JTTE: A Final Word on India
“So how was India?” Next to ‘how ya doin?’, this is the most common question I’ve had in the past week from relatives, family, friends and co-workers. I don’t mind actually; every time the question is posed I get to reminisce about the trip. “It was awesome. It’s an amazing place” India will teach you [...]
JTTE: Coming Home
There is nothing exciting about waking up at 4:00 in the morning to start a 12 hour car ride from Udaipur to Delhi. Suffice it to say that that is what we did. There isn’t much exciting about a 12 hour car ride either. We did that too. Upon arriving in Delhi we had far [...]
JTTE: The Hell with the Train
We got an early start on our first full day in Udaipur as their was much to see and do. Our first stop was the Jagdish Temple, very much a working Hindu temple near to our haveli. We proceeded clockwise around the grounds to each of the small shrines, examining the elephant plinth and the [...]
JTTE: The Most Romantic City in All of India
The road to Udaipur began after a quick caffeine fix. This would be our shortest driving length of the trip, but owing to the terrain would be our longest. Leaving Jodhpur we encountered some of the most poorly maintained tracts of asphalt I’ve seen this side of Costa Rica. Couple that with the fact that [...]
JTTE: A Respite in Jodhpur
After a leisurely breakfast Friday morning on the terrace of the Fifu Guest House, we began our journey out of the Thar and back towards central India. We had planned a stop on our way to Udaipur in the city of Jodhpur. Founded in 1459, Jodhpur is the second largest in the state of Rajasthan, [...]
JTTE: How Rajasthan Gets Medieval
We rolled out of bed early on Thursday for a quick breakfast in our hotel. I had a masala omelet, which I will try to replicate when I get home, and a tea. Cary suffered through the coffee. A Word about Coffee in India. Instant. It seems ubiquitous. Nearly every hotel mixes up a batch [...]
JTTE: Bringing the Rain to Bikaner
We began our descent into the western desert of Rajasthan around 7:30 AM on Wednesday. We had to cross 320 Km of sand and scrub before we would arrive at Bikaner, and our driver informed us that the drive would be very boring. On the contrary, we found the drive to be peaceful as the [...]
JTTE: The Pink City II
By the time we got to Amer Fort on Tuesday the line to take the elephants through the moon gate entrance was too long for us to bear, and already we wished we had made an earlier start. With a full day of sites to see we skipped the elephants; just as well, Cary hears [...]
JTTE: The Pink City I
We left for Jaipur at a reasonable hour on Monday; we would be spending two nights in the city and felt we could get there a little later, not to mention we needed the rest. On the way we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, a fort located about 100 Km from Agra. Fatehpur Sikri resembled many [...]
JTTE: Agra, A Great Place to be Buried
I don’t feel like I’m on vacation as I stumble out of the Master Guest House at 4:00 in the morning to meet Mashtan, our driver downstairs. Only he wasn’t exactly downstairs. The gates to the neighborhood had been closed and hadn’t been reopened yet, so we walked a couple of hundred feet to meet [...]
