Still waiting to get back the analog photos I took during my Rajasthan travel – it’s been 85 days that I returned (yeah, I am a lazy bum) – I ftp’d the ones I took with my iPhone. They’re surprisingly good.
[Rajasthan Photo Gallery]
In short, I flew in to Jaipur, the pink city. Apparently, the Rajasthanis are peculiarly aware of the fucked-up beauty of the city. Whilst glowing and gleaming in the sunset, Jaipur seems like a remainder of the old heritage of the Rajput Kingdoms convulsing with the industrial charms of modern India during the day and crackling New York themed burning barrels at night. Oh yes, and it smells like crap all the time but that’s true for most parts of the sub-continent.
The night train to Udaipur captured me for about twelve hours in nausea and disgust. Or let me put it like this: I did not use the toilet once! The arctic temperatures could appease me as much as the munching, staring, gawking Indian men in our cabin. As it seems Indians live in total disregard of other people’s contentment and complete absence of embarrassment and reverence. Udaipur, in contrast to this former experience, offered a rare beauty. Sticking out of the middle of the desert, the White City looks like most places in India. Like crap if watched from inside the traffic and the milling crowds but as if it was forged out of ivory from one of the many rooftop restaurants. I arrived in the morning and decided to start the day with a healthy breakfast in an upper middle-class hotel overlooking Lake Pichola. Later, I took a tourist rickshaw to some of the sights, a boot tour across the lake and decided to end the day, and sadly my journey, at the same restaurant with Lake Palace in front. I needed to maintain my buzz until the next night train whilst not ingesting too much fluids. It was a fine line between beer and cocktails. The city itself, it seemed, serves only one purpose: To rip off tourists like a cheap hooker in Phnom Phen. Obviously, I couldn’t contain myself and bought some useless junk and a scarf – which later should have become ruined in an accident involving too much alcohol.
In the end I was very grateful having had the opportunity to visit one of the strangest and contradictoriest places on earth. And, off course, that I wasn’t born here.
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