Oh Calcutta! or "Jews for Jesus" March 26- April 12 2015

After a hot 17-hour drive across NH2 in Ronen's non-AC yet funky van we arrived in Kolkata or Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal and the third most populated metropolitan in India, around 10 pm only to find out that all the budget guesthouses on Sudder Street, the backpacker area, seem to be full and the only one that had vacant rooms for us was Paragon, rightfully described by Lonely Planet as "deeply depressing" and shamelessly charging 450 Rs for  a tiny, dirty (there were actual stains on the bed sheets!), rather jail-like room.

Babas and Boats in Holy Varanasi - March 21-26 2015

In Varanasi formerly known as Benares we met our good friend from home Ronen who also happens to be a talented photographer (he photographed our wedding!) currently on a photographic journey in India, driving across the nation in his own funky van!  Do yourself a favor and check out his truly wonderful photos here.

Sexy Temple Heaven in Khajuraho - March 18-25 2015

Khajuraho is home to a famous group of impressive temples which are one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, their fame mostly due to the erotic carvings featured on some of them, and they are often referred to as the  "Kamasutra temples". Due to their remote location in the state of Madhya Pradesh, these unique temples survived the many Muslim dynasties that ruled in the area and desecrated many Jain and Hindu temples over the years.

The Two Laid-Back Towns of Pushkar and Bundi - March 10-17 2015

We started our journey to Bundi with a local bus (190 Rs, 4 hours ) from Udaipur bus station that dropped us off at Beejoliya junction where we hitchhiked on the back of a pickup truck (0 Rs 10 Min) to Beejoliya bus station and from there took another local bus (38 Rs, 2 hours) to Bundi. In hindsight we realize it was probably a better idea to take a train from Udaipur like people suggested to us (but it arrives late at night so we decided to go for the bus option, oops).

Udaipur and Around by Photos- March 4-9 2015

Stayed at: Udaipur- the lovely Hotel Hanuman Ghat @ 500 Rs, nice rooftop restaurant as well- yummy mix veg, Kumbhalgarh- Lucky Guesthouse, tent @ 400 Rs.

Ate at: Black Pepper great eggplant curry (offers good value cooking classes), Queen Cafe  delicious mango curry (the charming owner Meenu also does cooking classes and culture tours that are highly recommended @1200 Rs each, we passed). 

Did yoga with: Prakash, near foot bridge, 2 daily classes on donation basis.

Bikaner's Rats, Jodhpur's Fort and Abu's Mountain- Feb 24-March 03 2015

After a nice ride on the local RTDC bus from Nawalgarh we arrived to Bikaner and stayed at Shanti guesthouse (600 Rs) run by the honest and knowledgeable Guri and his lovely wife. On the really small roof top of the guest house we met Nicole and Renee from Germany and enjoyed spending the evenings there drinking beer and exchanging travel stories. We checked out the town's Junagarh Fort which was alright but nothing special, you get a free guided tour included in the price of the ticket. We later explored the old city and visited the Jain temple Seth Bhandasar that is the only Jain temple that has colorful paintings on the walls inside. From there we continued  back to our guesthouse through the lovely bazaars of Bikaner that are dotted with nice Havelis along the way.

We took a train (40Rs 40 Min) to the infamous Karni Mata temple  a.k.a Rat Temple (30 Rs for camera). The temple is not coverd with rats like we imagined but there are quite a lot of them hanging around (approximately 20,000 rats a.k.a kabba). The rats in the temple are kind of cute since they are well taken care of and clean and are fed a lot of sweets and  milk from the temple workers and visitors so they don't really care about the people surrounding them. From the temple we went back to Bikaner by local bus (50 Rs, 50 min).

The next day we continued to Jodhpur a.k.a the Blue city, by train ( 180 Rs sleeper class 6 Hours) and settled in the cute  Jodhpur Heritge Haveli guesthouse (400 Rs Attached bathroom and good wifi) that is in the clock tower backpacker area.  We set out to climb to the marvelous Jaswant Thada (50 Rs. per person)sometimes referred to as a "mini Taj-Mahal) which is close to the city's famous and impressive Mehrangarh Fort (400 Rs per person and includes a audio guide) where you can get a good view of the old blue city. We went down from the fort through the blue city and had nice lunch in Dev's Castle View guesthouse. Next we continued to Umaid Bhawan Palace (25 Rs entry fee, auto rickshaw from old city is 150 Rs) that looks beautiful from afar but is not that amazing inside, since you can see only a small part of it that is a not really interesting museum because most of the palace has been turned into a luxury hotel of the Taj group and another part of it is the residency of the remaining Jodhpur royal family.

