Getting off the bus in Pushkar, Rajasthan is like falling through a wormhole in the fabric of time and going backwards 35 years. The 60s are an increasingly distant memory in the West, while here in Pushkar they still exist, at least in their outward and visible signs. Really, there are parts of this town that look like a dreamscape evoked by the Magical Mystery Tour.
Author: Eric Farber
Night Bus to Udaipur
December 19, 2008
The night bus from Pushkar to Udaipur was yet another chapter in the adventure that is India. I had bought a “sleeper” compartment without knowing exactly what it was, feeling that stretching out would be better than sitting up all night. The bus stand, just a shoulder along side a highway in Ajmer, was a bit chaotic, and luckily my car driver found my bus and oversaw loading my large backpack into the luggage compartment.
Jaipur
December 17
Jaipur
Jaipur has been a pleasant surprise. First, there is this hotel, an oasis in the desert of backpacker lodgings I’ve been staying in for the last two weeks. The staff is kind and attentive, and the surroundings with their well-chosen furnishings are a delight to the eye. Last night I had some trouble sleeping, I think because of the silence. I haven’t been in an atmosphere so quiet since I arrived in India.
The western-style breakfast in the dining room, among some Australians and a Spanish couple was tasty: two fried eggs, toast, juice and tea.
Letter from India
No non-Indian should register surprise at feeling overwhelmed in this country. The dirt, squalor, noise and poisonous air are extreme. Yet there are also islands of extraordinary beauty and cultural interest. Unlike some cities whose points of interest for the visitor are more or less centered and close together, Delhi’s are more broadly scattered. One needs a form of transportation to visit them.
Mumbai to Deli
December 6, 2008
I shared the train journey with a Sikh couple, a young consultant, who is a Jain, and Jeff Mitton, a 53-year-old Canadian from Nova Scotia, who is a Buddhist and who motorcycles around India and elsewhere. We had some good conversations and I learned something about the different classes of India trains.
Mumbai: First Impressions
December 3
Slept only an hour and a half before my breakfast came. My first meal in India: white toast with butter and orange marmalade and tea. Got dressed and went out. Any first impressions of India have to begin with the weather. Mumbai’s humidity is awful. It combined with temps in the mid 80s is really unpleasant. There is a haze everywhere that drains the distant features of color and sharpness. There is lots of traffic, especially taxis, but it is controlled, so getting across the wide boulevards is easier than in Istanbul.
Turkey’s Wild East
Kay and I are walking along the main street in Tatvan, a Kurdish town on the western shore of Lake Van in Turkey’s ‘Wild East.’ It is evening and both sides of the street overflow with men, and men only, chatting and relaxing.
Jonesin’ for a beer, we’ve walked the street from end to end trying, without luck, to find a store that sells it. A cold beer would really taste good right now after a dry, hot July day of sightseeing.
Two Days in Amritsar
December 13, 2008
In Amritsar, I insisted that the cab driver take me to the Grace Hotel near the Golden Temple even though he had another hotel in mind. The owner of the Grace was welcoming. I took a 1200-rupee room touted as super deluxe that turned out to be just another ordinary grungy hotel room on the lower end of the scale. It does however have clean sheets and good hot water. These, I’m learning, are things not to take for granted in India.
From Istanbul to Timbuktu
February 2008
Yes, Timbuktu is a real place. If you’re as hazy about the geography as I was, look at a map of West Africa and find the Republic of Mali. It’s the landlocked country just below Algeria and bordered by the countries of Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Côte D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Niger. Once you’ve found it, follow the Niger River from the capital city of Bamako down past Ségou and Mopti to Timbuktu.
You will have just traced a journey of nearly 1,000 kilometers, which I accomplished in a week, but which took the first Europeans, who searched for Timbuktu in the 18th and early 19th centuries, months of sickness and misery. It wasn’t until 1828 that René Caillié, son of a poor Parisian baker, reached Timbuktu and returned to tell his tale.
Bicycling Through Provence – Fall 2007
From the Turks we meet, Kay and I often get the question, “Why did you come to Turkey?” This is a simple question with a complex answer, only part of which concerns affordability. It’s still cheaper to live here than in many other places we might have settled, yet it’s not as cheap as it was only a few short months ago. Not only is the dollar worth less, but the cost of living keeps rising as well. Turkey’s inflation rate is in the high single digits. Of course, New York is no bargain either; it never was. Still, we’re amazed on our infrequent trips back to that city at how much prices have gone up. Then there is travel in Western Europe’s Euro Zone, which these days tends to make all Americans, except the exceptionally well-heeled, feel the pinch.