because honestly, i do not know how to fully describe the entire experience in a few sentences. hell, i can’t even cover half of my trip in a single teh tarik session. i’ll say that it was great fun, but it certainly wasn’t. there were shitty days, both literally and not, days that i just felt like taking an early flight home. there were so many times i felt aggrieved and angry, i was unknowingly rude, ready to start a fight with whoever was looking for one. there were days i felt so tired and travel-fatigued, i was sure india had nothing more to offer me.

but i was always wrong. for every moment that something went wrong or bad, i found positivity just around the corner. there were architectures and landscapes of astounding beauty, beauty that i’ve never even come close to experiencing before (maybe except angkor wat). there were people so friendly and nice, who gave and didn’t expect to be given, and it would always make me feel guilty for not treating them in the same open manner from the start.

for everything bad, there was something lovely, and this is just how india was to me. but as time goes by, the bad will either be forgotten or remembered as stories worth telling and laughing about. the lovely parts however, will always be etched in memory.

i’ve learnt quite a bit in this three months, although the lessons aren’t the tangible sort that can be listed in a content page or subdivided into finer points using bullets. i guess traveling had taught me a great deal so far, from payatas to the first month long thai-lao trip, various shorter ones and now this. i’ve always returned with new perspectives and slightly more appreciation for singapore. this is probably one of the reasons why i like to travel this much. call it a spiritual journey, widening of horizons, personal growth or whatever, but its like what the smart chinese dude said, ‘to travel one thousand miles is better than reading ten thousand books’. coming to this point, i’ll encourage everyone to go out and  travel for a bit. just pack your bags, take a few days of leave and go. you’ll find it at the very least, memorable.

india was never easy to travel in. everything comes to you in a sudden rude jolt (often in electrifying colors) but she had always proved to be interesting and fulfilling. it is a land of never ending contradictions, a country moving forward in a frightening speed, where technology and money are the new kings. but yet she remains heavily steepled in religions, gods and mysticism. it is a place of diversity in all aspects; landscapes overlapping one another, people so cultural diversed coming together to form a big human jigsaw puzzle. it is a country of rich history that saw the birth of three major religions and the rise and fall of many mighty empires – from the Mughals (who invented briyani & built the taj) to the British EIC. in short, there’s never a dull moment.

india has her own set of problems though. in fact, she has a whole chunk of them. from the recent mumbai terrorist attacks and kashmir’s delicate standoff to internal issues like racism, caste strafication, religious bigotry and poverty. i can go on and on for hours, take a rest, drink some water and continue again for another few more sets. but i’m a hopeful spectator at the stands quietly cheering on for her progress, for india has all the potential and ability in the world to lift herself up to become the next great nation and world power.

in these short three months, i’ve experienced quite a bit of what india had to offer. this had been the longest trip i’ve ever traveled on and the most distance i’ve ever covered, over 10,000km on land, crossing mountains and deserts and freezing in cold snow and cursing in scorching heat. i’ve met people from all walks of life, different levels of society and made friends from all over the world. been sick, shitted my guts out, fallen out of a moving mumbai bus but also seen some of the loveliest sceneries and had some pretty memorable experiences. it had been a beautiful three months but i guess it was time for me to return home.

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hmm. next up, mongolia?

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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Paul Theroux is perhaps, my favorite travel author and it was after reading his other work, ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’ that I started taking interest in long haul overland train rides. It was also due to this novel that I became interested in the Tran-Siberian railway. Dark Star Safari sees Paul travel overland through Africa from one end to the other, north to south, Cairo to Cape Town. Somewhere, I caught this quote from the book. A Sudanese man was having a conversation with Paul and he said: “The criterion is how you treat the weak. The true measure of civilized behavior is compassion.” It struck me instantly and I liked it. It was funny yet interesting, for being civilized to most of us meant wearing proper clothes, being educated, having proper manners, and well, behaving in a civic manner. This Sudanese man must be reading a lot of Dalai Lama’s books. After some chapters and a few naps in between, I reached Jaisalmer.

For the first time since I’ve traveled, I had someone waiting to pick me up from the bus station, an eager Indian holding a blank piece of paper with my name written on it. Another novelty. My guesthouse in Jodhpur recommended and referred me to another guesthouse in Jaisalmer, he called and I made a reservation, and that was how I had the privilege of feeling like a guest when I arrived. Besides, the room was cheap, the location was central and I couldn’t ask for any more.

Sufficiently rested, I walked around a bit, checked my mail and found that Gil was also in Jaisalmer. I found him at his guesthouse, had dinner and discussed about how we would go about going on a camel safari – whether we join a package tour or just take a local bus to one of the villages. In the end, we decided to take the local bus and take it from there.

