Hi everyone.

The final blog will be a short one, since I've basically only to have a shower (if I can borrow a towel at the hotel), put on some relatively clean clothes, pack my things, and head for the airport.

The last few days have been exceedingly relaxed.. Not necessarily relaxing, but definitely relaxed. Basically, I've done nothing. Very boring to you readers and lovers of Simon E-stories, but... Tis the truth, the whole truth, and etc.

Trekking in Sikkim coupled with a lot of very bad nights around India had made me so completely nackered, that I simply had to sleep. Ended up finding a cheap-cheap hotel in one of the cheapest and worst parts of New Delhi (Paharganj) and sleeping all day in my tiny cell-like room. Spent my evening looking around the area, getting some money for my last few days, and getting cheated at a restaurant (the food was very good, too good, but definitely not 365Rs.-good!).

Today, I slept until 11 o'clock, then went for some 'internetting' and finally, at about 1300 hours, went for a shopping tour of the city! - yes, I admit it, I am gay!

My dear father, Robert E., told me over a mail that I had loads of money to spend, so what I did was ask around for the best shops in town, then went there and spent my fortune! :) Nah, ended up buying very little - most of all, I've bought Indian spices so that I can make delicious Indian food for family and friends. :)

Last time I traveled in India, Sofia and I had an excellent dinner at one of Mumbai's very best sushi restaurant. This evening, I visited a relatively good mexican restaurant (shows my severe lack of style) and spent a whopping 1600Rs. on my meal.

Well, I'm all gittery to get out of here and back to DK, so that's all from me this time around. As I've told loads of people, this ain't my last travels - not by any stretch of the imagination, so before you know it, there'll be another travellog to keep up with.

Places waiting for Simon E (but not necessarily waiting in this order ;) )   :

Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Europe, Afrika, Russia, Thailand, China, Japan, Laos, Indonesia, Australia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, America, etc, etc, etc....

(Simon E)

Hallo all, good to back to civilization - that meaning computers with internet!

When did I go to Sikkim... the 5th I think, yeah. And now I'm back in Darjeeling on the 10th. Not very long to stay a place like Sikkim (it was very beautiful up there) but hell, I've seen a lot. I'm slowly but surely (mostly the latter) moving southwards towards Kolkata, ready to catch my flight to Delhi on the 13th.

Sikkim: a place full of Nepalis and Tibetans, not very Indian at all actually. It is an Indian state, but back in the day when Tibet was a power in itself, they desperately tried to get Sikkim as a part of their already gigantic kingdom. The Tibetan influence is obvious everywhere. Main language is Nepali (yeah so... the Tibetan AND Nepali influence), main food is thukpa and momos (noodle soup and steamed dumplings w. cabbage-onion filling), and a very special treat up there is the tzongpa, a fermented millet beer. I great beer enthusiac, this beer was one of the main things I wanted to experience up there, but I was a little disappointed, I must admit. Ideally, they let millet ferment as long as possible (or about 2-3 weeks), then wack it in a big wooden dring jug and poor boiling water on the top. You then let it stand for 5-10 minutes and finally drink the whole thing (the milky-white liquid, not the millet) through a bamboo straw. Sounds great, the ideal way to get pissed extremely quickly! :)) BUT! If the millet isn't left to ferment long enough, you end up with a somewhat sad yeasty-sweet childrens drink that doesn't taste anything like the real thing.

But there you go, can't win 'em all. What I did "win" was great, I'd stretch it to sublime weather for a couple of days up there. All the clouds disappeared and suddenly there was only Simon E + a bloody fantastic view of the mountains (the Himalayas basically). Counting my pictures, I've found out that I took no less than 60 pics of the 5 white peaks of Khangchendzonga (Khangchendzonga means something like 'Five peaked Fortress' in tibetan).

The day of the clearing-up-of-clouds, I started a 27-kms trek from Pelling (THE spot to view the mountains) to the small but famous town (incl. holy lake) Khecheopalri - pronounced Catch-a-(not a cherry but...)perry. This was obviously an act of great stupidity, since my backpack ways about 20+ kgs and is packed in a way that makes it feel like 30+!

