Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Having stayed in Nepal a week longer than planned, my itinerary through India turned into a whirlwind tour. At this point in my travels and after leaving the peaceful world of the Himalayas, this presented me with an annoying and exhausting mental problem: an intermittent bad attitude.
Nepal was a turning point in my travels. It was the place where I finally settled into a new nomadic lifestyle and grew to appreciate my movements not as a temporary state of transportation but as the journey itself. Something I always found so obvious in thought, but turned out to be difficult in practice.
Prior to Nepal, I left behind an enormous yeti-sized carbon footprint taking 16 flights in 1 month and creating an environmental and budget-minded disaster that I needed to outgrow. This was my slow transition from business to backpack travel. (Though on a random note of good fortune, I would like to thank the Flight Fairies that on every single one of those coach flights I always had an entire row to myself! Incredible.)
After Nepal however, in less than a month I survived and sometimes even enjoyed 9 overnight land segments (6 by bus, 3 by train) and endless daytime journeys beginning with an overland return from Kathmandu to India via Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha), the Sonauli border town (a dirty, sketchy but very easy stop to walk across the border) and Gorakpur (with a long and interesting bus journey where at one point I was walking behind the bus with 4 other Westerners because we wanted to get a better view of the situation and be out of way if the bus rolled down an enormous ditch). Although I was happy to have conquered my previously spoiled travel style and I did find the slower pace of travel the only way to appreciate the nitty gritty cultural thrills, trying to combine very slow travel and extremely fast schedules is a recipe for heartache.
I knew better than this but simply couldn’t resist my ambitious itinerary: Gorakpur, Lucknow, Jhansi, Orchha, Khujaraho, Jaipur, Shekwati, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Khukuri… take a breath… oh my goodness… abort! abort!… Bhuj, Ahmedabad, Mumbai. At my point of defeat, I decided to skip Pushkar, Bundi and Mount Abu!
I still had a lot to learn. I rarely stayed put for more than 2 nights and spent my others in transit (which I also learned to appreciate as a very cheap hotel alternative). I found it necessary to jump free from “my plan” and flee south to Gujarat on an emergency 17 hour bus ride to escape the exasperating sound of touts, vendors and beggars trying to bring me close enough to get their hands down my pockets while smiling and offering me an endless stream of chatter and tea. Amidst my exasperating time spent on the Rajasthani tourist trail however, I did enjoy contrastingly high moments of sincere interactions, interesting conversations, wise perspectives and outstanding beauty.
Rather than try to spin through the string of amazing sights, sounds and struggles that I crammed into 23 days, I will allow a few pictures to freeze the moments.
[Unfortunately, this leg is missing many photos and is the only collection that I’ve mindlessly ”misplaced” (as opposed to “lost” like those in Nepal). The morning before catching my plane to Bangkok and after enjoying a fabulously chic night out in Mumbai with a great friend, I tried to clear space on my memory cards. It was 3:30 a.m. (way too early for thinking) and I hadn’t slept. Luckily the entire selection is safe on her computer for my next visit and recovery one day. (Thank you Sim! I had a blast!) And the rest is history!]
For the photo tour, check my India, Rajasthan & Gujarat slideshow.