The next day, I woke up early and visited the markets and Jaisalmer fort. I was pleasantly surprised to find the market much like that of Varanasi; narrow winding streets flanked by shops on both sides, cows and dogs wandering around and leaving their shit all over, the overbearing heat trapped within the streets, the touts. It was as if I had stepped back six weeks in time and transported back to Varanasi. I spent some time milling aimlessly around the fort as well and bought some food for the upcoming camel safari tomorrow.

I met Gil in the morning and we found the bus to Khuri, a small village 45kms away from Jaisalmer. The bus, was by far, the most shabby and broken down scrap of metal I’ve ever sat in in my entire life. The interiors was dark and filthy, like a cave carved out from a heap of rusted metal and with seats thrown in for good measure. “Let put on some wheels and call it a bus!” The foam from the seats had been peeled off, the wooden base was a torture to sit on for long, as the bus lacked suspension and the roads were bumpy. But I took comfort in reading my book.

Reading Theroux’s journey through Africa while looking through my dusty window into the arid desert plains, dotted sparsely with low shrubs and the occasional sand dune, I can’t help but to muse: “This could easily be Africa.” Well, except for my fellow passengers were all Indians – chain smoking men with red turbans and women with saris of electrifying colours.

In Swahili, the word safari had no connection with animals, land cruisers, tourists dressed in helmets and khaki adventure gear at all. To be on a safari simply meant that one is on a journey, out of touch and unobtainable. I enjoy the idea immensely, for after all, I was going on a safari to a place where my cellphone won’t work, where no one knows who I am or where I come from. There will be no STD/ISD phones to call home, no internet and no form of connection with anyone I know. And I loved it.

We arrived at Khuri shortly before 2 hours and easily found a place to stay. Or you can say the owners found us instead. Either way, just after 2 hours from leaving Jaisalmer, we now have mud huts with straw roofs as our homes and were going on an overnight camel safari.

We departed at 4pm as a entourage of 4 camels, 1 camel herder, 3 youths as helpers, a Korean girl, Gil and myself. We rode out to the desert, traveling away from the setting sun and into sand dunes and plains. It was like traveling back in time, into the golden era of overland trade routes, where camels carrying goods ply through deserts and fields, traders brave the elemental dangers of the fickle nature to bring their goods to a foreign land. These camels were known as the ships of the deserts, and rightfully so, for without them, trade through certain regions would never be possible in the past.

We rode up and down dunes and across plains, spotting wild deer, asses and an occasional jackal. It was strange for a place, so extreme, like the desert to be so immensely beautiful. It has come to me, after Ladakh and now, the desert in Khuri, that in the most inhospitable places on earth is where you will find the most beautiful of nature. I was satisfied and glad to be breathing, alive and kicking and riding my camel across the sand dunes.

We stopped to camp on one of the higher sand dunes at about 6pm. As the camel herder and the youths started cooking dinner, we gathered at the edge to watch the sun set. I never had time, or rather, the idea of watching the sun set back in Singapore. It was always cloudy and you can never see much through the forest of urban concrete, unless you are say, in west coast park. So sitting on sand, looking at the sun setting across the endlessly clear and cloudless sky was poignant. It was poignant and painfully beautiful.

Dinner was a plate of mashed vegetables, curry, rice and chapattis. It would never catch my eye or whet my appetite back in the city, but in the wilderness like where we were, it was everything of sumptuous meal. Having the sumptuous meal under the moon and stars made it even more memorable. We slept shortly after, on the fine sands of the dune and under a blanket of stars.

I woke up in the morning even more dumbstrucked than the previous night before. I didn’t have my glasses on and when I rubbed my sleepy eyes and sat up, I saw the most intense of colours in front of me. I had just woke up in time to catch the sun rising. The first thought that shot through my mind was the inevitable cliche: I must be either dreaming or high. But it was everything beyond the wildest of dreams, and even saying so, I doubt that dreams come in such a beautiful spectrum of colors. There was a kaleidoscope of blue and purple, reds and yellows, orange and gold across the sky. I’m not a bit ashamed to tell you that I was grinning silly and had a few tears in my eyes.

We had chai and some biscuits for breakfast and rode back to the village. The previous afternoon, we took 2 hours to camel-saunter our way to the dunes, but it was a totally different game in the morning. The guides decided that it would be fun to race our way back, and so we did, in a pretty hurting manner. Our camels galloped at what speed they could manage, and we were bouncing up and down the seat while desperately trying to hold tight to the reins and not fall off. I’ve always wanted to ride a galloping horse (one of the many crazy ideas i have), and although a camel doesn’t come anywhere close for speed, it was still extremely fun. Extremely fun in a masochistic thigh-bruising sorta way.

