Stuck in Udaipur

Well, it is certainly been an adventure I tell you. After rabid searching there are no trains to Calcutta, Darjeeling, or anywhere else in the state of West Bengal. They are all booked, and although there are possibilities for the 26th or 27th of May, that would only give us a couple of days in West Bengal and then it would be back to Delhi to fly out. We did what any sensible Christian would do, and we prayed. We prayed that if God did not want us to go to the north that he would close those doors. After praying, we left our hotel room and we spent the day desperately trying to get some sort of ticket to West Bengal.

God shuts doors in funny ways, but you kind of know it when it happens. We tried several different options, and found no way to get there. For instance, we did find a place you could book a train online and we actually found a train that would take us from Jodhpur to a city just outside of Darjeeling and it had open seats! It seemed awesome because we could easily take the morning bus to Jodhpur and the train left at midnight and it was only a 15 hour ride! Tickets came to about $80USD all together. But we went to pay and they only accepted Indian credit/debit cards. It seemed simple enough to go to a travel agent, and though it would cost a bit more, they would allow us to pay cash. So, we gave the details to two separate travel agents and neither could find an empty spot on the train. They found one train that would have cost us about $160USD that was over 24 hours long and a plane flight would have been just over $200USD. We simply don't have that kind of money to spend, and if we did, we wouldn't want to spend it on a train/plane ride.

This all may very well be providential. I'm simply speculating here, and I wouldn't be surprised if nothing came of it, but the Muslim extremists who are claiming responsibility for the Jaipur bombings have threatened Calcutta among other places. The Indian news paper also says they believe the terrorist to be hiding in Bangladesh, which is right next to Calcutta. For whatever reason, God closed those doors, and as disappointed as we are that we won't be seeing the Darjeeling tea fields or Brittany's favorite cities, we love Udaipur and are content to stay here. God has put many people in our lives here, and we have made several friends. To be honest, we haven't even seen much of the city, we've just walked around close to our hotel eating at wonderful restaurants (and they really are the best we've had) and looking at art (which we've bought much of).

Because of all this, we'll be moving hotels. We are currently in the air conditioned honeymoon suite of Dream Heaven Guest House for Rs 650 ($16.25USD) and are currently planning to relocate to Nukkad Guest House, a non-AC hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. Since we figured out we'd be stuck in Udaipur, we immediately made efforts to find a cheaper hotel we could settle down in. Last night, when the heat of the day was wearing off and the streets were busy we trekked through town trying to find a place to stay. One after another we had hotels insisting their most expensive rooms were their only rooms and even though the cool of the night was setting in the non-AC hotels were burning up. Most of them had a fan and windows you could open, and we might have survived if we had to, but they were pretty unappealing.

Not having AC is not a big deal really. The mosquitoes are non-existent in this town and if the building is built right, it can utilize the wind to keep cool. As it was already 90F degrees at 11:00 in the morning, the first thing we noticed when we entered Nukkad Guest House was that it had a very cool reception area. They took us up to a room to show us and it was quite nice. It was also very cool and there was a nice breeze coming through the windows. Because the architecture utilized the weather, the room wasn't hot at all! We figured we'd stay at least one night and if it as nice as it seems we'll stay the remainder of our time in India as it is Rs 300 ($7.5USD), and the guy said if we were staying a while he'd cut us a better deal than that. Unlike hotels, guest houses like we have been staying at most of our trip here in India are run by a family who lives on the premises. A guest house may also be called a haveli.


Yesterday was overall delightful. We ate a late breakfast at Cafe Edilwess [sic], a German bakery, that had a delicious and safe tuna-salad sandwich. We then spent the entire afternoon looking for trains to Calcutta, which as you know was unfruitful. We did stop by the Jagdish temple, which is apparently one of the biggest temples to the god Vishnu (kind of like Zeus) in all of India. The architecture was amazing as the entire temple's walls were tiers upon tiers of marble carvings of people and animals.

Later in the day we ended up on a rooftop restaurant across from the temple and watched the sunset behind it as we ate. Then we went browsing hotels. One man on a motorbike stopped to talk to us. He seemed very nice and spoke English very well. He desperately wanted us to come to his art school and see the paintings. That's when the warning signs began. First of all, there are several cons and kidnappings in India you have to look out for. I read about one such kidnapping in a British magazine at one of the restaurants (the restaurant was Savage Garden and had phenomenal continental food).

