sybarite_1
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Posts
- 1,837
I'm back from India. 
It is amazing that an entire society has the most chaotic traffic system and yet...no road rage and I never saw an accident. People, there are horse drawn carts, camel drawn carts, cows lying IN the road and traffice just goes around them. My first day, I took a picture of an elephant and its owner walking along the public road. The human was cutting branches from trees to feed the elephant and while it waited, the elephant was pulling leaves off the trees and eating them.
Leprosy clinics, people begging with deformed limbs or missing hands/feet.
Shanty towns. Men bathing along the road side in just shorts or sometimes naked. Cows and monkeys wandering about.
Air pollution. Hack hack hack. I now have laryngitis. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to speak again...or not
I hand washed my clothes each night with Forever New soap and the water turned brown from the air pollution that washed out. Yuck. FYI, China cities are worse.
Of course I went to the tiger reserve.
For women...wear a high impact sports bra.
Extreme high speed jarring over big rocks and the caravan is not padded.
You will bang your arms and legs on the metal railings and seat edges.
Expect bruising.
Some older people said they woudn't have gone had they known it would be that rough a ride (3 hours in a.m. and again in p.m.). One guy had a lower back problem and was in agony afterwards. We had to stop at an Indian pharmacy for pain meds. I wonder what he got???
To see the monuments, mosques and palaces you get up at 5 a.m. to miss the huge crowds and hot sun.
You have to deal with the hawkers at the tourist sites. I learned some Hindi.
I would say "No. I don't need it. Nothing. Thanks" in Hindi. They are quick. They say back, "Oh your Hindi is very good"...just tell them that their English is just as good and now they know in two languages that you don't need what they're selling. Thanks. Otherwise they will hound you to death.
Bargain. I saw a marble elephant at the airport for 1500 rupees. We made an early morning rest stop and in the gift shop there it was 1300 rupees. I said I only want to spend 500 rupees...after a few attempts he said Okay, 1000 rupees because you are my first sale today...so I bought it. Usually, you can get 30% discount.
I found a pastry shop and OMG got some take away for the hotel room. The place was called DZURTS.
If you ever need a rug, go to the rug factory.
You can get a case to take the smaller rugs as carry on with you on the plane. I did that. If you want the fringe removed, they do that too. They call them flying carpets since they fly home with you.
The silk rugs are fantastic and about 1/4 the price of the ones sold here. And they ship free of charge too. Next time I need a rug, I'm calling them up.
Jaipur is the gem capital of the world.
Most of the women bought something. Quality was awesome and prices were good. We were in a jewellery store that made everything on site.
Jaipur elephant ride up to the palace.
Two people sit on the elephant. If you sit nearest the tail, you will be squashed by the other person as they slide down on the way up the hill. Just saying.
People will take your picture when you get on the elephant and when you round a corner further up the route. I pulled my baseball cap down over my face for the second group of photographers are everyone will be trying to sell you a printed picture when you get to the top. The pictures are 100 rupees each ($2).
It is a marketplace there. Metal bowls, snake charmers, turbans, parasols, blankets, shawls, figurines whatever. Blankets were about $40 and there were a variety of hats and Tshirts. My tiger Tshirt was $10. Gives you an idea. At the sites they want rupees so bring 10, 50 100 and 1000 rupee bills. I gave the snake charmer 110 and got a nice video out of it. Beggars are there too. I only gave 500 rupees to one woman who lost her hands to leprosy. The others I ignored.
Traffic is on the left as in England.
Let's just say that lane markings are just suggestions.
Strangely, I only saw one white and brown domestic cat.
Hindus don't like them because they drink the milk put out at the shrines. Once the cat drinks the milk, they consider it tainted and not a good offering to the idols/Gods.
There are many dogs, much garbage, shanty towns and beggars.
One old mosque charges 300 rupees to take pictures inside. This mosque supports five Charity Clinics in New Delhi and it costs the people 10 rupees to be diagnosed by a doctor AND they get the medicine they need too. 10 rupees to us is like 15 cents. One of the clinics was right beside the mosque.
Thank goodness for our air conditioned bus.
Much thanks to the tour company for the continuous bottled water and snacks between sites and cities.
Oh, and we each paid $17 a day for the tips. We gave our nine days of tips to the tour operator and he tipped everybody...including the toilet people. It is the easiest way to do it, otherwise you'll be carrying around small rupee bills and handing them out all the time. You've got better things to do on holiday than that.
Food was great.