We got back to Khuri within an hour and were just in time to catch the bus back to Jaisalmer, but I was in no particular hurry and decided to stay in the village and laze around for a bit. I finished the Dark Star Safari, ate lunch and sat around like a bum on his wicker basket chair. Strangely, during there and then, in the midst of nothingness, I missed work. I miss being productive (if you can regard work to be a productive use of time), miss learning on a day-to-day basis and miss being busy. As much as I enjoy the art of sweet nothingness, the ‘dolce far niente’, as imparted to me by Miguel and Sofia, I missed work and honestly, I feel eager to return home to start on another small part of life.

But there was no point in hurrying or rushing in a small village like Khuri. You know what they say, that patience is a virtue? Well here, and more importantly in most of other parts of india, patience is a necessity, its a survival skill and its a way of life.

Dinner was the usual indian thali fare with a surprise addition – chicken grilled over fire, kampong style. It was pleasant to eat on a picnic mat, infront of dancing flames from the pit, surrounded by mud huts and once again, under a blanket of stars. I felt like I was part of the life and history, that has been unchanged and ongoing for centuries. It could be 10 years, 20, even 100.. and everything would have been more or less the same. Later at night, I moved my bed out to the courtyard and once again, slept under the open skies. Being a child of an urban concrete jungle like Singapore, I think I really enjoyed every moment that I’ve spend close to nature, and close to something that is so different from what life is in Singapore.

i looked up my outdated LP, chose a decent guesthouse (or so they say) and found my way there. but the guesthouse was crap – dirty, expensive, dim, staffed by unfriendly bored people and nothing like what my 2 year old LP said. it was in a way interesting to be traveling with an outdated guide and to see how much have changed in 2 short years. prices are much higher now, there are new roads and bridges, some buildings are no longer occupied and quite often, the much praised guesthouses of the afteryears no longer deserve much praise at all. they had succumbed to popularity, the staff greased with all the money that backpackers bring in. i must say that these travelers who follow the book blindly, go to the reccommanded restaurants and guesthouse, see the same sights and visit the same shops, are like sheeps being herded into a tourism monopoly. i will still travel with a guidebook in the future, no doubt about that, but i’ll remind myself to take everything with a a pinch of salt as well. i walked out of the guesthouse which had seen better days and down a few streets, easily found a better room for a cheaper price.

jodhpur was to be one of my rajasthan highlights when i was planning the trip. i don’t exactly know why either, but i found the pictures of the sea of blue houses to be whimsically fascinating. it was as if a kid built a city out of lego, decided that he will use mostly the blue bricks and call his creation the blue city. in jodhpur’s case, the brahmins used to paint their houses in a shade of blue, and then the rest of the community caught onto it and joined in as well. whimsical but i like it.

the view from mehrangarh fort down to the old city was the best, and this is where i saw the most concentrated group of blue houses. the fort itself was also worth the ticket price, it was the most well preserved fort in rajasthan so far, with very interesting rooms, frescos and artifacts. walking slowly in the fort was like getting lost in time. it was quite easy to get lost in until i was joined by truckloads of tourists, or should i say, travelers who signed up for tour packages and didn’t have the benefit of owning a copy lonely planet.

i don’t remember seeing so many tourists anywhere else in rajasthan. they were everywhere in the old city of jodhpur, it was hard to miss them. you can easily spot them from a distance, a distinct white bunch of people among indians and they are always led around by a smartly dressed indian guide, transported around by white gleaming tourist buses and surrounded by the most touts and children.

the rest of my days in jodhpur was spent reading books. i bought 3 books and finished 2 of them in 2 days. there wasn’t a train to jaisalmer (fully booked), so i caught another long haul bus to my next destination.

i’ve come to notice that every traveler follow a predictable trend of emotions. you start out excited, stoked, enthusiastic and friendly. you smile and greet people too often, and you have the inner calm and optimism to brush everything off wth a smile and think to yourself what beatles sang “all you need is love la la la” and ‘nothing’s gonna change my world…”.

at the mid point, you begin to lose momentum and as rough traveling, homesickness and the other desires of familiar comforts (mine’s food and hygiene) come into mind, you become increasingly wary, paranoid of over kindness of strangers and less unapproachable. you become unable to wave everything off with a smile, you get fort and temple fatigue after visiting (and paying for) everyone along the way. the rest of the journey, you’re as if traveling on a hilly range, sometimes you climb up on a high peak, exhilarated. sometimes you come down low and wonder what are you actually doing in a place like this. and this cycle will probably continue until you can count the days to departure with your fingers.

i needed a break from the usual, the same-same but differents, so instead of pushkar, i chose bikaner. it was to my delight that i was the only foreigner in my overnight bus. never mind it being late by an hour, never mind the standard fare indian squabbles and loud conversations, never mind the digusting smell of urine from the bus parking lot. i was delighted to be heading to bikaner.

the bus pulled into the station at 5am, still dark, and i was immediately entrusted to a dozen of rickshaw drivers. imagine yourself to be a small time movie star with a small cult fan base visiting a small town at night. you thought no one will know, and as soon as you step out of the door, people surround you and fight for your attention. except they do not want your autograph or picture; they want your money instead. these drivers shouted and jostled, pulled and tugged at me, like a bunch of ugly children clawing for free sweets.

