My trip around the world... India

Travel time: July 2004 - December 2007 | by Nicole Schemionek

from the north to the south...

Hallo out there...

first of all, sorry for the huge delay... but I will make up for it now...

The two weeks in Rajasthan were really great. first we stayed some days in Jaipur. it is also called the pink city. we did a sightseeingtour for a whole day and we've been to the wind temple, the water palace and the amber fort. the city is quite busy and you get hasseled the whole day by rickshawdrivers. when we arrived in the early morning in jaipur we went to the hotel I spoke about in my last entry. the staff was sleeping and they only had rooms for more than 800 rps. so we went to another hotel. this was also not very nice and so we left there the next day and went to the Jaipur Inn. this was a very reasonable hotel with a nice garden and a roof top restaurant. there were almost no guests because it is out of the season. At the morning of the second day over there I was thinking that I miss something... and I couldn't figure out what it was... and I thought and thought.. and in the end... it was my plastic bag, with my diary and my minicomputer... I talked to george where I could have left it and I thought about that I maybe left the plastic bag in the train. we decided to go back to the hotel where we spent our first night. so we went there after breakfast and they got my plastic bag... but my computer wasn't in there... so I was very sad... hmmm... two minutes later, a boy came from behind and was holding my computer... they put it in the hotel safe... so I was a happy girl again... hihi... In front of the jaipur Inn hotel are many rikshawdrivers. one of them is always dressed nicely and is in the end 30th begin 40 years old. He saw us the first day we've been there and he wanted to take us around and was inviting us for tea. We wouldn't go with him at all... he was hasseling us every day and in the end I shoutet at him that we've had enough and that he should try with somebody else... he just didn't stop. he was keeping telling that he is different from all indian people and that he just wanted to make some friends etc. we just denied and went on walking. One day later he started again and I was very pissed off... so I said the F* word to him and he went silent... We went to town and came back with a rikshawdriver. When we arrived at the hotel the guy who was hasseling us all the time came over and was talking to the driver. I said that he could just ignore him because it is an arsehole... hoho... when they finished talking our rickshawdriver said to us that we can be lucky that we are leaving. this guy is from the maffia and he is controlling all the rickshawdrivers in jaipur... and if we were unlucky we wouldn't find one who was driving us. so be sure that we were lucky that we could leave... the next morning we got the bus to Pushkar, where we stayed for some days. first we stayed in the hill view hotel. we had a nice balcony and a nice view on the hill. the swimming pool was quite dirty so we refused to go for a swim. the weather was great over there... sunny and warm... Pushkar is a holy place and you don't even get beer over there... so we thought... on every corner they sell bhang lassie and hash and in the first bar we went, they asked us if we wanna have a beer... hihi.. so,... that's the holy place... We didn't do much in pushkar. we just changed the hotel again because the hill view was really noisy because it was not far from the street and all the horning car's and busses. as well there were some screaming pigs and peacocks which started screaming in the early early morning... too early for us. So finally we found a very nice cheap room in the Om Hotel. it had a very nice garden, a pool with fresh water and it was very nice... quiet music was playing all day long and so we were sitting in the garden, having food from the buffet, we were reading and going to town shopping... we've also been to the pushkar lake to enjoy the sunset... As well we've been on a short camel safari. we left on wednesday afternoon and came back the next morning at 10. this was enough for the first time... It was not really what we had expected. the agency promised nice dinner with a range of veg's, rice and chappathi and a nice campfire and a nice sunset in the desert... What we got was the sunset from the back... rice, chappathi, dal and a tiny bit of curry. the food was good though... george and me also made closer contact to our camelriders... even if we didn't want that... that was quite ennoying... So, when you plan such a trip,... maybe it's worth to pay a bit more and get what they told you. we just paid I think 250 rupees... normally it's starting at 300 and above. We left pushkar the 28th of august and went back to jaipur. there we couldn't get the train to bombay because there was still a waiting list of 300... so we had to wait until the evening. we went to the jaipur inn and were sitting in the garden until the evening (the mafia boss wasn't there... hihi). then we took the train and 20 hours later we arrived in bombay. from there we hit back to nasik and we arrived the 29th in the evening around 10. To be back in nasik wasn't so great... we were thinking a lot about the next month and we just couldn't get used to the thought that we would be stuck in nasik... hmmm... The 30 th of august we went to the internet and we found a yoga therapy course in pondicherry... which was very cheap and near the beach... I found a train to chennai which had some places left. so we went back to the center, told the people that we are leaving, got our stuff packed and the next morning (31.08.) we left. we got the train to bombay again, which should leave at 9:38 and left at 9:10... and we acutally missed hihi... so we took the 14:30 train. this one was very slow... and so we arrived in bombay at 20:10. Our train to chennai was leaving at 20:30... and I was happy to see our train waiting already at the opposite platform. We got Sleeper class withour airco and had upper beds... the journey was 24 hours... so we were driving until the 01.09. 20:45... it was hot in the train... very very hot... but it was ok. we were sitting next to the open doors and had a great view on the landscape... I talked to very much indian people and it was quite fun... exept that it was so hot... in chennai we took a hotel and the next morning we booked our bus to pondicherry which was leaving in the evening (the morning bus left already...) so we spent one day in chennai. it was very hot and very busy over there. george and me were a bit sick (cold and stomach probs) so we only got some breakfast and went back to the hotel bed... We arrived the 02nd of sept in the evening in pondicherry and got to our booked room, which was only 50 rps for two persons a night. we had a nice clean bathroom and soft beds and a van... luxury... The next morning we were informing about the course. I decided already that I wouldn't do a course anymore... not now. I was quite fed up with the last one and I just wanted to have some time off and writing down my yoga books into my notebook so that I can send the books home. George signed in for the yoga therapy course. I wanted to make a body cleansing therapy which was 3 hours. it included a massage, steambath and a intestine cleaning... hihi... The massage was the worst I ve ever had. I had a guy who was massaging me and I thought that nothing really hurt me so much as his massage. most of the time I was crying and trying to tell him that he shouldn't perform so hard... he was really hitting me and pulling my hair stuff. in the end I just said that he should stop it... believe it or not... some parts of my body are still hurting... hmmm... so never again... The yoga therapy course was just about an hour every day. george didn't like it at all. there was no theory,... just one hour of asana's and she could read some books. in the end we both ended up very depressed and we canceled the whole thing. One afternoon we went to the Repos Beach Auroville. I quite liked it... and I was asking if they had an empty hut... and they did... George went to mysore on wednesday and I am still over here, enjoying myself... living in a little hut without any power or water ... I am reading a lot, writing down my yoga books, I am swimming a lot and I do yoga twice a day... I stay actually in Auroville. it is an international community buildt up in 1968 by french people. now there are many nations living all together in little communities. most of them are indian and then french and german. At the time there are living about 1700 people over here. Later there should live like 50000 people here. It is strange because almost everybody I meet is french or german... The food is very nice and I am going to a nice bakery from time to time to get me a nice croissant. I think that I will stay here until the end of the month. I don't know yet... when I get too bored I will move on... but for now I have some things to do... And guess what... the rain followed me as well. the day before yesterday it was raining so much, that I had to remove everything out of my hut yesterday to dry it... hmmm... I think I have luck with broken huts... hihi... but yeah... it's just water... so it will be fine again...