In this case, two British girls made friends with a couple of Indian guys, which is really common in India. People will stop and talk to you for no apparent reason because they are curious about foreigners. Most of them are honest. Brittany and I have had chai a couple of times with some friends we made, no harm at all. These guys invited the girls for chai and eventually the guys told the British girls they had a friend who was leaving for London soon and wanted to ask them questions about their homeland. They agreed to meet with him and he claimed to have studied in America and had perfect English. Then he proposed that they help him smuggle some gems into London for him. This scam is common, although phasing out since tourist have caught on. Brittany and I haven't come across it ourselves. The guy asks you to transport what he says are valuable precious stones (actually worthless) and you make a small deposit (usually via credit card) as a show of good faith. Then they run up a bill and you never see them again.

These girls knew about the gem scheme and told them they couldn't do it, so the men took them hostage for three days. The men eventually stole their debit cards, drained the girls’ bank accounts, and put them on a flight back to London. They could have easily been raped or killed.

Now, this guy who came to us yesterday asked us to go his art shop, but we were busy looking at hotels so we said maybe tomorrow. So, the place was right around the corner and he showed us the doors and said that artists work in there from 9am to 9pm. I told him I'd come down there sometime after lunch and look, figuring if it wouldn't be a big deal if I skipped out (ok, you caught me, I was lying to get him to leave me alone, I can't say I'm proud of it). He seemed reluctant to meet in the afternoon, but consented. But he wanted a commitment and he didn't want me to meet him inside, but he wanted me to meet him outside at exactly 3pm. This is really unusual in India, as most people here don't do much of anything on a real time schedule.

I told him I wouldn't promise, but if I had time I would come by, and I would just find him inside. Then I said we wouldn't be buying, but looking, as we've already bought much artwork. At this he shifted gears and asked what we were interested in buying. I said the only thing on my mind was a sitar, because we don't buy much really. At this he claimed that he knew a sitar maker about 3km outside the city and we should come with him first thing in the morning. Then he asked where we were staying and said he would come to our hotel. At this, I said, we don't disclose that information and even though he seemed nice enough we're scarred someone may hurt us. I said it very clearly, and in a simpler way (if that's correct grammar) so he would understand, but he acted as if he hadn't heard it and immediately reverted to us meeting him and going to look at sitars.

It was sketchy. I mean, really sketchy. Here was a guy who happened to know a sitar maker in some undisclosed far off location, and who knows what would happen there. Maybe he was honest, but I can only imagine ending up in someone's home, them hitting us up for some sort of con, and us having no way out. No thank you. Chances are he was just a commission-shark.

After looking at some hotels some more, we went to another art shop, that was a family owned place next to our hotels. We had spoken with the family a couple of times, and they never asked us to come look at the art, but had always been very nice. We had told them we would stop by and look at it and when we went, we found they had very reasonable and fair prices, and were very hospitable. They gave us freshly made mango juice, and I tell you, there is nothing like it in America. Then he sold me a beer at a reasonable price and we had a drink together while we looked at the art. I wasn't intending to buy, but they were so kind and the art was so beautiful we picked up a couple of pieces. They also recommended a sitar maker to me, saying they were good friends with him and giving me directions to his shop (just around the corner) and said if I called the number on the window he would be sure to meet with me (the shop is closed in the off-season).

As we haven't seen much to the touristy stuff in Udaipur I guess we're going to make a move to see more of the city. As we won't be paying so much for a hotel room or buying train tickets, it frees up some money for us. The government still owes us $600 from the economic stimulus package. One of the $600 went through in early May as promised, but we still await the other. Once that goes through, we'll do some shop and gift buying.

On a couple of side notes, I must first brag, as every soft drink here is made from real sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup like they use in the States. It's the best coke in the world. Mountain Dew has never been better. Second, it is 40 rupees (which is written Rs 40) to every $1 United States dollar. That fluctuates, but almost never more than a couple of rupees. Last, pictures are a no-go right now. I'm going to try again today, but I tried several places yesterday with no luck. If by noon your time there haven't been any added (probably some added to the album India 2 and then a new album called India 3), it means it might be a couple of more days before you see any at all.

Any insight into the Calcutta situation is helpful. It does seem we can't get there, but we're open to ideas. Cheers.