i don’t know which is worse: the experienced cunning touts of the big city with their fake silly cheshire grins or the anxious and overzealous small town touts. same same but different, birds of the same feathers really.

i shouted back at them, negotiated a fare to the train station and left with the one who agreed to my cheap offer. i stopped at the train station and my driver pestered to bring me to a guesthouse of his choice, one that will probably give him a big fat commission. i refused stubbornly, walked over to a chai stall, ordered and drank chai and waited until dawn sets in. with light, the streets looks less menacing and dangerous and i quickly found a room. for 300rupees, i had a room cleaner than most of the others that i’ve spent my nights here in india. it has a tv, free towels and even free soap. free soap was a real novelty for me.

i caught up with sleep as i didn’t sleep much on the bus, woke up at 12 and felt too lazy to go to deshnok. it was simply too hot. i packed lunch and ate in my room while watching bruce willis defy his age limit and kick everyone’s butt in Die Hard 4.0. at 3, i had to pluck myself away from the tv and the comforts of my room, and convince myself that i should really go to deshnok to visit the karni mata temple. after all, that was the reason why i chose to come to bikaner.

i took a local bus to bikaner, alighted at deshnok and found the temple a few hundred meters away. karni mata was not exactly how i imagined it to be – a temple situated on a small hill, where you have to take off your shoes, climb up a flight of stairs and enter a courtyard swarming with rats. instead, the temple was so crowded, it was swarming with people. i left my shoes at the counter and queued up to get into the temple. there was a seperate queue for men and women, and i quickly found out why.

the people here in the queue, like most indians, have to be the most kiasu people on earth. forget what they say about singaporeans being kiasu – we are not. we do not stand a freaking chance. maybe we still retain some form of social order, we mask our kiasuness under a relatively civilised manner. but they don’t. here in india, people cut queues as if it was the natural law of the universe. with sharp elbows and clawing fingers (and maybe fangs even), they fight to get up the bus, fight to buy things, fight to get you onto their rickshaw or into their shops, they fight to get into the train only to rush out later. i had to push my way out of train, because everyone pushed their way in before people got out. from one of my friend’s memorable quotes, i’ll say that kiasu-ism in india, ‘it is f**king ridiculous’. and they probably don’t even know, it doesn’t occur as a thought at all. it was second nature, it has always been their way of life, they’ve been brought up this way, and they continue to be. f**king ridiculous indeed.

coming back to the queue to get into karni mata, it was beyond ridiculous. we were flanked by two low fences, left and right, so we all had to be in single file, lined up one after the other. at least i think that’s what the authorities hoped for. even in a single file, people pushed eagerly from the back. it’s that thing you face when you go to a concert or countdown events with stupid people. the people at the back, driven by excitment, they stupidly push forward step by step and crushing the poor people in front. standing at the queue was like having your modesty outraged by indian men.

just a week ago, there was a temple stampede in jodhpur (a rajasthan city nearby) that killed 250people. same thing happened, silly excited people pushing and pushing, trampling on one another and it becomes a tragedy on national headlines. everyone blamed the management committee and even the maharaja for not planning the event properly. more fences, more guards, more ambulances should be on stand by. i do agree the safety standards were poor, almost non existent, but i say the blame should be put on the people. mindless people who always seem to be in a rush, who want to come out on top, who want to be the first to enter the temple and make their prayers. and when something bad like a stampede happens, they point their fingers at everything else. what a steaming pile of bullshit.

i finally entered the temple, but i wasn’t impressed. there were no thousands of rats swarming around the small temple, which was made even smaller by the noisy swarm of overbearing people. i walked around a bit, took a few pictures and left. i left deshnok hot, frustrated and pissed. back in bikaner, i packed dinner, ate in my room and watched tv until it was time to sleep.

i must admit that rajasthan isn’t as romantic as i thought it would be, when i was looking through pictures back at home in march. the heat is stifling and this alone, sucks any possible tinge of romance away. pile that up with a lot of rickshaw drivers, touts, crowds, dust, noise, traffic, filth and a frequently volatile stomach, rajasthan quickly becomes somewhat of a dread to travel in. oh i forgot to mention the people who stare.

why do people here like to stare? doesn’t it occur to them that it is very rude and confrontational to stare at someone. i’m not talking about a glance or a quick glimpse off the corner of the eye. they stare at you like you’ve owed them a bloody debt, and when you look at them straight in the eye, they just continue staring mindlessly. and these staring incidents aren’t rare occurances; everyone seem to be stare whether you like it or not. if you bring ah beng here, he will go:”kuay simi kuay. buay song ah?”. i think i’m sounding hysterical, but after 2 months of being stared at, i’ve had enough. i get easily irritated now, and when people stare at me, i stare back in such a mean fashion, i’ll be ashamed to do it anywhere else in the civilised world.

