The Mewar Express

The Mewar Express pulled out of the Udiapur City station.  Jeff and I watch the country side roll by from our barred window until the sun set and it was too dark to see anything.  I read my book and Jeff was listening to his music.  The train makes a few stops, a few people get on or off, and the train rolls along.  The chai guy and the tomato soup guy make their rounds, although we didn’t get any.  There would be plenty of time to buy tea or soup if we wanted it.  Jeff decided to move to the upper bunk so he could stretch out.  The family with the little girl with the broken leg dozes on and off until their stop comes up.

Their bags are shuffled towards the door and dad carries the little girl closer to the door. I make room for him to sit down with her on my bunk since its closest.  As the train pulls into Chittorgarh, I peer out the window and see hundreds of people rushing for the train.  The train hasn’t even begun to slow down and people are grabbing onto doorways pulling themselves on.  As the train slows, more and more people are trying to shove their way onto the train.   More and more people swarm the train, outside people are stacked twenty deep trying to push themselves forward.  People are sitting on my bunk, some are climbing up on Jeff’s bunk, and the dad with the little is trying to shove his way off.  The poor little girl was screaming from fright or pain or both.  Someone starts banging on my window, and I see one of little girl’s other family members trying to get back onto the train to help get the two off.  I open the window and see a couple of soldiers just standing by watching this chaos happen.  I start to yell at them, telling them a little girl with a broken leg is trying to get off the train but can’t because of the crowd.  Once the soldiers understood what I was saying, they took out their bamboo canes and started hitting people to get them to clear away from the door so the little girl could get off. 

Once every space on the train was full, the chaos calmed a little bit.  Six to eight people were sitting on a bunk, people were standing in the aisles and sitting on the floors.  The chai guy was stuck on seat across the aisle; his rounds were done for the night. Our peaceful passenger car had been turned into a cattle car.  I didn’t even know that many people fit in such little space. 

It was hard to understand why so many people were on the train.  Someone said it was a protest, someone else said everyone was just going home, but that just be the way this popular sleeper class is.  The train pulls away from the station and Jeff switches places with a guy who was sitting next to me.  We were so squished on in our space that I was sitting on one butt cheek and I don’t think Jeff had that much more room either.

We start to approach Bundi.  Jeff and I start to figure out how we are going to make the ten feet to the door to get off the train.  The train was due in around 22:30 and it was getting close to 23:30.  One thing we have learned that as the trains start to run later, the stop times seem to be shorter.  The people who are wanting to get off in Bundi start pushing towards the door ten to twenty minutes before the stop.  The train slows and I’m pushing forward trying to get through.  Jeff is right behind me and we make it off the train.  We drop all our bags on the platform, just relived to have made it off. 

We boarded to empty, peaceful Mewar Express and sat back...

...just relaxing and listening to music....

....watching the countryside go by....

Then they came....

...and they came...

...until every space was full on the train

Udiapur, India

We left Pushkar via bus to Amjer to catch a train south to Udaipur.  The buses left Pushkar about every thirty minutes or so.  We had just missed one bus and climb aboard the next almost empty bus.  Jeff and I take two seats and our bags take another seat.  As it gets closer to departure time, the bus begins to fill with locals on their way home from temple worship.  A group of four ladies, dressed in their colorful saris decorated with sequins, squeeze into the two seats next to Jeff and I.  Jeff, being a gentleman, gets up and stands in the aisle for our 30 minute bus ride over the hill.  As the bus travels the women begin to sing.  Their beautiful voices entertained us all the way to the train station. 

The train was once again on time and we had a pleasant journey to Udaipur.  Unfortunately, we never saw the tomato soup guy, but when the train stopped for a couple of minutes, Jeff jumped off and bought a handful of fried spicy vegetables.  They were so good in fact, he jumped off again before the train left the station to get two more helpings worth. 

