Sunday, August 22, 2010
AwayAwhile
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Arrival
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Bathams On Hold
A friend commented on an earlier update, questioning my criticism of China's development, asking whether we're seeking the past instead of appreciating the present.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Tai Chi'd
The last week's been beautiful. We spent it practicing tai chi at a monastery up in the forest on the side of a mountain.
Tai Chi? It's a martial art that doesn't really look like one; it's all about slow, controlled, focused movements.
The setting? Well, a monastery. No electricity. Male/female segregation. A giant bone-rattling bell that clattered from 5.30am onwards. Chanting and incense that filled the air for many hours each morning, afternoon, and evening. Vegetarian food eaten communally with strict rules on conduct: we were issued a bowl and a set of chopsticks when we arrived, any grain of rice dropped had to be eaten, no leftovers permitted, no eating until the master had begun. Mornings began with a jog down to a nearby stream, followed by finding a rock to carry on your head, back to the monastery. Our training ground was a small clearing in the woods; five hours per day were spent stretching and practicing our routines. Each day, old women passed through the area, having picked handmade basketsful of wild mushrooms in the nearby forest.
It was fantastic to stay at an active temple, falling asleep to evening prayers, living this relatively slow-paced and unstressful life. A by-product of the stay was that we've been whipped into shape a bit, and the tai chi really helped to further develop my cat-like agility and grace.
We're back in Dali. We've been in this area for nearly two weeks now, and have gotten to know a lot of people. Recently, we were out to eat and ran across a Chinese guy we'd previously met. He invited us over to his friends' table, and though we'd already eaten, we were implored to join in cleaning up their feast, which included a pyramid of platters, among them: fried flowers and milk sheets, minnows, raw lake shrimp, duck necks and feet, pig intestines, and strange roots that look like grubs. Rice and plum wine accompanied, and we ended the evening at a small pub, listening to a haunting performance of a local musician. Perfect...
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Everything begins to unwind. We spend the next three nights on the train, a long, long voyage eastwards to Shanghai, where we'll end what we began so long ago in southern India. I love the symmetry: our first couple weeks in an Indian ashram, studying/practicing yoga; our penultimate week at a Chinese temple, studying/practicing tai chi.
We are looking forward to our time on the train, the busy city of Shanghai, and everything in between. Our trip is down to eight days...and counting.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
China's Yunnan
Wow, where to start?! A lot has happened in the week and a half. Best if I just dive in...
That super-comfy train journey left us off in southern Sichuan province at the sprightly hour of 4am. A 3hr wait in the dark preceded a 9hr bus journey across some pretty rugged country. I'd previously raved about the beautiful, clean Chinese countryside. This journey was a bit of a counterpoint to that. Gorgeous scenery - in theory: towering hills and lush green-ness, fields of young rice and corn. But really scarred. Horrible concrete buildings, a nuclear power plant with homes a stone's throw away (and on a hill, level with the cooling towers' nozzle), crumbling secondary roads that looked post-apocalyptic, gray monstrous-looking factories, and lots of trash strewn everywhere. This is the other, uncharming, side of China, built in the 1970's/80's (my guess), a brutal-looking attempt at industrialization...so much from that era would be better off completely erased I think - actually, most construction pre-2005 for that matter.
Anyway. We enter Yunnan province - nice place! First stop: Lijiang. The town's lined with canals and pretty bridges and cobbled lanes and striking facades that look like pictures from old China. Those photos...they don't quite capture modern-day Lijiang...if they did they'd be too full of tourists to appreciate! Regardless, the place had charm...getting lost in its old town, walking around before the crowds woke up, finding its local produce market, wandering at night amid the glow of red Chinese lanterns hung from awnings. And undoubtably, it was all very picturesque.
Our current location, Dali, is like Lijiang in that there are a lot of tourists and souvenir shops about. In contrast to Lijiang's narrow alleys and canals, Dali boasts wide lanes, a few tall towers, and a bit of reconstructed wall (that once surrounded the city). On one side of town, a huge lake; on the other side, big hills that have been enshrouded in clouds since our arrival. It's been a great place to hang out. We've found some fantastic places to eat, and enjoy our daily walks in the old town.