After 10 kilometers I still felt good. Problem is, here in Northern India they don't use signs. If you finally find one, the distances on it will be ridiculously wrong. So! I didn't know how far I'd gone. The terrain was very mixed, going up'n'down like a roller-coaster, so I couldn't even trust my 5km/hour theory.

It all ended in misery and the vanishing of Simon E-manhood: after about 20-21 kms, I gave up and jumped into a taxi jeep.

Getting to Catch-a-perry, I checked out my feet: two blister had appeared, both competing for the prize of most gruesome blister ever (in the history on Man!). And with these, another bout of stupidity hit me: why not go on another hard trek the next day, only this time not alone. Noo, this time it would be with a guy who trekked at about 6kms/hour (TREKKED! CROSS-COUNTRY!) and had done Mt. Everest several times (not to the top, but not far off).

So! With punctured blisters and aching shoulders, I did my best to keep up with his break-neck speed up and down the close-to vertical hills/mountains.

Again, misery: admitting to weakness and realizing that I might just die if I didn't have a break, I stopped after about 3 hours or so. Gottfried (the German Hercules of Trekking) got us some tea from the locals and after twenty minutes or so, I managed to get up the hill and stumble into the 'Dragon Hotel' in Yuksam.

Never(-ever) have I felt so physically shat upon and shattered. I might as well admit to Gottfrieds age while I'm at it: fifty-bloody-seven! And he beat me wholely, completely, but at least not ruthlessly - all the way, this Yak-Oxe of Men kept me going, coaxing me on with constant promises of hot tea'n'omelettes! :))

Anyway, I survived (if only just!) and as I'm sat here in Darjeeling, I can only regret to not having taken more pictures while on the treks. Had I just had slightly more energy I could have snapped 'perfect post-card photos' all the way, but alas... Next time, it'll just have to be next time around.

Lastly, in this final of blogs (there might be more, but not many), I guess I have to tell "ya'll" how and when I'm going home:

Tomorrow evening I've got a sleeper-seat on the train down to Kolkata. There, I've got a full day of enjoying heat, pollution, noise, getting run down in traffic. On the 13th, I'm catching a flight to Delhi. Haven't got a clue what I'm doing there, but on the 15th I'm heading for Heathrow (more than 4000 kms and about 9-10 hours) then from there, on to DK (Kastrup).

Should be a breeze - I've booked and confirmed all my tickets and really just have to fill in the gaps with relaxing/exciting things to do. :)

I'm sure I'll be fine.

All the best. There's still time for a few greeting in the guestbook! ;))

Simon E

Hey folks.

Just got 'back' from a Darjeeling Tea-binge. Bought huge amounts of tea, but luckily tea 'fills more than it weighs'... Strange thing to say, but you get my meaning, I hope. :)

Here's the deal: I traveled from Kolkata to Darjeeling, thinking I was heading for a tranquil paradise - the views and tea would be more than satisfying enough to keep me occupied for the two weeks I had left in India.

BUT! Right now, the views are non-existing. Darjeeling has been invaded by heavy white ice-cold clouds - walking through the streets you can feel the freezing light touch on your cheeks. What this basically means is that seeing more than about 100 metres is impossible. Seeing the mountains around Darjeeling, of course, is completely out of the question. Sad but true, and I've decided to take the consequence and travel further North.

The weather in Sikkim, where I'm heading, is colder, wetter, and could be more cloudy. BUT! (again) at least there are loads of trekking destinations and sights to go to in Sikkim, whereas Darjeeling is one of the more boring places I've been here in India.

Sikkim borders up to Nepal, India, China (Tibet), and... one other country that I can remember. Getting there won't take too long, and the views should be absolutely fantastic on a clear day - let's all cross fingers that such a day will arrive during the next few days. :)

A quick run-through of my days here in Darjeeling: I started of by doing nothing at all, just sitting around sipping tea and reading. That's of course very nice, but hyper-active Simon E needed more, so the last few days I've been doing day-treks up'n'down the Darjeeling-peak-mountain-thing. Nice 15km hikes that left me sweaty and longing for loads of tea and momos! :) No, it's been really great. I've seen lots of great curiosities and met loads of really sweet people.