We arrive into Udaipur and had the greatest tuck-tuck driver drop us off at the Panorama Guesthouse.  The driver, Bunty, was telling jokes and had us laughing the whole way.  He summed up Indian perfectly too by telling us “In India, anything this possible, but nothing is available.”  We check into our guesthouse with a perfectly clean room (no sleeping bags!!) and fall asleep. 

The next day was Jeff’s birthday, so we slept in and had breakfast on the rooftop café in the warm sun.  We then wandered around familiarizing ourselves with Udiapur.  The city is built around Lake Pichola, with a huge palace on its banks and is surrounded by the Aravilli hills.  In the center of the lake is a building called the Lake Palace that looks like it is just floating there. I found a great little bookshop with some postcards.  After I picked out my postcards, I had to go find Jeff to get some money.  I found him next door in the clothing shop, dressed in a man’s formal attire.  The shop owner completed the look by placing a turban on Jeff’s head.  Very cute!  Jeff disrobed and we go back to the book shop and spend some time chatting with owner.  He informs us where we can buy some birthday beers for Jeff.  We find the liquor store and take our cold beers back to the patio at the guesthouse to enjoy them. 

Birthday dinner was enjoyed across the lake on different rooftop restaurant.  In Udiapur, around dinner time every restaurant is playing James Bond’s Octipussy starring Roger Moore.   The film uses the floating palace in many of its scenes and has become Udiapur’s ‘claim to fame.’  In my opinion, the movie was horrible and Peirce makes a much better James Bond. 

The next morning around ten, we are driven from the hotel to the house of the owner.  His wife Kommu, was our teacher through Indian cuisine.  We learned to make potato pakora which are thinly chopped or sliced potatoes dipped in spicy batter and fried.  This is actually what Jeff was jumping on and the train for!  Kommu really helped learn what we were really eating.  We learned to make masala chai tea.  On the train, when the chai guy comes down the aisle he’s always saying, “Chai, garam chai.”  Jeff asked Kommu what the difference was between garam chai and masala chai.  Kommu chuckled and answered that ‘garam’ just means hot.  We also learned how to make dahl (lentils), potato paluo (sort of like Indian fried rice), aloo gobhi (potato and cauliflower curry), and chapattis (Indian style flatbread).  We had a lot fun that afternoon with Kommu and enjoyed a delicious meal too.  It’s the best thing we’ve done in India.

We get back to the guesthouse, just in time for Jeff’s case of Dehli belly to hit (but let me clarify that was not from Kommu's cooking, but I think the chicken he ate the night before).  It puts him out of order for the next couple of days.  I spend my time reading my books, surfacing the internet, chatting with other travelers and watching the two tortoises that lived on the patio.  Dollar was the larger one and Euro was the smaller one.  It was very entertaining to watch Dollar eat a cut up tomato. 

We had a six fifteen PM train out of Udiapur on our last day.  Jeff was finally feeling better so we crammed in all the sight-seeing highlights before we departed.  We walked up to the City Palace, but decided not to take the tour.  We did take a 30 minute boat ride around the lake and a cable car ride up one of the hills to a temple.

We head back to the guesthouse to say our goodbyes to the staff and collect our things.   Our tuck-tuck broke down on the way to the train station, but another was right there to pick us up and bring us the rest of the way.  We walk into  the station, find our train number easily on the reader board, and walk out unto the platform.  There was our train, the Mewar Express, waiting patiently for us to board.  We find our seats in sleeper class and store our bags.  There is a family sitting across from us with a little girl who had her left leg in a cast.  Another one of her family members also had a broken leg and boarded the train using crutches.  We smile politely across the aisles.  The train leaves the station just a minute late and isn’t that crowded. We settle in for a nice and peaceful four hour ride to Bundi.  Or so we thought….