Next day we went on an organized tour "Bishnu Village safari" that we booked  through our guesthouse (700Rs per person Including lunch). We were picked up by a small jeep and were joined by our new great friend Matt from Germany/South Africa/Canada who writes one of the best travel blogs together with his wife (Konni). Both are excellent photographers and have been travelling the globe for about 15 years and you can read about their fascinating adventures here. Matt is also one of the reasons that inspired and pushed us to publish this blog (Thanks  Matt!).

Going back to the tour: we started with the monument dedicated to the 363 Bishoni villagers who sacrificed their lives to protect the sacred Khejri trees from been cut down. From there we continued to a lake maintained by the local forest department that serves the local wildlife and the migrating birds of the area. we visited the small village of Ratanda where we had a somewhat touristy but interesting demonstration of a traditional opium ceremony by a friendly local family who welcomed us into their simple mud home. Next we convinced our driver (200 Rs extra) to take us to one of India's weirdest temples Om Baba a.k.a Bullet Baba, that is an open temple next to the highway dedicated to a local member of the royal family that died here in an accident crushing his royal Enfield bike into a tree, and supposedly after police took his bike to the local police station the bike "miraculously" found its way back to the crush site (twice). We concluded our tour with a home cooked lunch in the home of a family of weavers who also own a homestay in the village of Salawas and enjoyed really nice and unique Rajasthani food including millet chapatis and cabbage curry.

After "enjoying" the heat of Rajasthan we travelled up to the cool Mount Abu, the only hill station in the state, (bus 310 Rs to Abu Road and from there another 1-hour bus up the mountain to the town 30Rs) where we ate really good street food and had nice coffee at cafe Shikibo, pampered ourselves in a nice hotel (Hotel Ganesh 1000 Rs) and went on a day trek (trekking and hiking Mount Abu- 660Rs per person) where we met Daniel (Australia) and Georgina (Spain) that were a wonderful couple to hang out with and go see the sunset from the edge of the lake. We visited a few temples including a Shiva temple, a Hanuman temple with a really big statue of him and of course the Jain Delwara temple that has some of the best marble carvings I've seen (unfortunately no photos allowed inside).

Mount Abu also gave us an interesting glimpse to the philosophy of Brahma Kumaris at their universal peace hall. We received a free tour in the complex from a French "brother" who gave us a simple introduction to their teachings without being preachy.

After four days in the mountains we said goodbye and moved on the the White city of Udaipur.

Roaming around Rajasthan - the Pink City and Shekhawati's Havelis-Feb 19-23 2015

Welcome to Rajasthan: where every man wears a turban, every building is a Haveli, and every city has a fort, a palace or both!

We arrived in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, worn out after a 36-hour train from Puri and splurged on a room in Rajputana family guesthouse (the excuse was that it was Daniel's birthday), which was a nice and welcoming place with a very friendly owner but not really worth the price of 1400 Rs (though it did include a nice home-cooked breakfast). 

We explored the old city known as the Pink City for the color of many of the buildings in its impressive list of monuments, checking out the Hawa Mahal, the Jantar Mantar observatory, Swargasuli Tower, and no less than three forts: Nahargarh, Jaigarh featuring the worlds biggest canon, and the spectacular Amber Fort + Palace (two in one!) just outside the city. For his birthday Daniel's only humble request was to see a movie, so we watched yet another Bollywood movie Badlapur at the famous pink Rajmandir cinema in town, though we were rather disappointed to find out it was a serious drama telling a story of revenge (no dancing or singing at all) and was hard to follow at times considering our lacking knowledge of Hindi. We had a nice dinner at the Peacock restaurant on the roof of the deservedly popular Pearl Palace hotel (where we originally tried to book a room but were too late) and a nice coffee at the modern Nibs cafe, when we were not sampling Rajasthan's great street food. 

Our next stop in our grand month-long Rajasthani tour was the Shekhawati region north of Jaipur, famous for the beautiful and colorful painted Havelis which are historical private mansions found all over Rajasthan. We took a government bus to the town of Nawalgarh (women get 30% discount!) and stayed for two days in the homey and serene DS Bungalow (room @ 600 Rs) owned by the friendly Bunty and his wife Pinky who cooks delicious fresh food (though a little over-priced). We walked around town hunting down the many Havelis, some more impressive than others, and encountered a nice street parade honoring lord Krishna, hitching a ride back to the hotel on a donkey-drawn carriage. The next day we cycled to the nearby village of Dundlod ( bicycles @ 100 Rs from the guesthouse) where we met some friendly locals and visited yet another fort, nowadays functioning as a hotel. We left early the next morning heading to the town of Bikaner.