After
leaving the tigers in Suwai Modhupor we made a trip south to Udaipur via night
train.
It was there that we were
drugged…but we will get to that later.
Upon
arriving in Udaipur, we checked at the local tourist office, found out where
the cool place to stay was, and hopped in an auto rickshaw. For the bargain price of 32 rupees, our
driver drove us to a nice hotel, that is a hotel that if we booked in, he would
get a 25 cent commission for. However,
after we ferreted this information out of him, he assured us he would get the
same commission everywhere, and that the hotel would charge us that much
anyway. This is the game that the
rickshaw drivers play and we are therefore forced to be their pawns, or perhaps
their armless foosball men.
Nevertheless, we left our luggage in the rickshaw and went inside.
Our budget for the hotel was initially only 300 rupees. Which equals 7.50 or a 1/6th of a
Motel 6. The first hotel had a nice room for 400, but we weren’t sure
that we were ready to up our budget by an entire 1/3, so we went back to our
rickshaw and asked him to show us a few more hotels in that price range. Who was surprised when the next one he took
us to was a 3000 rupee hotel? Not
us. We rolled our eyes and asked him to
take us to a “reasonable” hotel. He
took us to another hotel that also had rooms for 400 rupees, but it took us 15
minutes of bargaining to get that, and then we decided we didn’t like the room
as much, so we trekked back out to the rickshaw and asked him, with hanging
heads, if he could take us back to the first hotel (don’t worry, we were not
abusing him, we gave him an 8 rupee tip, which is equal to 25% and our first
official tip in India).
Happily ensconced in our new hotel,
with hot water from a shower head, and a flushing toilet – luxury, we quickly
fell asleep for a four hour nap. We
woke up around 1 in the afternoon and were absolutely starving, so we headed
outside for a walk around the town. We
had planned to find a restaurant that appeared to be clean and tasty, but
exploring Udaipur preoccupied us, so it wasn’t until 5:00 that we stumbled
across a restaurant. So before that, we walked through windy neighborhood
streets and came to one of the four lakes that makes Udaipur “famous” on the
guidebook circuit. Because it was a smaller lake and well out of the rainy
season, the surface was mostly covered with mossy green specks. A couple people
rowing toward the bridge left a very interesting pattern behind them: a line
where the canoe cut through the moss, with alternating pock marks on either
side where the oars had dipped into the water.
After crossing the lake, we came
across a yard full of private school kids on their lunch break, which the boys
spent playing cricket. You may recall our
bemusement at the weirdness of rugby compared to American football, the same
applies to cricket as compared to baseball.
Rules are difficult to discern, but the boys playing still invited us to
join in, despite our insistence that we had no idea how to play. Rather than join them, we perched on a
concrete ledge to view the game. The
ledge unfortunately we later discovered seemed to be second base. Amid the cricket game, younger children who
weren’t playing crowded around us in typical fashion and began interrogating us
with the: Where are you from, what’s your name, my name is, how old are you
routine. It doesn’t matter how many
times you answer the question, everyone wants to ask it for themselves…as well
as shake your hand at least once. Most
of the time, this is where the routine ends, but a couple of these kids really
wanted to practice their English. After
determining that we had no pens to give them, the boys started trying to get
Andrew to hand them his sunglasses. When Andrew felt one of the boys reaching
into his jacket pocket, we decided our position as the children’s cultural
enlightenment for the day done. We
started to walk away when the girls approached us. We have both determined that the girls are the smart ones (Sorry
Richard). They really want to know who
you are and where you are from. They
roll their eyes at the silly little boys and overall just seem to be genuinely
interested in chatting and less pen-hungry.
Once the girls’ lunch break was over and we were faced with
the little hoodlums once again (no doubt skipping class to pick pockets for
pens), we walked back across the bridge and remembered that we were
starving. We walked past our hotel and
found signs pointing to a “lush garden” restaurant on the lakeside. We walked through the doorway and decided
that the rustic quality of the restaurant and the fact that no one was there
didn’t bode well for the place. So we
decided to skip it and turned to go, when the proprietor came through the hall
behind us. He asked if we wanted to
have tea, and explained that they weren’t cooking that day. We briefly glanced at one another and agreed
to the tea. He sat us down at one of
two tables that overlooked the lake.
