Day 12: Delhi to Bundi

“I can see a lot of life in you, I can see a lot of bright in you...”
-Sufjan Stevens, “The Dress Looks Nice on You”

Locations: Delhi; Jaipur, Bundi (Rajasthan). But really just a train and then a bus.

Temperature: Delhi: 97; Jaipur: 97; Bundi: 95

Morale: 6

Spinning: Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette, Hot Chip - The Warning, Man Man - Six Demon Bag

Reading: Lonely Planet

Talking: Very little. Mostly just getting stared at. Haven't people in Rajasthan seen boatloads of tourists before? I don't get it. They just stare. Shamelessly. I scowl at them; they keep staring.

What's next (I think): Bundi (Rajasthan) for a couple days, until after the Teej festival.

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I woke up around 5:30 in my hotel room in Delhi, and, not surprisingly, the A/C wasn't working again. I think it worked for about an hour in the ~34 hours I was in Delhi. I’m so glad I paid up for A/C.

I packed up my stuff, took a preemptive cold shower, and headed to the train station. I caught the train to Jaipur without trouble, and had another great experience aboard a Shatabdi train. We were served tea (with our own personal thermos of hot water) and biscuits, then big bottles of water, and then an omelet, French fries, and toast and jam. I still don't really know what Indians eat for breakfast—surely it's not omelets and French fries.

Then we were given copies of the Hindustan Times, which is a smaller Delhi newspaper (main one is The Times of India), but it was good enough for me. The main domestic headlines were as follows:

-The Sanjay Dutt conviction/prison guard suspension: Sanjay Dutt is a famous Bollywood actor who was recently convicted of buying arms from people associated with the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 1993. Despite his conviction, he's still a much-loved figure in India, and when he posted bail a prison guard gave him a hug on the way out of the jail. The prison guard was suspended. Then, a member of the cabinet met with Dutt, which prompted the BJP (the opposition party) to pitch a fit about how Congress (the party in power) was in bed with criminals.

-Left opposition to US/India nuclear deal: the communist parties who are part of the Congress-led coalition are threatening to pull out of the coalition if Congress moves ahead with the nuclear deal with the US. If the communist parties left the coalition, it probably wouldn't have enough votes to survive.

-The Hyderabad blasts: don't worry, I was no where near Hyderabad when the bombs went off. Anyhow, the guy suspected of masterminding the blasts is a Muslim who is originally from Hyderabad and has organized bombings in the city twice before. Apparently, he sticks to the city he knows best. He's most likely based in Bangladesh now.

-England vs. India cricket series. England was up 2-1 in the series when I was reading this newspaper; now, it's 3-1. People here are obsessed with cricket.

And in international news, the big headlines were the Greek fires, Hurricane Dean in Mexico, an earthquake in Pisco, Peru, and a survey taken of leading US foreign policy experts that indicated that Pakistan was the most likely source of future terrorist attacks on the US.

Also, I forgot to mention that I had a TV in my room in Delhi, and unlike the A/C, it actually worked. So I watched a little BBC India one morning, and happened upon a lovely video clip of Miss South Carolina answering a question about... well, after she was done with her answer, I had no idea what the question was about. It's great to see Americans making fools of us all on international television. In case you've been living in a hole, here's a link to the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

One final news story that I heard about from Emily: China has said that all Buddhist reincarnations must now be approved by various levels of the government. What? Crazy, right? Anyhow, it's an obvious ploy to control who the next Dalai Lama is. And the current Dalai Lama is freaking out about it. First China invades Tibet and then they try to control who their leader-in-exile is? Really, this is too much. I now have a thing or two to discuss with Hu Jintao when I'm in Beijing. Here's the full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6973605.stm

After finishing breakfast on the train, I went into food coma and slept for the next two hours. I woke up needing to use the bathroom, so I walked down the train car until I found two doors. But it wasn’t quite as simple as “Women” and “Men”; instead, these were two different versions of toilets: Western style (sit), and Indian style (squat). This confused me. You mean, given the choice of sitting or squatting, Indians actually prefer to squat? I'm sorry, that just doesn't make any sense. I just assumed that there were squat toilets in India because sit-down toilets were too expensive. And don't try to tell me that Indians are “used to squatting,” and that's why they would choose the squat toilet over the sit toilet. Sitting down on a toilet seat doesn't require some kind of learned skill—it's just far more comfortable.

Anyhow, I went into the Western style bathroom and took care of business. I had a hunch about where the byproducts of said business might be stored, and sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed: when in India, never walk barefoot along railroad tracks.

Coming out of the bathroom, I noticed a sign that said passengers caught on the train without a ticket would be imprisoned for 3 months. Dear lord. What happened to a $50 fine?

Just before we arrived in Jaipur the waiter brought around juice boxes for everyone, which made the little kid in me (the same one who loves fruit snacks) very happy. I really love Indian trains.

Upon arriving in Jaipur, I exited the train station and started walking toward the bus station, which was 1km away, to catch the next bus to Bundi. I got harassed by touts every step of the way—one guy, after asking me to attend his “party” that evening, told me that the bus to Bundi was full, and that I would have to stay in Jaipur for the night. Actually, his exact words were, “Please believe me, the bus to Bundi is full, you must stay tonight in Jaipur!” No, dude, I won't believe you, and stop lying and telling me to “please believe you” all in the same sentence!

