13 feb. UDAIPUR - BUNDI 335 km.
8:00 I'm sitting alone again in my 'Guest House' wonderful rooftop restaurant and enjoy the morning sun's heat rays and sees how Udaipur slowly waking. There is not much life this morning as it is Sunday. The other mornings at this time, it has been mostly schoolchildren who have crossed the bridge. The reason is probably that many in this part of town living from tourism.
I've found that most restaurants have yogurt, curd on Indian, and some also have fruit salad on their menu. If they do not have fruit salad, then I supplement with purchased fruit, apple, banana and oranges, I have peeled and cut into small pieces. Absolutely wonderful it is if they have a little liquid honey, I can pour on top.
I'm getting my chai and a seat. I show them my card with my route, so they can see what city I come from and what city I need to. At the same time I show them a map of the whole of Rajasthan, so they can see what cities I've visited and what I need to visit. In my log book I have also a map of Euro-Asia, which might give them an idea of how India is placed on the world map in relation to Denmark where I come from.
It's a good feeling to know where I am located in the universe, now that I do not know exactly where this little village is located on my 'Google map of this locality.
I do not know how much they really understand my explanation in English and whether they can read and understand the map I show them. But their smiles, I can understand that they like my story, my gestures and probably think it's perfectly fine that I have ended up in their village and enjoying a glass of chai with them.
It is a wonderful welcoming roguish smiling 80 year old patriarch, who operates this 'Guest House ' along with his quirky smile and wayward wife. They have been married for 55 years and the house the family has owned for more than 150 years.
Siesta on the terrace
There home
The son live also in the house with his wife and child. He works in banking in another city and is only home on weekends.
The garden is just down to the artificial lake Nawal Sagar. One of their expensive rooms 500 inr. (12$) appeal to me much, even if the toilets had its aesthetic and hygienic deficiencies. Both rooms also had a meditation plateau overlooking the lake, but this time only by looking through an insect mesh. Just outside my door from the roof terrace, I can see the palace, built into the rock wall.
Veiw over the Lake
I feel very lucky that I again has managed to find the ideal place where I can rest my soul. But when I came back after eating a wonderful dinner at a restaurant and visited an internet cafe, my initial joy turned to frustration.
When I enter into my idyllic yogic balcony room, I got a bit of a shock. Out of the windows through insect screen on the other side of the lake, I see lighting from the headlights pass from rattling and noisy trucks in two staggered levels.
It can not be possible that this wonderful "Guest House" actually has two noisy highways, as a neighbor. Unfortunately I have to face reality and with my ears I recognize that, my spiritual soul cann't find peace.
Frustrated, I creep down under quilts, with echoes of sounding in my head that interferes with my inner voice there tells me that here I can not bear to stay one night more. But orcs I almost did not think the idea to completion, this space is quite unique and I can find another better. I get tired just at the thought of having to pack up and find another 'Guest House'. - Right now my body and mind is tired, really tired. -
The noisy truck sounds penetrate my earplugs, which I'm used to sleeping with, as it is possible to meet unfamiliar sounds that would otherwise easily awaken me. Extraneous sounds are plentiful here in India, like many other sensory impressions. This time it is not barking dogs that affect me, but engine noise.
Wakes up after a very restless night, where I think my subconscious has worked tirelessly to influence my impressionable senses and mind.
My mind tells me that what I yesterday perceived as a major problem, just a small part of the town of Bundi's personality. In Udaipur, it was meditating and noisy music sounds that filled the airwaves. In Delhi, it was barking dogs there got into one's hearing nails and subconscious.
The sounds from the highway is just one of Bundi's many sensual scenes.
When I had recognized this reality, it was only a few times I noticed the trucksounds, which I again not gave the opportunity to catch my concentration, with its negative energies.
The night before what I had seen as two highways at different levels, was only one. It was headlights reflection in the lake, I had perceived as the extra highway.
