first and foremost, i must apologise for the long wait for this blog entry. it has been almost a month since i’ve returned, and true to my sad predictions, i haven’t really done a whole lot after i’m back. hell, i haven’t even wrote any since jaisalmer. i guess its pretty easy to close this up now that i’m back in the comforts of my own home and stucked in the routines of being a bum. as much as i’m lazy, and yes i do admit to this vice, i still do feel obliged to finish this blog up. i feel a certain responsibility to rightfully end this in a proper note, and of course also feel the persistent nagging of some friends and family members. so yes, i shall end this properly before these memories turn in haze.
hmm, let’s start at where i stopped, shall we? do bear with me though cos this is going to read like a palahniuk on his holidays. i can’t remember every single thing now, so we will do a lot of jump cuts and fast forward around. ready?
.
..
…
udaipur, udaipur. udaipur is often said to be the most romantic city of rajasthan, if not india. somehow, i don’t feel that at all. yes, the lake is kinda pretty but it is also greenish and dirty. i guess in a desert state like rajasthan, a lake like udaipur can be considered quite a highlight, but its beauty is blown way out of proportions. bottom line, if you want a romantic holiday with your better half, a honeymoon holiday or whatever, don’t come to udaipur.
sure, there’s this grand lake palace hotel in the middle of the lake, it should be outrageously shiok to stay there. and everyone will make sure you’re reminded that udaipur and the lake palace was one of the locations that appeared in octupussy, the bond movie. big deal. one night in the lake palace will set you back by $300USD. that alone sucks the fun out of everything. so unless you’re a rich russian tycoon, an arab oil shiek or just have money to burn, don’t even think about it.
at that being said, i did enjoy my time in udaipur though. its relatively small, perfect for walkabouts, have quite a few cafes and second hand bookshops. – just the ingredients one will need to rest for a day or two before continuing his journey. think of it as a stopover city, a point on transition, a comma between sentences.
.
.
mumbai was next and it was actually quite an agreeable place to stay in for a while. there’s a nice variety of food (always important in india), good cinemas, shopping malls, cafes, mcdonalds, public buses that generally worked and some very beautiful colonial buildings in the business/city district. minus the human waves, these districts actually looked like areas carved out from the old victorian england cityscape. i can safely say that mumbai is by far, my favourite big urban city of india.
i took a short trip out of mumbai and visited ellora caves and ajanta caves, both very impressive unesco heritage sites. the ellora site was a mixture of hindu, jain and and buddhist caves carved out from the mountain face using just simple chisels and hammers at around 500AD. for rock cut architecture at that time, i must say these guys are pure geniuses. there was the kailasha temple, huge compounde about 6-7 stories in height and about as large as 2-3 football fields totally decorated with intricate carvings inside and outside. i can’t imagine how they built such complex temples with just chisels and hammers. the kailasha temple really reminded me of angkor wat.
ajanta was somewhat different. these caves are purely buddhist in designs and carved out from an almost vertical mountain face in a u-shaped gorge. where in ellora, the emphasis seemed to be placed in carvings, in ajanta, there were more frescos. there’s something magnificent about being in the presence of such historical sights. history, its innovations and inventions has never failed to impress me. i’m always intrigued by the architectures, art and religions of the past… no wonder i wanted to be an archaelogist when i was young. like machiam indiana jones or howard carter.
.
.
back to mumbai, stayed for another day and i left for goa. by now, i think i’m already in a bubble of self contained happiness and zen. when you know exactly when you’re returning home, you’ve a date and a ticket, you can begin to count down. i’m not saying its all bad at the last parts of the trip, but honestly, after a while, i just can’t wait to get back and start a new part of life. all was pretty sweet until i fell off from a moving bus. i can’t exactly remember the details, but it went something like this. run after bus, jump onboard, someone wanted to jump down, bam, out of bus, floor. i tore a small part of my jeans, my shirt had a hole and i have wounds on my face, fingers, shoulder and knees. i had to spend many days after limping around. what luck.
goa is nice and pretty relaxing. i made a last decision to stay in patnem instead of palolem and i was bloody happy i did. patnem had so little people, it was quiet and i didn’t have to share the beach with tons of sunbathing angmohs and touting indians. when i needed the internet or more food choices, i just walked over to palolem, about 2kms away. the first time i walked over through the forest shortcut and stepped into palolem, i felt like tarzan walking into the city. it was crowded and noisy, the beach line was filled with people and the streets were lined with shops and their shopkeepers, i quickly got the stuff i needed and left.
patnem, for me can be summed up in a few words – beef, beer, beach and doing nothing. wait, i’ll paint you a picture. i wake up, eat breakfast and read a book over a cup of coffee. after 2 hours of that, i swim a bit, lie around and do more of nothing. bath, walk over to palolem for lunch, some internet or exchange books. i return to patnem at about 4pm, take a nap on my hammock, wake up at 6pm, bath again, watch the sunset, eat dinner and grab a beer. shiok.
.
.
i travelled to bangalore on a third class a.c, my only second time on an a.c cabin so far. quoting the wise words of one backpackers i met – “when you’re returning home, you travel in style.” i arrived in the early morning, dumped my bags in the train station’s cloak room and went around town. my flight was 11pm at night, and i had a whole day to waste away. and i wasted them all away in cafes, mcdonalds, kfcs and more cafes. i shifted nomadically from one cafe to the other, downing coffee and food everywhere i go. after 3 months and so much of india, with a flight back just some 15hours away, i didn’t exactly wanted to go see the sights of bangalore. besides, she didn’t seem to offer alot. and so after quite a few cycles of food and drinks, i took an autorickshaw to the train station, collected my bags and took another autorickshaw to the airport.