Today I went to get my Sikkim permit. Such a thing is necessary since Sikkim is not really a part of India. That's why Travellog here makes it look like I'm in Nepal. Don't know much about Sikkim, but the main language is Nepalese, main religion is Buddhism, and... yeah, they've got this special kind of beer which I'm really looking forward to tasting! :))

Other than that, they've got great views of Mt. Everest and even better ones of the 2.highest mountain in the World, Kadenchonga (spelt completely wrong, but that's basically how it's pronounced). Treks go up to this monster, but you need further permits, guides, and time - it takes about 10 days to do the full trek, which brings you up to a hardcore 6000 meters (I think?!). Wow, but... guess I'll come back another time. Planning on trekking up to Mt. Everest Base Camp in a few years, then maybe I'll go to Sikkim and do Kadenchonga afterwards! ;)

That's all from me for the next many days. My main destination in Sikkim doesn't have internet AND I'll be trekking around from town to town hopefully for 3-5 days, so...

Try to enjoy the Christmas hassle just a wee bit and look forward to the 15th when Simon E will be back in DK to bless you with his presence! (barf barf!)

Simon E :)

Namaste everyone.

I'm here, the last place I'll be visiting in India this time around. Darjeeling, right up in the most northern parts of West Bengal. It's truly freezing up here, and I'm literally shivering as I write this.

The trip was quite uneventful. The train trip was really cold, but I'm becoming somewhat of a master at sleeping anyway. Kashmiren scarf wrapped around my face, Lonely Planet under my head as a pillow, and German-Clown blanket wrapped around the rest of my feebly shaking'n'shivering body. :)

I arrived, not in Darjeeling, but in a small place called New Jalpaiguri. From here I caught a jeep up to Darjeeling, a 3 hour trip up bumby roads. Basically, these jeeps work a bus-service: they take 10 people from N.J. or Siliguri (big city close by) up to Darjeeling, then take 10 back down again. It's the fastest way to travel here, but sitting 10 people in a jeep is about 5 too many - so I did the touristy thing and joined some other white people in a jeep. 200Rs. each wasn't too bad AND I've decided that my last time in India shouldn't be affected too much by budget problems. I've got enough money to have a nice last two weeks, so that's what I'm planning to have. :)

Well, I've found a great room - the view is of the snowy Himalayas, among others the 3. highest mountain in the World. Can't spell the name, but it's about 8,500 meters high, which is a fair bit. :)

The cold is getting worse, so I'm off for a cup of tea. ;)

FOR NOW

Bye bye everybody,

Simon E

Firstly, although I hate these kind of things, I'd like youto think a little of all the people who've died in Mumbai during the last 48hours. Being in Europe makes the terror attacks less serious, they won't affectyou besides maybe filling a few newspapers for a few days. Being here in India,the situation is different. Everyone traveling here knows someone who'straveling southward, maybe even someone staying in Mumbai. People are talkingabout it everywhere, hotels in Kolkata are upping security, even the poor aregathering outside television stores to get the latest news about the attacks.

And with that said, let's get on to the more cheery part of Simon E'sadventures:
Kolkata, City of Joy. I really have no idea why Kolkata is called this - Ithink it's an old term, back from when it was the Brits Indian capital - 'causethere sure is a lot of unhappiness here, too. Yesterday was a funny day. Well,really I should start with the day before, the 25th.