When we asked to wash our hands, he pointed to a trough of standing
water. Feeling that the water was still
probably cleaner than the kids hands we had shaken, we dipped in and wiped them
off on our dirty pants. We sat at the
table and enjoyed an hour and a half of conversation with Basit. He studied history, and was excited to tell
us about Rajasthan, specifically what lay beyond Udaipur’s typical tourist
attractions. When we got on the topic
of food, we told him how much we loved Indian food and that we strongly wished
to know how to cook it. He told us to
come back the next day and he would give us a cooking lesson, including a trip
to the authentic spice market. We
thought that sounded much better than another day of looking at forts, so we
happily agreed and traipsed home to dinner on the roof of our hotel. (This isn’t special to our hotel, everywhere
we ate in Udaipur was on top of a hotel.)
The next day, after sleeping in, we made a circuit over three of the
lakes, in fact at one point we ran into Basit and he confirmed our cooking
lesson. That afternoon around 2, we
headed over to Basit’s for our Indian cooking lesson, hoping that we would get
fed in the process. He sat us down at
our table and asked us what we would like.
Andrew ordered a lime soda and Alex a lassi. When we proved to be indecisive as to what type of lassi and what
type of food, he promised a special lassi and good vegetarian food. He brought the lassi and lime soda out a
little while later. The lassi is normally
a combination of yogurt, sugar, and fruit.
The lime soda was simply sparkling water with lime juice (alleged) and a
glass ¼ full of sugar. This lassi
looked different than the ones we had previously had, it appeared to have
chunks of cinnamon and a mysterious fruit.
Alex drank half of it before giving the rest to Andrew. When Basit rejoined us, the lime drink and
lassi had been finished off, he sat two steaming bowls of food in front of us
and two bread plates. He asked whether
we liked the lassi and Andrew replied that it was good and asked what kind of
fruit was in it. Basit replied that it
was a special lassi, he said it was fruit and sugar, and I put marijuana in
it.
At this we
looked at each other in slight shock and laughed nervously. Basit left us to enjoy our lunch, (which was
absolutely the worst Indian food we had ever eaten.) We were so shocked that we didn’t even get angry at first. We simply sat there quietly stunned. One might think we were angry about being
drugged, aside from that, it was really the thought about what a “Special”
lassi might cost us that preoccupied our minds. (It’s a 1.75 for those that are curious). You may also wonder why we continued eating
food that 1) did not taste good, and 2) was from a man that had just drugged
us….but if you are wondering that, you should know that Alex’s parents always
insisted she clean her plate, and her dad reinforced the idea that if you are
going to pay for something, you better get your moneys worth J
! Really, we only finished of one of
the dishes, the other was really pretty awful and even Andrew’s hunger couldn’t
drive him to eat it. We did shy away
from the bread we thought might be the one that was cooked on cow patties.
So after
all that, we bet you are wondering how the lesson went? Turns out, Basit thought that a lesson meant
writing down the recipe. We weren’t too
disappointed though, because we already know how to make bad Indian food, and
we didn’t need a hands on course to learn it.
We did get a trip to the spice market though. On the way back from the spice market, Basit bought us tea and
offered to take us on a trip to the outer villages the next day on his
motorcycle. (It’s not odd for three
people to ride a motorcycle here, in fact it seems to be the family car). After we agreed, he said that we could pay
for the petrol and perhaps throw in a gift for him if he was a “good”
driver. By this time, the day had taken
its toll on us, and we wearily agreed before saying goodbye. It was only later in our hotel room that we
decided we needed some time alone, and we didn’t want to guess what a good
driver costs. So Andrew trekked down to
Basits and left him a note telling him that we were cancelling for the next
day. It was with a sigh of relief and a
little bit of guilt that we spent the rest of our night. Whenever we felt too guilty though we
reminded ourselves that not only had he drugged us, but he charged us for it
too! Share the love man….
The next
day was free of Basit so we were able to do the touristy City Palace, look at a
million miniature paintings and eat French fries. Altogether a fine day. We
even stopped by Basits that night to tell him goodbye (and maybe get another
special lassi J),
but his restaurant was closed. With
that, we packed our bags and caught a bus to Jodhpur. The second largest city in the state of Rajasthan. Oh, and next time we blog, we will have been on a 3 day camel safari...