Between Lijiang and Dali, we've sandwiched in a few other destinations far from the crowds. First, Shaxi, a cute village described by a local (well, from Shanghai) travel writer as "what Lijiang was like 20 years ago." There, we stayed at the end of a skinny flagstoned lane, just beyond a cluster of chickens and a pig stable. Our loo was a hole in the ground out back by the garden. When we first arrived, as if as testament to its picturesqueness, a film crew and cast was blocking our path, evidently making a Chinese TV series just down the alley from us. Not far away, rice fields and a Buddhist temple and a pretty main square.
And Shuanglang, a nice little fishing village on the opposite side of the lake from Dali, where we stayed at a water's-edge hostel full of Chinese backpackers and had some lovely food.
And our highlight: Weishan (described by the aforementioned Chinese guy as "what Dali was like 20 years ago"). This place was fantastic! Medieval towers, old lanes and crumbling facades, and NO tourists. As everywhere in China (and much of India...and all of Europe), there was modernity surrounding the quaint old section of town... But it was still wonderfully authentic: said lanes were full of barbers and noodle-makers and family-run eateries and residences. Against the wooden buildings were street-food vendors and guys playing mah jong or Chinese chess on squat tables and stools, and singing birds hanging in cages from rafters. We visited a Ming-era mansion with a small courtyard surrounded by fantastic wooden outbuildings. Happy dogs wandered about. People smiled and laughed at us (not an uncommon event as white-skinned people in China, but much more frequent here!). At 8pm, hundreds of the town's women got together in the central square and danced together - for no one but themselves, just for the fun of it. We had some of the loveliest food we've had here as well...cheesy-tasting jaozi (steamed dumplings) and noodles cooked/served in clay pots.
We tried our damnest to track down a market reckoned to take place each five days in the city, where colorfully-dressed Hui and Yi minorities from the surrounding hills come down to buy and sell wares (we've been to two such markets in other areas in the last week), but this was enormously unsuccessful. We've no Mandarin phrasebook or dictionary, and I speak just enough Chinese to where people think I know what they're saying when I clearly don't. Despite numerous conversations and pantomiming, even drawing a marketplace on a scrap of paper, we succeeded only in being pointed to two different daily produce markets in opposite parts of town, not the big, more irregular market we sought.
But this is the fun of travelling in China...being in a place where no one speaks English, lost and bewildered and happily frustrated. All you can do is laugh.
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We've ordered most food by the "point at that dish" method, but I did finally talk Rebecca into ordering blindly the other day. We found a hidden courtyard full of Chinese and sat at a table, then chose three cool-looking strings of symbols from a mind-boggling 14-page menu. We didn't do too badly: a large omelet heaving with veggies, a cold noodly plate, and a heaping pile of green chilis (okay, this one wasn't quite ideal). Along with a wooden bucket full of steamed rice and a pot of green tea, it was pretty good. Actually, we did worse the next day at the same place when we tried to order something specific. We'd memorized the word for mushrooms to get at least ONE plate we'd know in advance, and ended up with stir-fried beef or pork lung (we think).
This is actually great fun, though. Normally, you order your food and a restaurant and then wait in anticipation, wondering, "How's this going to be done, how will it taste?" Here, you simply ask, "What the bejeezus did we order? I hope it's not dog, or intestines (again)." It adds a nice degree of excitement. Rebecca gets nervous at this, but we're both easy eaters so it's all generally been a success, aside from the fried lung which we ate, but only half-heartedly.
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China continues to prove it's changed so much!
Communism? Ha. Only in some strange political sense. Somehow, I think that the Chinese Marxist groups that banded together in 1921 to form the Chinese Communist Party would not be altogether pleased with this country's present state. The place is (seems to be) a conglomeration of a huge government, capitalism, and extreme cronyism, minus freedom of information (rather: selective information). Marxism? This country is a materialist wonderland! An ultra-rich Party official/friend on one side; on the other, those that make his rich life possible: a rural peasant, or the street vendor scraping by by selling fried things on sticks, or the old woman rummaging through trash to salvage plastic bottles. Shouldn't they have (more or less) identical incomes? What would those old revolutionaries think of the new bourgeouis, this emergent class of rich urban dwellers? Aren't the privileged (how different, exactly, from the old emporers, or the Kuomintang, other than there are probably just a larger class of them, with modern weapons and communication to hold things together?) precisely what communism sought to eliminate? The poor proletariat has been left in the dust; it's largely a land of have-a-lots and have-very-littles (probably a billion of the latter!). Then again, I'm only an outsider, so what do I know?!