After leaving the internet café on the 25th, I had dinner with this Slovenianguy I was talking about. I try to keep away from too much alcohol + meat whilein India, but Kolkata and I think all of Bengal (the state I'm in) has got somany delicious meat dishes, especially their fish and seafood dishes. Mmmhh..Well anyway, we had some of the best chicken kabab I've ever tasted plus someTibetan Veg Momos (veg wrapped into small steamed dumplings). After that webought beers (beers are ridiculously cheap here, only 45Rs. for 650ml) and gotdrunk talking about his life and how he wants to cheat the Slovenian tax systemwith his girlfriend. :)
A very attractive Korean girl passed by after the last beer, and pigs as wewere, we followed her up to a wacky dress-party. Loads of young people from thearea, most of them working for the Mother Theresa cause, were having a partyand I met some really nice people. Great times, especially one American girl.We had a long talk about DK's politics and of course the American elections.
The 26th arrived far too early. Indian beer gives you the strangest hang-oversand I wasn't at all up for an early morning. BUT! I'd agreed on going around toa few sights with the Slovenian guy, so 8.30 it was! :-/
We started of by going to China Town, a part of town that was once inhabitedsolely by Chinese, but which is now full of all sorts of cultures and religions- the Chinese are actually a minority now and only about 2000-3000 remain. Therest have fled to Western countries, seeking the riches that are to be hadhere.
God knows why The Lonely Bloody Planet recommends this place, but we arrivedand found the restaurant we were looking for - we thought. The thing is, TheBook says you should find the Nam-Kim Restaurant (or something like that) andnear to that, you'd find great heaps of rubbish wherein people lived. I wantedfor some bizarre reason to see this, but when we closed in on the area, werealized our driver had no clue and had taken us to the wrong place, TheNam-KING Restaurant.
But no worries, the owner of the restaurant had just come back from travels inNagaland. He was a really friendly bloke and took us to the local Chinesetemple. A very modern building, the temple in itself was nothing special. Whatwas special was the reception that greeted us there: a young woman, herbeautiful little daughter, a funny old guy and his wife, plus their spiritualteacher from Taiwan. :) We were served green tea, which I normally loathe. Butthis time, in the company of connoisseurs ;) I really enjoyed the watery drink.Marie biscuits (they are very popular over here) and apples in salt water (tokeep them from going brown) were put on the table and we had a really niceconversation about the Chinese community in Kolkata.
Finally breaking away from their extreme kindness, we left the dining area, andlooking out the window we noticed something very strange: hundreds of cow hideswere being dried and cured (?) on the surrounding roofs. It had been lessstrange in any other country, but since the cow is about the holiest beast inIndia, the sight was quite unsettling! :-/ Especially since many of the leatherworkers were Indian - people working with leather are basically outcasts inIndia and have very hard lives.
Okay, well after this, our new Chinese friend helped us to find one of the reallypoor areas in Kolkata. They didn't live in rubbish heaps, but their homes weremade of scrap metal, plastic bags, etc. Walking around in the stench and dirtof such a place, you can't but feel slightly humbled - and very lucky thatyou're from a country where such things are basically impossible.
I said my goodbyes to both of my new friends. Slovenian tax-cheater was of toBangalore, Chinese Indian-hater (he told us all kinds of nasty things aboutIndians and made it clear that we should never trust an Indian. Christ!) was ofto his restaurant to get ready for the evening. Personally, I went back toSudder Street (the main tourist living-area I'm afraid to say), had lunch andthen went to Science City:
Science City, what a bloody joke it was. To be fair, the park is mainlyintended for children and youngsters. But some of the attractions were soabysmal that even children would puke. Firstly though, good things: a majorpart of the 'city' was their space and dynamics building. Here they had allsorts of funny gadgets (in the hundreds I'd say) that you could try out. Amirror maze nearly killed me (it is brilliantly disorientating to walk aroundin a mirror maze, though the risk of hitting your head is also quite high!),and I tried out all sorts of 3D-shows and spaceship-simulators. :)
Arriving at about 2pm. I didn't leave till 6, so it wasn't all bad, of course.I wandered around for hours with a gigantic grin on my face - happy to be 9again! ;o)

God, I can't wait any longer, I have to tell: the sole reason I went to ScienceCity was really because I was going to a concert in their auditorium. JethroTull was playing and I had a pretty good seat booked! Wow, I was so exited andwhat a concert.!
I should start by saying: Jethro Tull is amazing, still. Sadly, this can onlybe said about their instrumental skills. Ian Anderson, the main singer, can'tsing to save his life. It was surreal to hear his new takes on old classics -he obviously tried to make it sound intentional, but failed embarrassingly andjust ruined many of his best songs. Ah, but ruined is being to harsh. Cause asI've said already, the instrumental part was breathtaking. Anderson plays theflute like a true master. Starting of the concert, he stood in the classicJ.T.-stance, one leg bent and resting on the other knee. He then playedone-handed AND of course made crude flute-movements between his legs. :)
But this was no one-man show: beside the rest of his band, Anderson was joinedby sitar-player Anoushka Shankar. Her father is famous and she's no slouchherself. She actually kicked of the concert, playing for 40 mins straight - 2different so-called ragga's at a breathtaking tempo'n'skill.
She played for 40 mins, J.T. played for about an hour, and then the specialpart of the concert started: the two very different artists joined hands in aAsia-meets-The-West. Both Anderson and Shankar had written music specificallyfor this concert. Anderson's 'Tea with Anoushka' and 'Celtic Cradle' weresomewhat successful, but Shankar's mix of Western classical music and up-beatsitar playing didn't work at all.
The concert ended with a fantastic version of 'Locomotive Breath'. The guitar soloswere masterful, the sitar worked relatively well, and Anderson showed that he'sthe true master of the flute.
I will stop at that. I've got quite a few points of critique, mainly the timingof the concert and the egocentric and slightly ridiculous behavior of IanAnderson, but hell, who wants to hear about that anyway. All in all, it wasfantastic. For 1000Rs. I got to experience old classics like 'Thick as aBrick', 'Mother Goose', 'Aqualung', 'Heavy Horses', 'A New Day Yesterday'.'Living in The Past', etc. Fantastic, really amazing.