Ardha-Matsyendrasana / Backbone-Turning I can now again perform
14 Feb. - Blocked dexterity is loosened after 11 years.
11 years ago, I was struck by a car door when I quietly drove on my bike in Copenhagen, with a big bag with books on the back and a big bag of fruit and vegetables on the handlebars.
I fell very unfortunate. I got a concussion in addition, a minor brain haemorrhage and lost my sense of smell completely, by the fierce battles in mind.
After that crash, I lost a little of my dexterity, so I thought since it has been difficult to perform to one of the side my spine rotation / Ardha-Matsyendrasana to reach down under my right foot with my left hand.
But actually I managed during this India trip, reaching down with my left hand under my right foot. It's wonderful to see that not all physical needs, going the wrong way. Maybe it's some psychological tension in the body I have slowly released.
During my morning meditation mixes lovely birds twitter with the highway noise. In Udaipur it was the rhythmic beats of laundry. In Jodhpur airwaves were filled with the sound vibrations that sounded like the universal mantra AUM. In Jaisalmer, it was the sound of a generator that gave meditation rhythmic background sound.
’It’s because of the monkey’.
I enjoy the early morning sun and the sight of gray monkeys / lyme cats with black head with their pups in balance around a building nearby, when I am hanging laundry outside on the terrace.
When I was sitting on my meditation mattress in front of the window, I saw some of lyme cats climbing the building cornices. One pass right past me on the ledge just below my open window, however, protected by insect net. I said 'hello', it look quietly back at me.
Now I need some breakfast. I open the door onto the terrace and is just about to open the insect net door when I saw one of the half great rhesus monkey similar to baboons, stopping only 2 m. from the door. Its gaze is fixed on me, on the large hanging balls I can see that it is a young male monkey. We stare intensely at each other, a real testosterone jousting going on, then he turns around fast and jumps up on the balcony balustrade and grabs one of my jerseys I've just hung out to dry.
I push with a swift movement, the net doors up and jump after the monkey, who luckily escape my jersey, because of my rapid response.
It was pure déjà-vu moments I experienced. For 1 / 2 years ago I had namely seen a movie on TV channel Animal Planet from a town in India where rhesus monkeys were besieged and effectively controlled the city. If they didn't received food, they stole so instead residents laundry, just like the young monkey tried to do.
The 'Guest House' couple had the night before told me I could just go through their combined office, living room and bedroom, if I would directly into their garden to the restaurant.
Their large lattice gate in front of their apartment are closed, so I rattle around with the gate. The old man came over and open lattice doors and say, 'It's because of the monkey'.
Another morning I'm effectively locked on the patio. Lattice front door stairs lead down is locked with 3 padlocks. When I yell 'hello', the old woman came to help me and show me how she turns the locks so they can get through the chain without a key. Again to ensure that the monkeys do not come in and terrorize their apartment.
They probably have quite deliberately chosen to leave it up to us visitors, to find out the problem with the monkeys, because otherwise there are certainly some who will not stay here.
Park Restaurant
I had to go through their living room / bedroom. The wife was still asleep while I struggle with the big iron bar I have to removed from the iron door to the stone stairs that lead directly into the garden, so I do not have to go all the way around the house.
I am a little disoriented in the garden. Where is the restaurant. I've even seen a sign that says Park Restaurant, when I parked my MC. I stood for a while and looked around searching.
Then suddenly 'out of nowhere' a smiling, beautiful young woman in a red sari meet me. In fluent English, she tells me proudly that they have a restaurant. She is pointing at some closed wooden doors, as she goes and locks up. I'm looking into a room filled with stacked plastic furniture and a kind of cuisine. She tells me also that they live in the house just next door.
I enjoyed the physical presence of a pretty young woman in sari. In three weeks I have always only had to relate to men and older women. My enjoyment of intimacy from the opposite sex was unfortunately brief. The man showed up and unfortunately took the whole dialogue and then I was again back in the more cash male-dominated universe. She was only here to keep me as a customer until her husband came.