After traveling quite a lot in both countries in 2002/03, I concluded that in a decade India would be largely the same place, while China would be completely transformed. It's only been 7-8 years, but that prediction seems spot on. India? Hotels cost more, the price of bananas has risen. That's about it. The place is still a disaster - and it always will be (but that's part of what makes it an interesting place to travel). China, however, has moved on - and efficiently (if at times misguidedly but with good intention). A big government with seemingly-infinite strength has made it possible to squeeze decades of progress into a span of mere years - the modernization I mentioned in the previous update.
One by-product of that is that travel here has gotten easy. An example. Back in Chengdu, message boards, travel information, and even a special "Tibet Travel Desk" at our hostel indicated that a trip to Tibet is THE thing to do. Get a group together, get a permit, get a flight (or now: a train!) to Lhasa. It's apparently still hard to travel independently there, but otherwise it all seems so...easy! One ad showed a three-week standard (and expensive) itinerary including Mt Kailash and the far West of Tibet. That's a standard itinerary? In 2002 a similar odyssey cost me a few cold, harsh, solitary weeks - I hitchhiked around and froze my ass off and slept on boards and got stranded. Yeah, I felt like I was falling apart after a few weeks and it was abyssmally uncomfortable - travel was TOUGH - but, it was true adventure (in so far as that exists in this modern world)... Elsewhere in China, travel wasn't AS hard, but it still presented a challenge.
The episode is just a microcosm of travel in China. Tourism, like the places, has developed. Modern China is becoming less interesting (the tool of progress here is the bulldozer...for a great but sad example, see this (and better yet, read the accompanying National Geographic article: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/old-city-demolition/ ...the old city of Kashgar was one of my absolute highlights in 2002!); old things have been razed, tourists are very present, things have gotten far simpler and better connected and more comfortable.
We've still had some great mini-adventures and, admittedly, have not really veered far off the beaten track in China. But even if we'd had more time and made more effort, I feel like a lot of the "adventure" in China is gone. And it's gone expensive. These nice hostels cost a lot more than they used to. Transportation's gone up at least 50%, I think. Admission fees in this country are ridiculous - in many cases more than you'd pay for an equivalent site in Europe or North America. Funny enough though, if you limit yourself to not crossing large distances and entering touristy sights, you can still live cheaply. In small towns, clean hotels are cheap - cheaper than an equivalent in India, even. And food...if you don't care for an expresso and pizza, you can always tuck down a backstreet and find a bowl of noodles or a plate of something mysterious (or not) for peanuts. Beer, too, is fabulously cheap, as is plum wine.
In summary to this aside, yeah China has better roads and plumbing, but I prefer the adventure and ruggedness of days that are apparently bygone, or fast becoming so. The change is happy for many, probably sad for many. I'm generally annoyed by people who talk of "the good old days," so I'll stop there; in conclusion, I just feel fortunate that I saw what I did when I did, and that we're seeing at least some more of that now! In one MORE decade, I'm 100% certain India will still be a cool place to travel. China, I'm not quite as sure. In any case, it's still a fantastic country, and I/we look forward to watching its progress!
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Back on subject...in short, we continue to whole-heartedly enjoy this period in China, exploring the small chunk of China that we set off to visit. Not only is it like a vacation after all that time on the Indian subcontinent, it's really enjoyable!
World Cup. The USA - Ghana game? England vs. Germany? No comment.
No souvenirs for us. Most of what's around anyway is kitsch. We did spend 18 yuan (about $2.70, under 2 quid) on a little glazed teapot from a dude at a market. And a pot of fresh honey from a Bai woman.
I hock and spit sometimes, just to feel like I fit in (EVERYONE does this here - often and loudly). Rebecca doesn't (she doesn't slurp her noodles, either). She doesn't really like that I do, but she can't really berate me when a thousand others are doing worse.