the next morning, i caught the first train out to jodhpur. what i didn’t manage to find in my entire week in rajasthan, i found it on the train. i had the entire train cabin to myself for the first part of the ride, and those 3 hours was a huge relief. i was very happy to enjoy the brief moments of solitude before i was joined by an indian lady, also traveling to jodhpur. she had lunch and some fruits ready, and i had none. when i asked her if i could perhaps buy a few bananas from her, she gave me three bananas and refused to take my money. she smiled in a simple kindly manner and said:”no no, i can’t take your money.. you’re like my son.”

i tried to keep my cool in the sweltering heat, but i knew deep inside, i was getting impatient and cursing under my breath. when the train finally rumbled slowly into the station, everyone got up, gave a little cheer and ran into the carriages. i got into mine and found a group of youths in my seat. i asked: “you guys sitting here? its my seat.” i took out my ticket and tried to shoo them away. they didn’t speak english, mumbled some hindi and sat still. i raised my voice and told them firmly that they were in my seat and they should move away.

they again muttered some hindi, tried to feign ignorance and remained. i lost my temper and started arguing with them. in the end, they shifted themselves aside and let me have my seat, while 3 of the group shared 2 seats beside me. i sat down, wrestled for my rightful spot and didn’t budge for the next hour.

throughout the journey, these 3 guys beside me sat so close to one another, almost on top of each other, they must be conjoined like the siamese twins. ill call them the jaipur threesome for simplicity. the jaipur threesome kept asking me questions. where am i from. what did i eat for breakfast, where was i going, what was my views on global finance crisis and if i liked sarah palin. no, they didn’t ask the last two questions, but they did asked alot of other awfully irritating questions. when they didn’t take turns asking questions like it was a game of interrogation, they called on their other friends from other cabins to come interrogate me. and all this while, i was trying hard to start on a new book. i tried my best to make passing one word replies that ended the question immediately, but they would take 5 seconds to ask another one.

i can’t properly describe the amount of irritation i felt. to put icing on the cake, it was blazing hot in the train and the wind, that often provide a sort of comfort for me, it was nothing but dry hot air. after some time, jaipur threesome and their posse finally realised that i wasn’t warming up to their attention. one of the better english speaking ones asked me a disalarming question and it made me felt somewhat ashamed. “are we making you feel bad?” he asked. i told him a partial lie and said no, and then gave him a bit of truth, that i was trying to read. he got the point that i was trying to drive across, told his friends and they left me alone for the rest of the trip.

i dropped off at jaipur junction and met with some of the most aggressive rickshaw drivers in the whole of rajasthan. one of them followed me around and around for ten minutes on foot before i finally agreed to take his rickshaw. he wanted to bring me to a guesthouse who will pay him commission, but in the end, i managed to con him to bring me to a restaurant for a cheap fare (these rickshaw drivers always lure travelers with cheap fares to bring them their guesthouses), and i dropped off and walked the remaining 5minutes to the guesthouse i found on the lonely planet. after he realised that i wasn’t going into the restaurant, he shouted across the street. “you’re a bad man, i don’t like you!” i laughed and shouted back “my friend, the feeling is mutual!”

i’ve planned to stay in jaipur for three days, but in the end i stayed for five. no, it wasn’t incredibly fun and there wasn’t alot to see. it wasn’t a nice town to chill in and it was definately not Ladakh. in fact i hated it so much, i nicknamed it the ‘delhi of rajasthan’. jaipur was the capital of rajasthan and together with agra and delhi, they are called the golden triangle, a sort of tourist belt for people who have too little time to see india. these guys must leave india very sad and angry, because the golden triangle is something like the bermuda triangle. both suck you into a state of timeless oblivion where you can’t help but to feel… helpless. oh, and you just can’t seem to get out of both triangles either. here’s the story.

i wanted to avoid the main tourist route, everyone seemed to be heading to or had just came from Pushkar. so i thought that i would be better off in bikaner. i could go to deshnok from there to visit karni mata, the pretty notorious rat temple. i went to train station and found that the train was fully booked for 3 days straight. the best they could offer me was to put me on waiting list for a train 3 days later (already 15 in line), and i would have to check again when the date draws nearer. so instead of staying in jaipur for three days, i stayed for five.

during the five days, i was, to say the least, very unproductive. i visited the jaipur city palace, walked around the bazaars of the old city a couple of times, but mostly i went to eat at macdonalds. it was an indulgence i needed to help lift my spirits. for me, the two highlights in jaipur were (1) watching a cheesy action bollywood blockbuster and (2) visiting amber fort.