Dollar the pet tortiose at the Panorama Guesthouse

Taking notes while Kummo is sharing her receipes

Jeff rolling out chapatis

Beautiful Kummo with our wonderful meal

J on the boat ride with the City Palace in the background

Me with Lake Palace in the background

Pushkar, India

We left Jaipur by train to Ajmer.  Once again to our surprise the train was on-time!  It was a short 2 hour train journey to Ajmer.  Once in Ajmer, we hired a taxi for 200 rupees that drove us the 11 km  over Snake Mountain to Pushkar.  The Hindus believe that Brahma (one of the main gods) dropped a lotus flower on the earth and Pushkar appeared.  It is another Hindu pilgrimage town, with of course no meat, no eggs, no booze, and no kissing or PDAs.  The town has one of the world’s few temples dedicated to Brahma, along with hundreds of other temples, that all surround the sacred Pushkar Lake. 

We arrive into town and find a little restaurant to get lunch at.  After eating, we leave our bags in the corner and go to scout out a room.  After looking at some questionably clean places, we found the Lake View Guesthouse right on the lake, that had clean rooms, a private bathroom,  and hot water for the bargain price of 500 rupees/night.  We lounged around the rooftop restaurant the rest of the afternoon and then we both got a 90 minute ayurvedic massage in the evening.  After feeling completely relaxed, we decided to wander the town a little bit.  

Pushkar, although a holy Hindu city, does have a more western tourist feeling then the other cities we have visited.  The main street/bazaar had a lot of clothing and souvenirs.  We got to the end of the bazaar where the Brahma temple was at and a young guy approached us inviting us in.  We decide to go in and remove our shoes.  Next thing you know, flowers are being forced into our hands so we have something to offer Brahma and the kid has now become our tour guide through the Hindu religion.  There was a ceremony going on as we entered with lots of bells and drums being clanged and banged.  The kid tells us to give half of our handful of flowers to Braham here and the other half will be placed in the lake as an offering to ensure our and our families success and happiness.  We walk around the temple, looking at the shrines, not only to Brahma, but to other gods and deities. The whole the time the kid is trying to explain a very complex religion to two Westerns who have no idea where to even start to grasp the Hindu faith.  After our temple ‘tour’ is complete, we exit the temple, place our shoes back on, wash our hands before retouching our sacred flowers, and are escorted by the kid to the Brahma ghat on the lake.  A ghat is a landing or steps that leads down to a sacred  body of water or river.  Our shoes are removed and we are given a tin plate to place our flowers on that also contains some rice, other flowers, a colorful string, and some red powder.  Jeff and I are each given our own ‘priest’ to help us pray for our and our families’ karma.  The repeating of prayers and holding of flowers is all fine and dandy until the subject how much money my karma and my family’s happiness is worth.  My ‘priest’ suggested at least 1000 rupees and I kept insisting I needed to talk to Jeff first before I agreed to give any money.  Then my ‘priest’ tells me that my karma is not connected to Jeff’s and my donation should be separate.  I told him karma doesn’t come from money.  My priest gets frustrated with me and says that my donation will be the same as my husband’s then.  So he smears the red paste on my forehead and tells me to go drop my flowers in the lake.  Jeff’s ‘priest’ in the meantime is trying to talk Jeff out of money too and answering cell phone calls in the middle of Jeff’s blessing.  He obviously didn’t know he was talking too!  Jeff haggled for everyone’s karma and agreed to pay nothing!  In the end, we ended up donating 500 rupees for us and both our families and had all the relaxation from our massages sucked right out us.  Hopefully, we are right and karma isn’t based on money!

The next day we sleep in and lounge the rest of the day in the sun, reading our books.  In the evening, we decide to climb up to the Savitri temple located on a hill a several hundred feet above the town for sunset.  It was a nice walk with amazing views.  The sunset was lovely and the full moon was beautiful.

Next is farther south to Udaipur.

Bazaar in Pushkar

Pushkar from the Savitri Temple

Day's done



Us heading down the mountain in the dark



Pushkar by the light of the moon