Let's see where I was last time... OH RIGHT! Camel safari. Let me tell you; if you ever have the chance to ride a camel through a desert: DO IT! It's so adventerous, so funny, so cool! Let's start from the beginning; we were picked up by a guy at half past three from our hotel. He took us to a parking lot behind our hotel where two other guys and three camels were waiting for us. The camels were named Jimmy, Romeo and Shiva. I had the honor to ride Shiva and once we were all seated, we took off to the desert outside of Pushkar. The ride was bumpy and I had to hold on if the camel had to take a sprint, but it was so much fun! How often do you ride camel through a desert in India? Never! I enjoyed it and so did Kaylee and Eva. The desert in Rajasthan is a mixture of rocks, dead plants, trees, sand and cactusses, and the sun shines bright (Tip; bring a water bottle with you if you're ever planning on doing this)! After about and hour of riding, the guys took us to a shadowy valley where we let the camels graze. Eva and I climbed the slope of a dune and took some pictures once we were up. It was an amazing view and we could see the whole valley beneath us. We climbed down again and we played a typical game from Rajasthan, named Khaperdi. The best way to describe it, is that it is a mixture of tikkertje and rugby. Very fun to play! We had to watch out not to step in prickly plants or onto the beetles who were crawling arround in the sand though. We had fun and once we were all tired of playing, we took off again to a gipsy village in the desert. We watched the sun set there with typical Rajasthan music playing arround us, a beer and children who were curious to see who we were walking arround us. After the beer was done, the children were gone and the man who played the music for us, we took off again to Pushkar.
The next day we went to Bundi, which is about a three hour ride from Pushkar (Or so they say, it took us five hours). We hired a private vehicle which took us there and we arrived in the night. After finding a descent guesthouse, we all went to sleep and the next day we decided to walk arround town. We met a local kid about our age who was willing to take us to the waterfalls which are about and hour ride outside of town the next day. That meant that we had to rent some motorcycles and that we had to ride them! It was a scary but fun idea, and once the kid assured us that there was no need to worry because there is no traffic on the roads there, we accepted the offer. The next day, we arranged two motorcycles and met with the kid again. Before I took off, I decided it might be handy to take it for a practice run. I rode up and down the street and found that it was quite easy to ride the thing, so off we went to Bhamlet waterfalls! It took us about one hour and a half to get there, and we had to ride through the most amazing desert landscape! I hate the fact that I havent been able to upload pictures of it for you guys, but I guess that has to wait untill I get home again. We could see the whole landscape stretching beneath us while we drove up to a mountain! The waterfalls were beautiful; they were hidden in a gorge and we had to climb down to the pool beneath it in order to swim. Eva and I had a quick dip in the cold water and it felt amazing! After two or three hours of relaxation, it was time again to head back to town. Once back again, we realised that we were in Bundi but havent seen the main attraction of the city yet, which is the palace which is towering over everything else in the city because its built on the side of a mountain. The outside of it looks amazing, but once we were in there (We had to climb up for about an hour and it was awfull; far too steep and no stairs!), we were so dissapointed at what we saw. It turned out nobody took care of the castle anymore and it was covered in weeds, monkey poop and it was falling apart right before our eyes. The view from the top of the mountain on the other hand were amazing! But we decided we didn't like Bundi so much and the next day we took a private vehicle back to Pushkar.
Once back in our home away from home, we met up with our local friends again to hang out the rest of our days in Pushkar. Their names are Manesh and Sonnu. Manesh is a local celebrity (You could say, haha) and runs his own natural medicine shop and Sonnu is a local Brahman (Priest) who, besides being a priest, runs a local hotel. They both ride motorcycles and decided we were interesting enought to hang out with, which is lucky, because they are so much fun to hang out with! They took us to a Shiva (That's a god) temple outside of town one day. We had to ride of rocky roads in order to get there, and the girls and Manish fell one time trying to balance over the rocks. They were ok though, because they were driving very very slow. Once there, we could hear faint chanting. It turned out the temple was built on a natural spring and it was beautiful! Old trees with huge roots were growing on the slopes of the little river running through and you could hear birds sing, it was just so peacefull! Manish and Sonnu took us inside of the temple where we were welcomed by the people already praying there. We each got a hand full of rice and had to clean ourselves with fire (You put your hand in the fire for just a minute, and rub the hand over your face). The chanting of the worshippers grew louder and faster while we were directed to a dark stairway in the room. It lead to total darkness, but once we were in, we could destinguish a little tiny altar. We gave the rice to the gods and sat there for a minute. When we were outside again, we took some Chai and went back to town. The rest of the days we spent in Pushkar we did shopping and preparing for the rest of our journey. Eva took off one night and is now in Tamil Nadu (Which in in the southern tip of India) to volunteer.
Kaylee and I left Pushkar, the desert and our friends behind the day before yesterday. We took a night train to Mumbai where we are now. It's so tropical here! It's amazing! We're staying at the YMCA here. How funny is that?! Anyways, we're doing fine and today we're gonna try and see Bollywood. I wonder how that turns out! (:
Bye!