A new adventure for us begins tomorrow. We enter a monastery up in the clouded green hills...and begin some formal training.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Steamed Buns and Things on Sticks
Thailand. After leaving our island, we boated back to Phuket, which I never tired of pronouncing phonetically. A day in the city gave us a chance for some great Thai street life and street food...stuff that's lacking on a touristy island. [Those who have seen The Beach would recognize our hotel in Phuket's old town (and incidentally Ko Phi Phi, the island we were on for a week, is the island in the film).]
We flew back to Kuala Lumpur, missing the US-Slovenia match en route but catching the England-Algeria one a couple hours after we landed, at 2.30am (we slept in the airport).
Next day: flight to Chengdu, China, in the heart of Sichuan province, far far inland.
I'd been here before, and to me the city was unrecognizable. In the intervening years, a big but somehow quaint and walkable city centre had somehow morphed into enormous multi-laned roads, pedestrian flyovers, and modern shops of the Louis Vuitton variety. All new, all big and imposing and impressive. But so very far from what I remembered.
Another thing I'd enjoyed some years ago was the Sichuan opera...old men with wispy beards chatting over afternoon tea while on a stage masked singers screeched and sang and acted out stories. This, too, had changed. Now evidently, the only option to see the opera is to buy an expensive ticket to a staged evening performance that is more akin to a variety show for the short attention-spanned. We skipped it.
While I'm speaking of changes, I may as well mention the hostel where we stayed. Luxurious. DVD player and TV in the room. Free internet (I used to hunt down internet on back lanes, seeking out the Chinese characters that indicated an internet cafe - which would inevitably be full of young kids playing online shoot-em-up games). Free fresh fruit delivered to your room in a basket. Great shower. Super clean.
China? The China I remembered was so much simpler and different.
This place has been turned upside-down...or right-side up, depending on your perspective.
One nice change is that new construction in China seems to have taken a turn for the better. Instead of white-tile-and-blue-glass buildings that look terrible and seem unlikely to last more than a couple decades, what's new generally looks good. We found a few brand-new streets done up to look ancient; obviously set up for tourists (mostly
Chinese) but it is at least adding character of a certain manner, compensating for some of the tradition that was probably bulldozed to make way for all the modernity.
But I keep digressing...We spent a few days in Chengdu; Rebecca immensely enjoyed her introduction to the country. Wandering the backstreets was great fun (a lot more streets and things are labeled in English now, but it can still be bewildering). Meals were bowls of noodles, assorted steamed buns and dumplings, and fried and boiled things on sticks; we never saw an English menu. Among other things, we visited a Buddhist monastery and a Taoist temple. And...we saw pandas (not in the city; for this we had to take a short trip out)!
Very cool. They're big and white and black and playful and immensely fun to watch.
After a haircut (at 15 yuan - just over $2 - it was far more expensive than my average of 25 rupees - 60 cents - in India, but included a wash before AND after, plus a blowdry, and an obligatory photo with the barber who had obviously never cut the hair of a white guy before), we left the city.
And leaving the city...it was posh! We'd booked a Hard Sleeper class train journey. This sounds like roughing it, but it isn't. The carriage was posh. And after India, quite a change...no beggars/cripples sweeping under your feet and asking for rupees, no chai wallahs. Bedding. Comfort. Cleanliness. Order. Little/no invasion of personal space. And outside: instead of brown plains it was green and bright, with stunning rivers and gorges, as we wound our way southwards through Sichuan.
Actually, in some respects the journey (and the train station itself) was SO organized and comfortable that it seemed almost drab, but that's probably just because we're still somewhat used to India (and after India, few places on Earth wouldn't feel a bit sterile in some way). That overnight journey cost us more than a trans-India first class journey would have, but we appreciated it for what it was - an enjoyable way to connect points A and B.
13 hrs after we'd begun, the train dumped us off at 4am in a city called Panzhihua. Straightaway we hit the bus station, for a continuation of the journey, a 9-hr bus ride into Yunnan province, where we're currently stationed. More on that in the next update!
Now, we're off for a beer (we picked up a can each of lychee and pineapple-flavored lager for an evening treat).
[Postscript: this update is being uploaded by our friend Chris. China does not allow internet users to access Blogspot. More on this...and a lot more that I/we may have to say about China in general in a future update!]