That's all for now, but I'm quite sure I'll have loads more to tell soon, sokeep checking the blog - and get on writing me some guestbook messages! ;o)

Simon E

Wow, hope you've had a rest... There's still quite a lot of diary left to be read, so brew a cuppa and get ready! ;o)
DAY 4 of Camel Safari Pushkar-Jodhpur, 17.11.2008

Holy shit, this trip (both the safari but also the whole India trip) is just getting better and better. The last hour or so I've been half-sleeping to the sound of Rajasthani wedding soungs + drumming. I've slept on a roof tonight - woke up at about 3am; the moon was so beautiful and I am/was so happy.
Yesterday, I wrote down about two pages of weird and wonderful notes. In Pushkar I bought a new notebook (camel leather inbound, bien sur) + two other relatively small boos for whatever + a gi-normous photoalbum. It could hardly fit into my large rucksack!
Anyway, I noted yesterday that Babu does not know the word 'soil'. He simply didn't know what I was talking about. The same with the sweet Rajput family. But yesterday, Babu told me something funny: camels could fall if rocks were too big or if there was too much water OR(!) if they were walking in 'black sand'. Black sand - I find it so fantastic that the desert people of Rajasthan do not call it soul, but black sand...

Oh, and notes on camels:
- (more about the pains of camel spines!)
- Camels are relatively intelligent as I've noted before. But only in some aspects and to some extent. Camels shit when they eat and piss while they're drinking. They will gladly lie in their own feces. They have control over their penis and can direct their piss pretty much anywhere they want. They choose their legs! - for some disgusting reason, they always piss down their own legs..!
...........................................................
That was notes on camels. Yesterday, we arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere. Jitu has an auntie here, so we dropped in for a visit. God, suddenly twenty people were stacked into the 5*5m. rrom that I was in. Everyone wanted a look at the gora log (= white man). The people are fantastical! Happy, welcoming. Indian with a gigantic I! While Babu and Jitu unsaddled the camels, several of them began babbgling on in Hindi, indifferent to the fact that I could not understand them. We took loads of pics; all of them (the people in the village) were vert fascinated by the camera. After a while Babu told me that they'd never had a gora log visiting their village! They've probably had gora logs passing thorugh, but never stopping in. Amazing...
With Babu as my interpreter I found out that the village people don't use kilometers/the metric system. They have another measurement pronounced 'cause'; one cause equals about 3 kilometers. Apparently, we've done about 16 cause today (48km). A camel does between 5-6 kms/hour so... yeah well, it being 60-65 kms to Jodhpur from here, we should actually be able to arrive tonight. But Babu has plans for doing something else. Tomorrow evening we'll arrive there though - that's been the plan all along.
NEWS! On arriving in Johdpur I won't need a hotel. Babu and Jitu have family there, so we'll stay with them. The next day Jitu (who isn't actually a camel driver but a rickshaw-wallah and 'gangleader'(!)/member instead) will fit us  with a rickshaw for the day and we'll see all the sights, go the the cinema, etc. AND! Everything incl. my bus/train ticket will be the Indian price! ;o) Fantastic!
This is what I noted yesterday:
"Oh my God, I'm in a village where they've never seen/had white people visiting! I just went for a piss. They don't even have a hole in the fucking ground! - just a slope down to a small hole in the wall; and the piss then flows out into the street in open gutters!"
Tjese were my thoughts yesterday. Going to sleep helped me digest the impressions though, and I've now realized that the dear people let me have a wee in their bathroom/shower room. They didn't want to tell me to go out into the street and piss directly in the gutters. I desperately need a shit now though, and I've got no clue whatsoever where to have a dump in the light of day. I've already attracted two little boys from downstairs / they've now been looking at me writing for the best of 10 minutes! If I go down to the street level, I'll never get peace. The townis still blissfully unaware of my presence here in town (I think) but... I bet if I went down to the street to defacate, I'd have a large crowd entertained by my bowel movements.
Enough of that. I'll wait until Babu gets up, then have him show me a 'safe haven'! :)
.........................................................................
Haha, just been to the local public toilet. 'Tis a deserted area of town where everyone goes in the morning time for a crap. They all carry 1L. bottles of water and then get down to business while talking about bowel movements and World politics! :)) I luckily escaped most spectators, but it did take some convincing looks before my host pissed off and did his own thing, rather than keeping an eye on me! :))

