I plan to go back and fill this out in more detail but here's an outline of the past three days.
Day 1 24 Oct - Hop on a plane to India...
Melbourne to Adelaide, nice.
Adelaide to Darwin, nice.
Darwin to....."I'm sorry, due to a fault with the starter engine we must return to the airport so that our engineers can work on the plane". Bugger.
We were put up in a hotel for the night which was ok and then at 12.30pm the next day, well slept and full of cheer we were up and away.
25 Oct sometime during the night....
Touchdown. Hot, muggy touchdown.
First impression in three sentences. It's like someone took out my lungs and put them on a table and then went to town on them with a spiked 2 by 4. India is a punch in the face, adrenal gland and stomach. It's like a bunch of bureaucrats honking loud clown horns and stomping on your face. But at the same time you can't stop laughing because they are really badly dressed. Long live harry high pants!
So. After hopping off the plane the first thing I noticed was that customs actually moved very quickly. I think because of the ridiculous amount of people pushing to get through.
Then I tried to call Kath. No answer. I was tired and confused but luckily had Ravi (a friend from the plane trip) to help me wade through the chaos. After some faffing around we found the Qantas office, a dingy and unremarkable little hole filled with 11 young girls and an aussie manager doing sweet FA. Qantas had promised to sort out our connecting flights but after an hour and a half of sitting around...revoked that promise. Ravi and I hot footed it out of the international terminal and over to the domestic terminal via auto rickshaw. The scene outside was so ridiculous, all I could do was laugh. Acrid, noxious pollution made it feel like I was sitting in a circus tent watching clowns drive around in circles with their horns going berserk.
Long story short, I finally got on to Kath on the drive between terminals and boarded my flight to Jaipur with 5 minutes to spare...nice.
On the other side I met Kath which was a joyous renunion (that sounds like something an Indian would write). Although after four months apart it felt strange to touch each other. Funny how you can think that you are so familiar with someone and then a little bit of time can throw it out.
She'd booked a 4WD to take us to our fort on top of a hill high above Jaipur. It took about half an hour to drive up the hill and arrive at the front gates. I was so tired that, while I found the architecture intruiging, I was too fagged to pay too much attention. That is until we stepped into the room.
The room jutted out from this cliff and felt like, if anyone has seen Blade Runner, the bit where he vists the sky palace near the start. I actually found it to be really scary and awe inspiring in equal measures. From the room, we had basically a 180 panorama of millions and millions of homes, slums, horns and noise. It felt like we were suspended - just dangling there. I guess I slept a bit that night but to be honest I really can't remember. The first 3 days were just an adrenalin packed blur.
Next day we visited an ancient city/fort type thing and then that night were off on an overnight sleeper bus for 9 hours to Udaipur. It was cramped, hot then cold and when you occaisionally drifted off, would wake up to panic that you couldn't sit up or even turn much. It didn't matter though because the smell of different pollution in every town we passed by kept me occupied.
So now I'm in Udaipur dealing with wave after wave of jetlag and odd bouts of adrenalin jetting about my bloodstream (like last night in the middle of dinner which was unpleasant). We have some respite though because Udaipur is comparatively quiet and we are in a beautiful hotel on the lake, looking on to a palace built in the middle.
If you are a writer or artist who likes detail India would provide an endless challenge to try and capture and convey. I plan to have a smash at describing some of the crazy shit that goes on here when I have my wits about me some more.
P.s. Kath is good but a little sick with a stomach bug. I have brazenly said that I won't get sick because I have a cast iron constitution but that is looking increasingly delusional.
Peace out. Jules.
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