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Only Problem With Paradise
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Feeding Fish
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The End of India
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Guns, Goats, and Carpets
OK, after this, we leave Srinagar. But no: stuck again. We met a friendly American woman and end up the next day on the houseboat she was staying at. A shikara ride through the canals of Old Srinagar, a lot of socializing, a completely new (and water-based) look at the city that we've now been in for twelve days.
We leave here in an hour. Jammu - our next destination - was 46C/114F yesterday. So much for pleasant climate...but that is just a quick stop. Our exit from India is just around the corner now, but we've quite a way to travel before then...
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Ladakh = Little Tibet
And wow, what a change from India! Rosy cheeks, smiles smiles smiles, warm hearty authentic hello's (here in Ladakh: "joolay!" - conveniently, this same greeting also means goodbye, thank you, you're welcome, and how's it going). No beggars, no hassles. The people of this part of the world are ethnically Tibetan, and this is the heart of the region of Ladakh. It didn't feel like India at all. What's more, the heat and haze of the lowlands was swapped for brilliantly blue, sunny skies, and refreshingly cool weather.
Speaking of that weather, after exiting Nepal many weeks ago, we'd posted our shoes and all of our warm-weather gear to Leh, so that (a) we wouldn't have to lug it all over steaming northern India, and (b) we'd be equipped for the cold once more. A cunning plan. In theory. However, our f-ing package was lost by Indian Post. Snow-capped mountains all around, nippy weather...and us wearing flip-flops and t-shirts. This wasn't really ideal.
We persevered. And bought yak-wool socks (and me a pair of Chinese-made shoes that began to self-destruct within two days).
One of the first things we did was rent a motorcycle and tour up and down the Indus Valley. We chose a Yamaha over the more-romantic Enfield (having owned an Enfield seven years ago I knew full well that it's outward appeal is countered by a dismal tendency for breakdowns). The trip was fantastic: mountains, parched terrain, flowering apricot trees, people driving zhos (beasts of burden, like a cow-yak mix) through terraced fields...and gompas (Tibetan monasteries) perched on hilltops or burrowed against vertical hillsides. Tibet doesn't "do" monasteries that aren't spectacularly located it seems. Within those dimly-lit gompas, bright paintings of heaven and hell and dragons and bodhisattvas, gilded and cracked giant Buddhas, smoke and candles and drums and chanted prayers.
Meals were traditional - momos (stuffed dumplings), temok (steamed heavy dumplings), thukpa (heavy noodles in a soup)...if you haven't noticed, it's all various combinations of wheat noodles/dumplings/broth. Starchy, hearty stuff complemented by our stash of dried apricots and nuts.
It was very peaceful. Most nights, the silence was broken only by donkey bellows and the odd dog or rooster.
Other than the motorcycle trip, we did some hitchhiking (once with four monks) and several days of hiking through spectacular country in snow leopard country (but we saw neither them nor the elusive yeti). We helped one family flood their field in preparation for barley and vegetable planting. Tough life here: long hard winters with little contact with the outside world. Cut off by road from the rest of India for upwards of 2/3 of the year.
Our last stop during just over two weeks in the region was in the village of Lamayuru, a seemingly four-dimensional construct beneath a monastery that looked as if it were about to topple off an eroded hilltop. A vertical maze of crumbling homes, tangled stairways, mud and hay and steep footpaths.
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After a pair of nights in that final destination, we walked to the "highway" and waited for transport - heading West. We were cold, and it was time to descend a bit.
Our final thought on Ladakh...so yeah, the sloping dirt floor toilets weren't ideal, but as you're squatting over a concave, gaping hole below and trying not to fall in, you can at least look out a windowless opening and see 6000m+ snow-capped peaks.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
"Leh is Closed"
Monday, April 19, 2010
Rajasthan, Etc, According to Brian
Okay, here we are in Udaipur, India's "most romantic city," southern Rajasthan. Yes, it's hot here. The lake, part of Udaipur's ambiance, is almost entirely dry. We see animals grazing there (even two elephants yesterday), and in the mornings and evenings Indian youth play cricket in what used to be lake. Gone is the Udaipur I saw 7 years ago - colorful women washing laundry and people bathing on the lakeside ghats, water everywhere.
