I thought I'd take just a minute to talk about the different places where we stayed in India. I have to say we were fortunate--everywhere we stayed was pretty amazing! But beware, I learned that the term "palace" is thrown around very generously. Everything is a palace. And all beds are much, much harder than anything we have in the States.
The driver we hired had originally also booked our hotels, but all of them had terrible reviews. Even after pressing our driving company on the matter, they picked alternate hotels with equally bad reviews. We figured it was due to them earning a commission or perks for drivers, so we took matters into our own hands, which is pretty scary from halfway around the world.
In Jaipur, we stayed at a hotel that could've been a museum itself. It was a modern reproduction in the style of the surrounding ancient monuments, complete with carved stone walls in the hallway.
Our room with stone carvings on all the walls.
This is the door to our hotel room--magnificent! The stone carvings on the wall are just like what we'd been seeing in all the monuments.
Looking down the hallway.
Details of carved stone baseboards.
Inlay work and paintings of Indian rulers in the lobby.
I fell in love with this stairway gallery wall! Could I do this in my house?
I took this picture from the car window as we were stuck in traffic. The vibrant colors of produce and fabric are such a striking contrast to the dirt and dust and ancient buildings. I wish we could have shopped and eaten this way, but the threat of illness and the stress of any shopping made it impossible.
A roadside outlet for a marble quarry. There were marble quarries everywhere with roadside stores of giant blocks of gorgeous white marble.
From Jaipur, we travelled to Pushkar. Pushkar is a tiny village, one of the 5 sacred pilgrimage sites for devout Hindus. It features one of the few temples honoring Brahma, the highest ranking Hindu god. Pushkar also features a lake "believed to cleanse sins and cure skin diseases. Over 500 Hindu temples are situated around the lake precincts." (wikipedia) (The word "temple" is also used very generously. I think "shrine" would be more appropriate.) Pushkar Lake was featured on coins as early as the 4th century BC.
Pushkar is also home to the India's largest camel fair, where 50,000 camels are brought to be traded and sold, and include days of festivities, worship, and rituals. Sadly, we missed this event by a few months.
Our driver dropped us off at our hotel in the early afternoon and then said, "It's such a small village and the streets are too narrow for cars, so you don't really need me as a driver today. See you tomorrow."
Our room was phenomenal--breezy and clean with a great view.
I wish I could capture this feeling and import it into my current house!
The owner of our hotel also owned the more well-known Inn Seventh Heaven in the middle of town. We would have stayed here, but it was totally booked, so we stayed at their sister hotel Dia and were happy with it. The decor was so charming. The proprietors definitely nailed the precise combination of Western comforts and Indian authenticity.
Courtyard at Inn Seventh Heaven with yards and yards of these vines.
We ate here at the restaurant at the very top.
The shopping here was the best of our whole trip. The shopkeepers were not nearly as pushy and the shops were not geared to tourists, so I actually attempted to bargain for a couple of things. The cow's just taking a stroll through the shops too.
Some wild monkeys on a wall near our hotel. 6 days into our trip and this is still a shocking sight to me.
Here's where Trent and I disagree on sightseeing plans. I thought it would be nice to walk around the city, visit the famous Pushkar Lake, get some dinner and call it a night. Trent was feeling adventurous and wanted to head into the mountains behind our hotel and venture on an unaccompanied hike. I could already picture the headlines, 'Foolish tourists kidnapped by mountain nomads.'
I finally gave in. It was broad daylight after all, and the village seemed so friendly and harmless. We hiked up a little bit. We didn't see ANYONE, which was both comforting and creepy. There were some really cool finger-like cacti. After we saw the wild pig, we decided that was enough adventure for one day.
Little did we know...
For our last activity of the day, we decided to visit the Savitri Temple at the top of that mountain behind Trent. We caught a cab and had it drop us off (the village wasn't quite as walkable as we were led to believe.) Most of the hike is up stone stairs, but the higher we went the rougher the path became.
When we were only a few minutes from the top, we turned around and enjoyed the spectacular view of the valley. Beautiful and quaint. Only a little ways to go!
And here's where our hike becomes anti-climactic. We realized that it was getting dark WAY too quickly and decided we should turn around and get to the bottom ASAP. We huffed it down as it got darker and darker, and by the time we got to the bottom, it was pitch black and not a cab in sight. Hmmm...so we started walking. It is a tiny village after all, according to our driver.
This was one of the few times during our trip when I actually feared for our safety. All the villagers were home from work and cooking dinner and visiting with their families, and here are 2 white tourists walking right through the middle of their neighborhood. Lots of people stared incredulously, small children came up and formed a circle around us and started teasing us.
A teenaged boy came up and asked us if we needed help with directions and said to follow him. Hmmm...we did not know if we should trust him or not, but also didn't really know what our options were. We followed him forever, and we kept looking for his hidden gang members to jump us, but he seemed to be at least leading us into the center of town. We thought we could find our way back to the hotel from there, so we kept following him. In the end, he didn't kidnap us, but made it very clear that he wanted to be paid, which we were more than happy to do at that point. Best money spent all trip. Whew!
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