I came to the desert to have a peaceful time; I wanted the silence of the desert + the pain of the riding to be a form of meditation for me. Instead, we're drinking daily. Whenever visiting Indian families here in Rajasthan, you'll be invited (read, forced) to drink with them. If you say yes it won't just be one small shot! - it'll be 5 great big glasses full of "whisky" - whisky being brown acid piss directly from the penis of Beelsebub!
Jitu's aunt downed a great big jug of the stuff without the slightest flich - she drank it like it was bloody paani (water). I tried to imitate her; my throat nearly melted! ;o) We all ended up drinking/sharing a bottle and Jitu got embarrasingly drunk. We all had great fun taking pictures of him and clapping him on the back and top of his head. :) Today, we'll surely show him the pics with much mirth!
Apparently, the tradition is to drink then eat here in Rajasthan. I told Babu that we reverse it in DK (I believe in all of Europe). It's mad to drink that much, dance around, and party - then! you get your dinner at about 10-11pm. - soon after that you go to bed, full of fatty food.

DAY 5 of Camel Safari Pushkar-Jodhpur, 18.11.2008

I've got loads of notes and remarks on the last five days. Right now though, I'm just looking forward to a last day of riding. I'm planning on doing an all-day ride today. Could be painful, but hell - I've got plenty of time to heal afterwards! :)
Something that's worrying me a bit is my bowels. The last few days my stools have had a last small 'blob' of bloody slime/goo. Bad business for sure.. :(
.........................................................................................
The day has gone/ We're now at Jitu's uncle's place, I think. He's a policeman here in Jopdhpur - a medium-sized man with a proud paunch! His house is in a special police district - I think there are only police families living here. SOO (!) strange to come here. The last 15 kms were citylike, the last 3-5 big style city. Camels and heavy traffic don't fit well, but the camels did well - no panic.
The family is of course very nice - again they are so-so honoured that I've chosen to visit them. I in turn am also honoured. It's excactly this travelling is all about. Mingling with locals, nnot white people - Israelis fx are terrible at coming to India and then only talking to other Israelis; they don't even speak to other tourists most of the time.
My stomach has given me a load of trouble today. Last day of safari wasn't as good as I'd wished - stomach cramps and flatulence en masse! ;-) Aaah! Just went to the toilet. - I blasted it everywhere including up the back wall! Ooh... :( AND! I've had really good experience with washing the Indian way (they don't use toilet paper over here, just water and a left hand), but now my fingers stink of diarrhoea. OMG!
.........................................................................................
Writing on eventhough it's been a couple of days. (wrote this the 20th)
On the night of my arrival in Jodhpur I bought beer and whisky for everyone. 610Rs worth of booze! We then started drinking. An irritating custom in Indian is that young men aren't allowed to drink in front of their elders. I was allowed (of course, 'cause I'm the tourist gora log guest), but Babu and Jitu had to go outside and sit by themselves.
Jitu's father who was also visiting drank 30cl. of whisky in about 20 minutes and soon passed out. Oh, and I made a mistake: in India everyone pours their drink, then the oldest guy starts, then everyone else can start. I poured the beers, then straight away took a much needed swig! - but no worries, everyone was happy anyway. :)
We kept on drinking until about 11pm. Tradition in India is that you must drink before eating - preferably emptying every bottle in the house! :) Eating then begins, a tedious affair where the guest is served first - the host the sits and stares and forces more food on you constantly. After eating you go straight to bed. Strange way of doing things. No wonder the men all have little beer bellies - everything they eat in the evenings goes straight to the paunch! :)