like bollywood movies and everything else in india, watching a movie was quite a riot. people would cheer, jeer, wolf whistle, clap and do all sorts of other things spontanously. when the hero hits the bad guy, cheer. when the heroine appears in skimpy clothes (this happened many times), everyone wolf whistled. despite not understanding a word said, the plot was so obvious, i had no problems catching the story. it was so obvious and cheesy, everyone could draw out the story structure by the half hour mark. nevertheless, the movie (and the indian cinema experience) was very entertaining for me. i guess going to the movies was like so many other things in india for me; you never fully understand anything, you never know how long it will take, its full of indians enjoying themselves. but in the end, with an open heart and mind, one can still enjoy it thoroughly. and besides, it was great to escape the mid day rajasthani heat and retreat into an air conditioned cinema as well.

i made friends with Gil, an israeli university student who had been traveling for 5months. we both wanted to buy tickets for the movie, exchanged pleasantries and had a comforting lunch at macdonalds. then we watched the movie, had some good laughs and met again during dinner at a restaurant. we were joined by another israeli girl and we chatted for, probably more than 4 hours straight. i was given a history lesson of israel, jerusalem and all its stories, and told about the notorious israeli ravers and many more. on my part, i leaked out about how there are death penalties and canings in singapore, chewing gum is prohibited and some other shocking stories. we talked about why we travel and what we liked about it, the different degrees of missing home, the trouble to buy presents for everyone back home and a lot of other inane stuff. it was nice for three strangers of two different nationalities to be able to hold a conversation (and it wasn’t even forced or awkward) for so long talking about all sorts of different subjects. i think this is one of the biggest attractions for me to travel around.

the next day, gil and i went to amber fort. i didn’t expect much and i thought it would be just another red fort or agra fort. but it turned out to be one of the best forts i’ve visited in rajasthan. there were a lot to like about it; its imposing defensive structure, its strategic location amongst hills, nice courtyards and maze like walkways. walking around mindlessly brings you back into the times in its former glories, you can easily imagine the court life within its faded walls.

on the fifth day, i went to the train station and to my absolute dismay, there was no ticket for me. there was no way, even in hell that i would stay in jaipur for another day.. so i decided to take a bus instead. i left the station and hopped onto a public bus to get back to my guesthouse. after a few stops, a large family of perhaps 12 boarded the bus. they were probably poor, wore torn and dirty clothes and didn’t have shoes. they boarded and immediately quarrelled with the conductor over the fares. they probably couldn’t afford paying for everyone. it went on and on, the conductor threatened to throw them out but failed, and when i thought that the mindless squabble would stop, it continued in a more hysterical fashion.

they quarrelled amongst themselves; the first wife argued with another woman (probably the second wife), then she turned around to scold the husband. the kids picked at each other, slapped kicked and fight like baby gorrillas. the weather was so hot and dusty, i didn’t get my ticket, i was tired and thirsty and now i had to endure this ghastly spectacle. it was so irritating and painful, i almosted wanted to get off the bus (or gouge my eyes and stick pencils into my ears). i do not understand this characteristic of so many indians i’ve met. why do they like to argue, fight back, squabble and engage in such loud and rude confrontations? and its often for the smallest of reasons. i’ve seen people getting into fights for no reason at all.

when i finally did get to my stop, i got off happily and waved to the remaining passengers and the poor conductor. as the bus sped off down the dusty road, i could still hear the family quarreling away. for all i know, they can and will most likely continue to quarrel for the rest of their lives.

actually no, he saw me and attached himself to me like a parasite or tumor even before i stepped out of the station. and so we haggled. he quote a price, i quote mine, we argued, i threatened to go to someone else, he gave in and we closed the deal. his name was ahmed, or so he choose to call himself, and ahmed has been driving his rickshaw for 30years in agra. he told me many stories during our short trip and must have almost completed narrating his entire life story when he dropped me at my guesthouse. i bathed, walked around abit, ate and tried to sleep early.

but that day turned out to be one of the many holidays in the hindu calender, and the streets were abuzzed with weird indian band music and noise. i gave up, and went out to the streets to take a look. it was lord rama’s and sita’s wedding day and there were floats, people dancing, bands playing, and the streets were a general riot, like most hindu holidays. i waited a long time before it ended and i slept properly.

the rest of agra i can say was like a black hole for me. i can’t really remember what i did or see, even though i spent 3 days there. it was like crap flushed down my toilet bowl of memories. here’s the floating remnants that i do remember and i will lazily put it down in my most simple english.

i didn’t go see taj mahal, because i’m already pissed about paying extra high prices for every monument i visit. taj mahal would cost me $25 to get in. i don’t care if its seven wonders or not, it doesn’t even look that impressive for me.

agra fort was decent, better than red fort but only just. i met two germans everywhere i went. i first talked to them on the train, and then the internet cafe, then agra fort; they must be following me. i met an indonesian traveler with a suitcase on wheels. i had fever, headaches and bodyaches and i missed my train to jaipur. i stayed an extra day, got another ticket and this train came 4 hours late. i was pretty eager to leave agra.

