Bikaner Day 10

Listening to: Walk the Same Line by Everything but the Girl

Something I love about India is the sense of community that surrounds the people. Waking up for early morning journeys has allowed us to observe the people of India slowly getting started for the day. No matter where we are, there are people huddled around little make-shift fires in the streets trying to warm up, sharing conversation, and small gatherings around chai stands where strangers and friends alike meet to converse. I see the way our driver interacts with the locals in every place we go, easily talking and starting conversation, whether we be at a gas station on the side of a desolate highway, or in a packed market. Even in the streets walking around with our tour guides, random people come up to them to have a friendly chat. Community is something I crave back home. Perhaps it's my own fault for not getting out and trying to meet more people? But I can't help but feel Vancouver is cliquey and nt very communal. In Rome it was easy to find a community.. The resident students at AUR automatically clumped together and had an alliance with one another so that when the hundreds of kids come an I every semester from New York and Boson, we always had each other. I love that about the Air Force also... Such a sense of community- neighbors helping neighbors and looking out for one another. I know Vancouver has the stigma that its a hard city to meet people in, which is something I disagree with. But what Im talking about is community, a support system, and general vibe of brotherhood and an eagerness to share what we can with one another. Vancouver just seems to be missing that.
I actually feel Vancouver's community the most when I'm traveling! I guess us Vancouverites are so diverse and busy and focused on our own little worlds, that it takes being thrown in an alien situation to achieve the level community I crave. What we all have is Vancouver in common, so when abroad, community is easy to achieve.
Some people reading this will think I'm totally off base with my observations. That's ok, its just a personal observation I've had in my various travels and daily life back home.

Bikaner itself wasn't my favorite.
The day started at a museum that was full of unoriginal photographs. We weren't very impressed. there were a few old outfits from the 1900s that were beautiful.. but that was sort of that. Then we went to another fort... It's known for its floral paintings. One can only look at so many imitations of what was once there before getting bored. There were two rooms still mostly in their original condition, and those were very cool. Full of rich colors and painted in real gold.

Then we went to a cam breeding farm Ajda was in heaven! However, I was bummed that we couldn't touch them or be near them. I enjoyed the previous nights camel ride in the desert so so much more.

However, dinner and our hotel were great. Dinner was at the hotel in the palace. The bar and the indoor lounge walls were COVERED in exotic animals. I have never seen anything like it. There was at least 15 exotic cats like tigers skinned and hanging on the wall.... And many many taxidermy heads. It was honestly revolting.... Amazing to see.... But revolting. The waste of these animals lives so that the maharaja could have a little fun and go shooting.
Dinner was in the courtyard, which was so beautiful. Because t was in the palace, all the widows surrounding the courtyard were the original red sandstone that we saw earlier at the fort. The food was to die for. I'm officially addicted to that punjabi lentil dish I also had in Mumbai. It's super rich and full of butter... So not an everyday thing... But it is seriously to die for. I'm sitting in the car right now starving (we are on a 6 hour drive to Jaipur) and salivating at the thought of my slow cooked black lentils.

The hotel was great. The family who runs it also lives there. Food is served at their dining room table from their kitchen. The food wasn't very good... At lunch we had mushroom and pea curry and it was sitting in a POOL of oil... And the room was very basic... But the family was so accommodating and sweet. Their grandson was in town to help with running it because its high season. He was our age and just finished his psych degree in Jaipur where he lives. He is going back for his masters soon and wants to be a psychologist specializing in schizophrenia. After we got back from dinner we say by the fire put with him and had a beer. It was really great talking to someone who our age, and also really nice to talk to someone who was much more modern. Considering how a lot of the religion here promotes openness and acceptance of other living beings, I've found almost everyone to be very close-minded and old fashioned. Our tour guide, for example, was very confused that we lived without our families in Italy, and that we weren't yet married, and when I brought up Charlie he said he doesn't understand how I could be ok with a middle he man remarrying and having another baby. I didn't even begin trying to explain that they aren't married hahaha. Ok- so I was pushing it by even getting into that conversation.
Anyways, our Indian friend spoke perfect English and told us stories about him and his friends camping up north and partying and stress from school... And it was just so nice to relate to someone here! As well as have authentic and good conversation. It's been very hard to come by with language barriers and brief encounters.

I put myself to bed at 130am and conked out, exhausted. I woke up to Ajdas alarm and felt like I had been hit by a truck. My head pounded. I think I didn't drink enough water the last few days. We are breakfast (which was much less oily!), and checked out. Our friend said that lunch the day before was on the house, as we're our beers the night before. So kind! We left them a big tip.

Then we set off for the infamous rat temple. I could tell you that the name is deceptive and that we went to some gorgeous ancient temple in the middle of the Indian desert...but then I would be lying. The rat temple is exactly how it sounds... It is a temple dedicated to rats. They run freely by the thousands, fighting, hissing, and scurrying overtop of each others mangy coats. Like all temples in India, we had to remove our shoes. We feed on fat poo and rat feed and watched hundreds crawl in and out of cracks in the walls and drink milk out of giant saucers. It was quite the experience to say the least, and gave me serious stress. You can Call me OCD, or blame it on the fact that I'm a Virgo, but that whole experience freaked me right out.. and I've pretty much reached my limit in India as far as the whole unhygienic surroundings and revolting smells go. I'm still cringing at the fact I've been siting in a car for 5 hours without having been able to wash my feet yet. I thought I was being pretty good already by petting sick goats with wart mouths, eating in questionable restaurants, choosing to ignore the black snot in my tissue, and holding my breath in the urine and feces covered roadside-washrooms. The rat temple was the last straw! Please India, be good to me the next few weeks.

Anyways I'm going to do some writing to try and take my mind off the fact that my stomach is eating itself. I could have eaten at the roadside hotel or driver stopped at (he obviously knew the people and got to eat in the back), but it was stupidly expensive. 280 rupees for 1 naan bread. That's about $4.50. To give you a better idea of what a rip off that is here (because I know in Vancouver $4.50 for a naan is probably pretty standard) our hotels have been charging an average of 40 rupees per naan. The fanciest of our hotels, the Taj in Mumbai, charged 120 rupees. And this is in one of the nicest dining rooms in India. So I don't know who these people thought they were fooling but we weren't about to spend $30 to sit and sweat on plastic chairs, sharing a shitty side-of-the-highway meal with 200 flies. TAKE THAT tourist trap!


Ps. Our hotels resident pet was an adorable snorting pug named Wendy who fell in love with Ajda. Photo below.