Next time, I'm going to see the Ellora caves....
It is amazing that an entire society has the most chaotic traffic system and yet...no road rage and I never saw an accident. People, there are horse drawn carts, camel drawn carts, cows lying IN the road and traffice just goes around them. My first day, I took a picture of an elephant and its owner walking along the public road. The human was cutting branches from trees to feed the elephant and while it waited, the elephant was pulling leaves off the trees and eating them.
Leprosy clinics, people begging with deformed limbs or missing hands/feet.
Shanty towns. Men bathing along the road side in just shorts or sometimes naked. Cows and monkeys wandering about.
Air pollution. Hack hack hack. I now have laryngitis. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to speak again...or not
I hand washed my clothes each night with Forever New soap and the water turned brown from the air pollution that washed out. Yuck. FYI, China cities are worse.
Of course I went to the tiger reserve.
For women...wear a high impact sports bra.
Extreme high speed jarring over big rocks and the caravan is not padded.
You will bang your arms and legs on the metal railings and seat edges.
Expect bruising.
Some older people said they woudn't have gone had they known it would be that rough a ride (3 hours in a.m. and again in p.m.). One guy had a lower back problem and was in agony afterwards. We had to stop at an Indian pharmacy for pain meds. I wonder what he got???
To see the monuments, mosques and palaces you get up at 5 a.m. to miss the huge crowds and hot sun.
You have to deal with the hawkers at the tourist sites. I learned some Hindi.
I would say "No. I don't need it. Nothing. Thanks" in Hindi. They are quick. They say back, "Oh your Hindi is very good"...just tell them that their English is just as good and now they know in two languages that you don't need what they're selling. Thanks. Otherwise they will hound you to death.
Bargain. I saw a marble elephant at the airport for 1500 rupees. We made an early morning rest stop and in the gift shop there it was 1300 rupees. I said I only want to spend 500 rupees...after a few attempts he said Okay, 1000 rupees because you are my first sale today...so I bought it. Usually, you can get 30% discount.
I found a pastry shop and OMG got some take away for the hotel room. The place was called DZURTS.
If you ever need a rug, go to the rug factory.
You can get a case to take the smaller rugs as carry on with you on the plane. I did that. If you want the fringe removed, they do that too. They call them flying carpets since they fly home with you.
The silk rugs are fantastic and about 1/4 the price of the ones sold here. And they ship free of charge too. Next time I need a rug, I'm calling them up.
Jaipur is the gem capital of the world.
Most of the women bought something. Quality was awesome and prices were good. We were in a jewellery store that made everything on site.
Jaipur elephant ride up to the palace.
Two people sit on the elephant. If you sit nearest the tail, you will be squashed by the other person as they slide down on the way up the hill. Just saying.
People will take your picture when you get on the elephant and when you round a corner further up the route. I pulled my baseball cap down over my face for the second group of photographers are everyone will be trying to sell you a printed picture when you get to the top. The pictures are 100 rupees each ($2).
It is a marketplace there. Metal bowls, snake charmers, turbans, parasols, blankets, shawls, figurines whatever. Blankets were about $40 and there were a variety of hats and Tshirts. My tiger Tshirt was $10. Gives you an idea. At the sites they want rupees so bring 10, 50 100 and 1000 rupee bills. I gave the snake charmer 110 and got a nice video out of it. Beggars are there too. I only gave 500 rupees to one woman who lost her hands to leprosy. The others I ignored.
Traffic is on the left as in England.
Let's just say that lane markings are just suggestions.
Strangely, I only saw one white and brown domestic cat.
Hindus don't like them because they drink the milk put out at the shrines. Once the cat drinks the milk, they consider it tainted and not a good offering to the idols/Gods.
There are many dogs, much garbage, shanty towns and beggars.
One old mosque charges 300 rupees to take pictures inside. This mosque supports five Charity Clinics in New Delhi and it costs the people 10 rupees to be diagnosed by a doctor AND they get the medicine they need too. 10 rupees to us is like 15 cents. One of the clinics was right beside the mosque.
Thank goodness for our air conditioned bus.
Much thanks to the tour company for the continuous bottled water and snacks between sites and cities.
Oh, and we each paid $17 a day for the tips. We gave our nine days of tips to the tour operator and he tipped everybody...including the toilet people. It is the easiest way to do it, otherwise you'll be carrying around small rupee bills and handing them out all the time. You've got better things to do on holiday than that.
Food was great.
Next time, I'm going to see the Ellora caves....