phoebe and syak was right. agra is like delhi, but a quieter, scaled down version. i didn’t like agra at all.

i cursed the weather and the heat, as if it was totally unnatural for me to be in a temperature of above 25degrees, caught a public bus and went over to paharganj, the scrummy ghettoish backpacker’s strip of delhi. i found a dirty dirt-cheap room in one of the back alleys, bathed and immediately went to the railway station to get my tickets to agra. i was pretty certained that nothing was going to make me stay in delhi for too long. after which, i went back to paharganj and ate a ridiculously cheap but filling thali for lunch.

as i chewed on my rice, chapatis and papads, i noticed something very different from the travelers i see in delhi and the ones i met in ladakh. here, people came in all shapes and sizes, in all sorts of ridiculous outfits and hairdos. they looked like travelers who had been staying in khao sarn road, but came to india after hearing about its mystical hashish. dreadlocks, tattoos, piercings, drunks, hippies, hippies wannabes…

and it’s such a stark contrast with the people i met in leh. everyone seemed both physically and mentally healthy, happy and confident. they either enjoy nature, adventure or are crazily lost in tibetan culture. talking to everyone of them was a joy indeed. in delhi and paharganj, i did not even feel like talking to one single traveler.

the next day, i went to jama masjid and found a semblance of the happiness i feel so much in Leh, and what i thought i’ve lost when i came to delhi. the mosque was peaceful and quiet, even with the amount of people walking around. i could sit by a corner, undisturbed, and simply enjoy the breeze and watch pigeons fly around. i left for lunch and proceeded to connaught place to meet with samriddh, an ex-colleague. sitting in a cafe, the television suddenly streamed in latest news of another bomb blast in delhi, in a southern mehrauli flower market. i stared blankly at the screen, unbelieving that another blast has hit delhi again. but strangely, no one in the cafe seemed to take notice or care too much.

they seem oblivious or uncaring, as if they’ve seen too much, or as if it was just all part of their daily life. and then the waiter came over and switched the station to cricket highlights. almost immediately, the cafe came abuzzed and more eyes were glued to the screen.

i met samriddh for dinner and as we chatted away with random topics, i asked him the inevitable question of what he had missed about singapore when he came back to india. surprisingly, he didn’t miss anything alot. he commented that singaporeans were too robotic, too contained within thmselves; during meals, in public transports, no one ever talks to one another. there is a distinct lack of human touch and connection as a society and in many levels between friends, colleagues and families. i agreed without much thought. i’ve certainly talked to more strangers, and many more have talked to me in india. there was hardly a meal or a bus trip without a conversation.

I will typically wake up at about 6 in the morning, lay lazily on my bed and watch the first morning light enter my window. I listen to the birds perched on the apple trees outside sing their first songs to bring in the new day. I wear all my clothes, check that I do indeed look like a penguin in the mirror, and then go out for a morning walk.

The mornings are always cold and the temperatures are never far from zero degrees celsius. But I try not to let the cold bother me too much, simply because I enjoy the morning times in Leh the most. The weather is somewhat pleasant and the streets are empty, devoid of the excessive make up that it puts on for the rest of the day. I will walk out aimlessly around the main bazaar, to the countryside, or climb up the hill to the shanti stupa or the leh palace. And suddenly, everything comes to life. the stores raise their iron shutters and dress themselves for customers and little school children walk to schools in their huge oversized english blazers, laughing and playing along the way and turning to happily greet you with the brightest of smiles. the bakeries and restaurants cook their first meals and the aromas drift to the streets.

At about 9am, I will walk back to eat my usual breakfast in this little shop and watch out the windows lazily at people waiting for the milk truck to arrive. staying in leh, and traveling around for so long, it makes me think about disconnected i was with reality and nature when i was back in singapore.

Distances never matter, because singapore is so small; you can always reach your destination within hours in relative comfort and ease. the weather never matters; it can be raining or blazing hot, but we are constantly shielded in a vacuum bubble of air conditioning. there are no prominent landscapes of any kind, no great rivers to sail down, high peaks to climb, the surrounding sea has little corals, if not none, and our only decent beach is artificial and has no waves to surf in.

