer was a culture chock to me. It was like someone took the volume button of India and turned it down to 20%. So calm and peacefull. In Jaisalmer we joined my friend Lina Luo fro China, whome I met during the Annapurna trekking in Nepal a few months back. It was great catching up with her again! We enjoyed thourgly doing nothing together the three of us (Lina has tought me the art of being lazzy hehehe).
During our stay in Jaisalmer we spend 2 days in the dessert riding camels. This was a funny – and painfull experience – giving birth to the memorable quote: “My crouch feels like I have been a very naugthy girl”. We shared the camel safari with a very cool danish-irani girl, a hillarious indian dude, a frenchman that looked like Sean Penn, and a very “zen” Russian guy. We where a very funny group indeed!
After Jaisalmer it was time to say goodbye to Lina again for the 2nd time – I am sure we will meet again somewhere on this planet, if nothing else I have it on my todo list to visit China, so I am sure I will bump into her there!
Next destination was Jodphur – the blue city. By now we had learned our lesson and where only travelling by day – no sleeping in tiny confined spaces! Jodphur was good fun, and we mainly chilled out and bought spices. Met some nice people here, enjoyed the views of the fort. However I was a bit disappointed about the food in Jodphur – it was rather bland and boring.
Our initial tought was to go to Udaipur after Jodphur, however it turned out this would be logistically rather tirering, and would involve more overnight travelling. So we decided to go to Pushkar instead.
Now this must be the Goa of Rajastan! Imagine India turned down to 10% volume, add a whole lot of hippies, some weed, and a very relaxed attitude and you have an idea of how Pushkar is like 🙂 We only stayed here for one day as we where running out of time. And headed for Agra next day, to see one of the wonders of the world: Taj Mahal. This was my 2nd visit to the Taj, and it still doesnt fail to impress 🙂
After visiting Taj Mahal, we rushed back to Delhi, packed Peters stuff, had some lovely food and a beer to finish of the trip. And this morning I put Peter on the flight to return back to Europe.
This is the first time I traveled like this in India with a friend. Normally I travel on my own, and meet people on the road. It is a very different way of travelling, and I have to say I really enjoyed it big time! We had so much fun – definitely an experience to repeat again, somewhere on this globe.
Thanks for a great time Peter!