Sleeping there was quite terrible. It was boling hot in the room and mosquitos swarmed around my face all night long.
.......................................................................................
NEXT DAY! ;-)
Woke up at about 5.30 with my host shouting at his son to get up. Fell asleep again. Woke up at 6.30 with the wife fidgeting around in our room. Fell asleep again. Finally got up at about 7am when the noise was too much. The children who'd been so unceremoniously woken at 6am hadn't left yet. God knows what they been doing all morning.
Babu, Jitu and I escaped at about 8am. I booked a ticket to Varanasiu and we went for breakfast.
Strange India. Babu casually dropped the message that he and Jitu would not be joining me in Jodhpur sight-seeing as we'd planned and agreed upon. Instead, they wanted to head off as fasst as possible. After asking a few times I found out a friend of Babu's had called him - two German girls were waiting to go from Pushkar to Jodhpur! So Babu and Jitu would race back, only to take the more than 200kms trip back to Jodhpur again-again. Poor bastards, but major money (and chance of chut!) :o)
Babu also told me that it'd probably be a  good idea to flee Jitu's policeman uncle's home. Breakfast that day was supposed to be mutton at their place, but Babu told me that they'd expect me to buy the meat! :) I'd spent a bloody fortune of booze but a gora log is a gora log, rich and giving, non?! ;)
So, Babu helped me to lie about my trains' departure time, and I escaped another hair raising night in that home. Oh, the kids were cute, but one of the girls constantly nicked my camera and started taking nonsense pics of anything and everything. My troup of Lonesome Desert Cowboys joined me a last time in finding my hotel. Goodbye was very strange. We all, especially Babu and I, had grown to appreciate each others company, so it was with a heavy heart that I paid them their money + a tip and we split up. "Take care, Gora Log", "Hope you score some German chut, Gara Log." :o)

Hi all, I'm whole and healthy - mostly so - after a week of madness in the deserts of Rajasthan.
I've been thinking like mad, how to really show you how absolutely amazing my week has been. It's truly been some of the best traveling I've ever done, no doubt about it. But how to get that through in this bloody blog?!
Well, my solution has been to copy my diary in here - hopefully, you'll feel a bit the happiness, exhilaration, and overall thrill I was experiencing while doing things that dreams (mine anyway) are made of...

DAY 1 of Camel Safari Pushkar-Jodhpur, 14.11.2008

Yesterday was the last day of the Pushkar Camel Fair. IT was crazy - I bought so many nice things for myself, plus I went down to the Mela Grounds (main fair grounds) and watched a crazy motorbike show and a terribly boring circus show. Right now, I'm lying 25 kms from Pushkar, writing with a small candle and a minute camp fire as my only source of light. It took us about 4 hours to do the 25 kms today, so I expect us to do about 45-50 tomorrow. It's fantastic. Ive been riding Krishna aka. Ganesh today. He's an extremely intelligent 7-year-old camel; it's so bloody cool! The two camel drivers have taken it in turns to 'drive' the camel cart. Two camels, one wagon, and three gentlemen (read: Lonesome Desert Cowboys) - that's what my travel party consists of.

Facts about camels:
- They can start pissing and go on for about 50-75 meters!
- They learn quickly; Krishna started out not wanting to ride very fast with me. Then I learnt to whip him hard enough! In the end, I only had to raise my hand and he would accelerate dramatically to avoid the sting. (I should add that the Indians whipped the beasts harder than I, AND that a camel is a pretty big animal - if you don't control its every move, it can bite you arm off, no kidding...)
- The sound of camel poop hitting the ground becomes as cozy as that of a flickering flame - it just fits in here in the desert!