I repeated back what I had told her that I would like yogurt with fruit, honey and ginger tea. He took a single table and chair forward and placed it so I could enjoy the view over the lake and the beautiful morning sunshine. To the right of the lake there was a parched corner where the sacred cows grazed and the chirping birds strutted into a source of running water that came down from the mountains.
Of course he does not have different kinds of fresh fruit lying in the shed. He has to get out in the city to obtain these and perhaps also fresh yogurt.
Down in town, I experience this small territory battle between some rhesus monkeys and a watchdog.
The local Doctor + 'Come Sad Go Glad'
15 Feb. - Everything in Bundi pass into a dream-like pace
Bundi is a bit of a fairytale city where everything just passing by in a dreamlike pace. Even the weather is more subdued and sometimes a little misty. I decide to go for a walk, in the second part of the old town center and ends at the end of the winding road that lead up to the fort Taragarh and Bundi Palace.
The time is 17:30 so dusk is slowly starting to appear. At the same time, like a disset neutral density filter across the sky. I decide anyway to watch this exciting but very dilapidated Fort and Palace, although the daylight is fading and will close in half an hour.
As you can see from the photos, there are plenty of rhesus monkeys that populate the fort and palace. It is incredibly overdue and they are only slowly begun to restore it. There is a guard who follow us up on the various floors, as different gates and doors must be opened and closed for the monkeys.
Rhesus monkeys have taken over the top two floors of the palace, says the guard to us, therefore we can not come up higher. Unfortunately I have only seen a part of the entire Fort Taragarh.
If you show your good will and take a few photo their pops up once more kids there also want their few minutes in focus. They then have to see the result on the camera. Most of this type arranged photos of the kids will not be very successful, so every time it requires surplus to meet them.
Many times they also go hand and demands money because I've taken a photo of them. It happens in big cities where they have probably learned it from the gypsies, who always demand money if you want to take a photo of them.
When only a few, I usually have the energy to take some photos. After 3 weeks of travel, I do not have so much energy to face this game. Therefore I try mostly avoid taking photos and to answer all their questions. They will mostly also press your hand.
In Udaipur there was a man who was pretty much beside himself there concrete and tangible would press my hand. It shuddered when I felt his clammy wet hands in mine, for what kind of water had it been dipped in. There is just no place where you can go in and wash your hands here in the old town.
So after this episode, I welcome now in the Hindu way, with my hands clasped in front of my chest, when someone extends their hand towards me to greet. This greeting I use also towards the children.
Today was it a little difficult for me to get past a group of boys who had eagerly followed me and tried to get me convinced to take photos or answer their questions. Smiling and nodding, I tried to get out of the huddle, but it did not seem to be enough for them. Their grip on me became more aggressive and threatening, so I had to use force to free myself. I've been a little too dismissive to them, so they felt within their rights to mop me, they were many, I was a stranger and different.
It is the third time today, a procession of relatives Hindus, to the rhythms of drums, carrying the corpse of a deceased past this 'Guest House', to a cremation place by the river, somewhere outside of town.
Throughout the day, drive these special cars around Bundi and trying with their loud speaker to come through with a message I would think most are commercial offering.
When I first used the small basin was it perfectly OK. The next night when I brushed my teeth and gurgled, splashed toothpaste gargle straight down at my bare feet. Plastic pipe under the sink was gone by and only just was able to reach behind the toilet. In Jaisalmer, I was out for a sink without a drain pipe, where I also got to gargle spit on my own feet. The sanitary conditions on the cheap 'Guest House', is not always hygienic and aesthetic according to our standard, but they are certainly far above the standards of the poor Indians home.
I came across these Hara Krisna monks just outside the city, they was going to the city center to play and sing their famous Krishna mantra: "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.’
This size tin bowl seems to be a widely used tool because it can accurately accommodate what a fully grown person can fill, lift and carry. The main thing is that this process can be repeated indefinitely. Quite a meditative act.
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