Artificial is a word i can use to describe many things about singapore. some would call it a modern utopian city, a model of all cities in the future. but i see it more like George Orwell’s version of Oceania from ’1984′, a whole city and its children ‘genetically’ modified for the sake of functionality, efficiency and organised structure. all the silly campaigns, speak english, speak mandarin, be courteous, get married, make babies… happiness is a pretty vague concept and it is tightly woven with materialism and results.

being happy in leh, however, was simple, serendipitous, and it can happen anywhere and anytime of the day. it’s watching the sun rise across the mountain range, its warm gentle light turning everything into fields of gold. it’s looking at prayer flags flutter in the wind and birds flying pass across the endlessly blue sky. it’s having a cup of hot tea in the cold morning and watching the streets wake up. it’s walking down streets unknown, and having strangers smile warmly and greet you “jullay jullay”. it’s watching the clouds cast strange shadows on the plains and mountains, and feeling the cool breeze on your face. everything is shrouded in a simple charm here.

happiness wasn’t a feeling you get when you buy new bags or clothes, or when you are able to afford the extra luxuries in life. it wasn’t about downing two pints of beer during happy hour or slamming that shot of johnny walker back.

i’ve really come to enjoy the small doses of happiness around, but sadly, i know it will not be the same when i get back to home. what i feel now, i know its because i’m foreign to these lands, its a fresh novelty and i do not have to worry about food and money while enjoying it. certainly the people here in ladakh have more priorities and worries in life than watching the landscapes to pass time.

on my last evening in leh, i climbed up to the gompa above leh palace once again. i love the commanding views up on the mountains, and it was extremely quiet, breezy and peaceful. somewhere along the way, a handsome yellowish stray dog followed me all the way up the mountain. i named him the first word that i called out to him, which was ‘jullay’. Jullay and I stayed up on the top for an hour, or maybe two. I wrote my postcards, hung some prayer flags to the existing ones and went back down.

the next morning, i walked out in the early morning, in a somewhat desperate attempt to capture all the sights and sounds for one last time, and hopefully retain them in memory. i ate breakfast at the usual place, had kashmiri kawa tea in another, then set off to the airport.

Leh presented me with one last gift as i left in a jerky flight. we flew over mars-like reddish rocky mountain ranges, over snow capped mountains that stretched for as far as one could see, over meandering rivers that resembled strokes of calligraphy. i even thought for a moment that i saw the himalayan range very far away, and one mountain stood out so high from the rest, it could only be mt everest.

but still the 6hours wasn’t unbearable, far from it. traveling in such a beautiful landscape has become a rite of passage and a sort of simple enjoyment. my bus rolled into town at about 3pm and i wasted no time, found a room, dropped my bags and went to the monastery.

the monastery was large when compared to all the other ladakhi monasteries i’ve been to, and it was, in a way more impressive. more monks, more chortens, more rooms, more thangkas.. but still considerably less in spirit when i think back about the ones i’ve visited in darjeeling. and yes, i had to pay to get into this monastery as well. it took me 6hours to reach lamayuru, and i stayed in the only sole attraction (the monastery) for less than an hour.

i walked down a long and winding road that led me back to the bus station and met up with 2 fellow passengers from my ride – an Indian and a French groupie. They had been traveling together for a while now, since Manali a week ago and they’ve stuck with each other every since. I don’t know what else to call but to use the word ‘groupie’. We had chai and talked until late into the afternoon. We all agreed that perhaps just the monastery alone wasn’t worth the 6hour ride, but the people in lamayuru were definately the friendliest and warmest around. everywhere we went, smiles greeted us. everyone would go ‘jullay! jullay!’, it was like a sweet melody to the ears. on my way down the road, i was actually offered free apples and taken to see a herder’s flock of goat and sheeps. lamayuru was one of the smallest villages i’ve visited so far, but it was also the one with the biggest hearts.

I returned to my hostel, found another two fellow passengers and i joined them for dinner. They were both japanese, met somewhere along the way, and have traveled together since. I call them ‘the Japanese groupie’. Kaori, the female is an university arts student doing oil painting and Hitoshi was a sculptor turned graphic designer and he makes graphics of mandalas using montages of religious figures. It was strange to be able to travel thousands of miles, be in a foreign land such as lamayuru and talk to two japanese about art.

after dinner, i went back to my room, sat by my window and watch monks chant their evening prayers outside the courtyard of the monastery. there were no other tourists around except me, the sun was shining its last light over the mountains, and everything was unbelievably peaceful. i must have sat by the window for half an hour, watching the undisturbed monks chant prayers and listening to EitS. i must say, i felt like henrich harrer from the novel ‘seven years in tibet’, the only sole foreigner around witnessing a ceremony that dates back for centuries. it was quite poignant and beautiful.

next morning, i woke up early and revisited the monastery again. it has seemed to lose the mystery that i’ve enjoyed just the night before. i climbed up many flights of stairs to a gompa and have a nice commanding view of lamayuru and the surrounding landscape. i went back down and had breakfast with the japanese groupie. they were going to alchi, a village nearby to visit more monasteries and asked if i would like to join them. i declined and said that i want to return to Leh.

hitoshi asked curiously: “what do you do with all the time in Leh?”. He didn’t understand how could anyone rather stay in Leh than go visit the rest of the sights around Ladakh. I replied: “There’s nothing much to do in Leh, and that’s why I love it.”