Anyhow, I managed to make it past the touts and bought a ticket for the next bus to Bundi, which left in 20 minutes and most certainly was not full. Or rather, it wasn't full when I bought my ticket. By the time it left, it was overflowing, like any bus in a developing country invariably is.

A word about bus travel in India: if you're sitting by the window, and you either have your pack on the rack above your seat or your pack isn't that heavy and you have it on your lap, and the bus is moving, it's actually not that bad. The air inside a moving bus is a good bit cooler than the surrounding air.

The catch is that if the air inside a moving bus is maybe 5 degrees cooler than the outside air, the air inside a stationary bus is about 47 degrees hotter. And because there's no telling when the bus will decide to leave, you must sit on that stationary bus and sweat half your body weight away while you wait for the bus to start moving. And, if at any point in the trip the bus slows down, for any reason, be it a town, a cow, or a camel, the bus immediately heats up and sweating resumes.

Anyhow, just in case I wasn't quite hot enough sitting on the bus in Jaipur waiting for it to leave, a big fat guy came and sat down in the seat next to me (read: in my lap). His rolls of fat stuck to my side like a blanket, which felt wonderful.

Thankfully the bus left after I'd been sitting on it for only 20 minutes (20 minutes is actually not that bad as these things go), and even better, the bus cleared out significantly (and the fat guy switched seats!) after the town of Tonk, which was about halfway to Bundi. The second half of the trip was luxurious by comparison.

The scenery improved along the way as well; though we weren’t traveling through desert, per se (there were plenty of trees and brush around), certain aspects of the desert began to appear, such as palm trees and camels. And we also passed herds of what turned out to be Indian pigs, but which looked more like warthogs.

I arrived in Bundi around 5pm and decided to walk from the bus station into town (about 1km) just to get a feel for the town while it was still light out. I walked through a part of the town that must see zero tourists, because before long I had a gang of about 40 kids running after me saying, “One photo, please, one photo, please!” In some countries, and even in parts of India, kids try to get you to pay to take a picture of them. Here, these kids just wanted to see themselves on my digital camera screen. Kind of refreshing.

A quick bit on Bundi: it's a town of about 90,000 people that was an important strategic stronghold for the Rajput maharajahs a few centuries ago. It remained an independent principality until 1947, when it was incorporated into Rajasthan. It has a large palace on a hill overlooking the city, and even higher on the hill is a fort, from which you can see for miles on a clear day. Down below, most of the houses and the 200 Hindu temples (yes, 200 temples in a town of 90,000 people) are painted sky blue, which my book says is due to the many Brahmin (highest caste) residents of Bundi, but which my Bundi Palace guide said was bunk—it's really because the blue dye keeps the mosquitoes away. I'm tempted to believe the palace guide given my book's penchant for romanticism.

Anyhow, I made it past all the little kids and into the old part of the town, which is still enclosed in medieval stone city walls. I decided to step it up a bit and stay in a “midrange” rather than a “budget” place, because this town felt nice and I thought it would be a much-needed break. So I checked into Haveli Braj Bushanjee, which is a 250 year old haveli (traditional, ornately decorated Rajasthani home) that was converted to a guest house 30 years ago.

The haveli was lovely. There were three rooftop terraces, two courtyards, tons of murals and other artwork on the walls, and nice chairs and couches in the common spaces. My room had a mural painted on the ceiling, stained glass windows, and multiple pieces of art hanging on the walls. The room cost Rs 700 ($17), which was easily my biggest lodging expense since the houseboat in Kashmir, but this place was well worth it. I would definitely stay here if I ever came back to Bundi.

I dropped my pack, took a quick shower, and strolled around Bundi a bit before dark. One of the most beautiful things about Bundi is the square reservoir in the center of town called Nawal Sagar, which has a temple to Varuna, the Aryan god of water, in the middle of it. I sat by the shore and watched the sun set over the city. The town really is gorgeous.

When I got back to my haveli I asked about the Teej festival, which based on the government website was starting the next day. Nope, the government messed it up—it wasn't starting until the 31st, and not until 7pm that night. So I would be staying two full days, and three nights, in Bundi. In the end, I needed the break, but I was pretty annoyed when I found out that the Rajasthani tourist website couldn't get festival dates correct. “What exactly would you say you do here?”

I got dinner at another haveli that had a garden terrace overlooking Nawal Sagar. Initially I was eating by myself, but I must have looked so pathetic that two French girls asked me to join them. They didn't speak a whole lot of English, but we managed to talk a bit about our respective travels—they had traveled through most of Rajasthan and were now headed back to Delhi to fly back to Paris. They gave me some guest house recommendations for other cities in Rajasthan, and I told them where not to stay in Delhi.

For dinner I had a thali, which is basically a tapas-style meal that involves samplings of a bunch of different Indian dishes. The downside was that I have no idea what I was eating, other than dal soup and chipati. But it was really good.

The French girls and I sat at dinner for almost 2 hours, although in that entire time we probably only exchanged about 500 words that were understood by both parties. There wasn't much to do in this small town at night (and members of the Brahmin caste, which include many of the residents of Bundi and the owners of my haveli, don't drink or serve any alcohol), so I headed back to my elegant room and went to bed.