All of this we can see from our lakeside room, which has nice ceiling paintings and stained-glass and A/C! Being off-season, we got a steal on the place. Still a splurge, but a reasonable one: Rs600/night ($14/9 quid). Mornings here, we alternate who goes out for a quarter-litre of fresh, cold milk from a corner shop 200m up the road. Then we sit on the divan next to our lakefront window, set up our bowls on the squat wooden table between us, recline on pillows, and eat our cornflakes (North India lacks the nice un-fried breakfasts of the south, so we've opted for this lighter option...ah, to have idli -fermented steamed rice cakes - again!).
And that's Udaipur for us. Since the city's a travellers' hub, it was a good place for us to swap books, replenishing our supply. Far from the tourist zone, we have a place we go for fantastic Gujarati thalis. The palaces, the lake - all secondary, I suppose, a nice backdrop but not a reason for being here.
Other recent destinations have been like this, too. In Orchha, we skipped the central sights. Instead: a walk, find an abandoned chhatri to climb, sit on the roof and watch riverside bathers and colorful kingfishers and bright green parrots, and vultures perched atop the other chhatris (temple-like monuments) surrounding us.
In Delhi: the procurement of train tickets, applying for Chinese visas (for later - I guess we won't be the whole half year on the subcontinent after all). In Agra: the Taj Mahal, of course. And it was wonderful. But too, we mixed in other things: I filed my US taxes, we found the best banana lassis (yogurt shakes) in India.
In Bundi, a slightly off-the beaten track destination in Rajasthan, we hung out for five days, spending our nights in an old haveli (mansion) converted to a guesthouse. There, I worked a lot on editing my book and we did walks in the early mornings when the weather was tolerably cool - walking up to a hilltop fort devoid of tourists (or ANYONE, for that matter), wandering alone among crumbled palace ruins amid pools and pavilions...bat guano, marble columns, paintings, tilework, stunted trees, metal-studded wooden gates still hanging from their original hinges. Very atmospheric. Lunches there in Bundi were mangos and almonds and raisins and grapes and bananas bought from the market.
These last few destinations have been good to us - 4-5 day relaxed stops instead of the relentless grind of the road.
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We are now past the halfway point of our trip. There was never any danger of a repeat of 2002 - when I departed the USA for "a year" and didn't ultimately return until the latter half of 2006. Maybe because I'm older, I don't know. Travel seems less monumental than it did then - not as heavy or life-changing. Fun, good - yes - I don't mean to downplay it at all. It's a great way to give you
Rebecca and I continue to learn how to deal with each other (and with India). We get weary of Indians some days. There's a shirt on sale in Delhi that says, "No rickshaw, no hashish, no rupees, ..." The list goes on. A hundred or a thousand times a day you're approached, hassled. It can be so tiresome, but it's part of the whole experience. Dealing with it is a challenge, an opportunity.
Travel for us is more about adapting to a different type of life than about sightseeing: how best to fill a day, to enjoy life, to find the proper mix of movement and relaxation. We haven't kept up with the yoga - rooms too small, days too hot, or simply that we're too lazy? All goes up and down; two weeks ago, Rebecca was just barely tolerating India. Today, she's loving it more than me.
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For better or worse, life beyond the trip is never really far away. We still have to deal with logistics (Australian and US taxes, for example, and bank accounts and interviews), and we're still dealing with post-trip plans. In fact, just two days ago we had a celebratory dinner. I've been offered a spot at grad school for September, in a country Rebecca's never visited, a place that I went to once 15 years ago on one blurry day. So there's that - and soon (no decision yet made) maybe finally we can answer the question, "What are you guys doing after the trip?"
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That's it. Tonight is our last in Udaipur. We're taking a four-hour cooking class. We both absolutely love the food in India (aside from the slight tedium of all the North Indian deep-fried snacks), and are excited to learn a bit more! Tomorrow, we're off to Mt Abu, a 1200m/4000' hill station. Though not originally part of our plan, it was a heat-inspired decision; daily temperatures these last few weeks has seen temps of mostly 40-44C (104-112F). It's meant to be cool there.
We're excited! And not long after, we're heading into mountains once more. But that will be another story...
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"...the blessings of leisure - unknown to the West, which either works or idles..." (