... and how will I get there? I'll tell you -

But first, 'finally' an account of my week here in Pushkar. I've told you of camel farts and I've shown you a few pics, but there's is more to it, yes sir'ree!

It's been a crazy week. The Pushkar Camel Fair/Festival is a culmination of many things.

1) From about November 6.-10., camels'n'cattle are bought and sold with much haggling, swearing, and probably fighting. A camel costs from about 10.000-30.000Rs., the black ones being more expensive than the normal sand-coloured ones - and young camels being more expensive than older ones.

2) 10.-13. is tourist time. Most of the backpackers flee from the insane prices (nearly everything goes up 5-10 times), and in come the rich old tourists instead. The camels slowly dissappear, the numbers going from I guess 15.-20.000 and down to about 500 maybe. The 500 are solely used for the rich tourist, taking them either from A to B in the main area - or taking them on an expensive trip  out to the sand dunes for sunrise and sunset views.

3) Today, the 13th, is the climax for the festival and for the pilgrims. Pushkar is one of the only places on Earth with an actual temple to the God of gods, Brahma. The brahmans (the highest caste in the caste system) all come here. Or, probably not all of them, but a bloody lot anyway. Thousands, tens of thousands... Oh, it was terrible. They started roaming the streets at about 3 o'clock this morning, and they didn't piss off until about 5 o'clock this evening. They're all here for a dunk in the holy lake which is the center of town - after that they linger to see all the crazy things (incl. all the white people) going on in the rest of town.

So anyway, it's been quite a special week. I must admit, to your and especially my own dissappointment, that the camel fair hasn't been half as cool as I'd expected. Pushkar is a very chilled town with hardly anything to do. The camel fair adds a lot to that, but still... I've ended up chilling, reading, eating, looking at camels, and walking around, desperately trying to find some strange tournament or something. Only today I experienced the utter madness that I've been told about so often.

A word of advice - if you ever go to Pushkar, go here when the camel fair is over or hasn't started yet. OR! Come one of the last days of the fair. Then it'll be excellent, truly. :)

Anyway, what have I seen? Children balancing gigantic pots on their heads, dancing around, apparently oblivious to the fact, that some evil liquid had been lit on fire in the pots! Guys eating fire, blowing it out in biiiig fireballs - again, apparently not really getting how unhealthy such an act could turn out to be. Besides near-infants dancing with fire, I've seen just about every/any type of dance on offer here in Rajasthan (and India?). I've listened to endless amounts of really good Rajasthani music and singing, and I've been to a cooking class where I learned how to cook classic Rajasthani bathi (bread balls with spices cooked/baked in a fire), etc. I've attended camel races where we were nearly trampled to death by the camels - neither the camels OR their riders seemed to know where the finishing line was! :)) I've been to moustache competitions, camel decoration competitions, Indian bride competions - the latter being a terrible ordeal where people from around the World had been dressed up and had to say a few things about India, Rajasthan, Pushkar. It was really painfully embarrassing - my dear father would not have survived, I'm sure. ;o)

Finally, today I went for a last stroll down the main fair and bazar. I went to see some absolutely wacky-crazy-insane guys; they had built a court with 15-20 m. high walls. They then raced around the bottom a few times in cars and on motorbikes, then suddenly raced up and around the walls, driving insanely fast and grabbing money from the crowd. I should add that these guys were racing around at about 100 mph. - all the while only wearing flipflops, clothes of course, but no helmets or other padding to save them should they slip.! I'll put some pictures in here in a week or so, but.. Oh, you just can't imagine how utterly sick their act was! :o)) - I loved it!

And finally, how will I go to Jodhpur. By camel, yessir! I'll be riding alone, with only two guys accompanying me. They'll fix the meals and keep me company when required, but otherwise, it'll pretty much just be me, Krishna my camel, and the desert. How long will it take me? - hard to say, but between 5-6 days, depending on how well I take to the painful ordeal that camel riding can be.

That's it from Pushkar. A pretty lame account of a whole week, I know, but... Hmm, hasn't been the best week, and most times dissappointment ends in bad blogs. :-/ But I think I'll write again in a weeks time, by which time I'll be reminiscing about Pushkar already. Then you can have the true account of the whole thing! ;o)

All the best to y'all! :)

Simon E aka. Desert Cowboy