Udaipur - Day 8 - 1.16.12 to Day 16 - 1.24.12

February 02, 2013

Udaipur - Day 8 - 1.16.12 to Day 16 - 1.24.12 - Himmatnagar

I spent the last week in Udaipur. Again, it was a hard place for me to leave. Martha and I walked around the city a lot, sometimes together and sometimes alone. When I was in Udaipur a month ago I wanted to go into one of the many tailor stores that line the touristy streets of Lal Ghat but never did. These shops are different than the tailors in the rest of India that I have seen, in that they make custom western clothes as opposed to the usual Indian suits. In the windows hang custom jackets and coats made from beautiful wool fabrics, custom shirts and dresses. I only went in one because Martha was thinking of getting a jacket, but while I was there I decided to have a dress made for me from black raw silk and an intricate gold and light pink border. The first fitting revealed a dress that was too big in all the wrong places, but after a few alterations I am delighted with the final product! Now I just have to find somewhere to wear it, as it is a little shorter than what is worn in most of India. I hear the bigger cities are pretty westernized and not as modest (this dress is not revealing at all, and it is all the way to my knees!) so maybe I will find a place in Mumbai or something. Looking for a shop to make more Indian suits (salwar kameez) I came up empty handed except one shop told me I could buy an old (or new) sari and have it made into a suit. I found a place that sold old saris and found more than I needed. They are all so beautiful. Unfortunately I did not look close enough and there were stains on the one I brought in to have altered. Although a sari is 5 long meters of fabric, the stains prevented a large portion from being used, so I agreed to just make the top. The "tailor" was a little 16 year old jerk but for some reason I trusted him because the clothing in his shop were absolutely beautiful. Long story short, the kurta isn't so great, doesn't fit well, isn't at all what I asked for and the little twerp didn't care. Hmmmm….sorry that is probably very uninteresting for you.

Other than a little shopping, I took the rickshaw in to get fixed, again. Somehow I ended up in a mall, at a store that I soon realized was a WalMart! Ha! It was pretty creepy, actually. Maybe that's not the right adjective, but it just didn't feel right to be in a WalMart, which they call Easy Day Market or something like that in another country. I mean, I boycott the WalMart at home! OK, but I did buy some shampoo. One interesting thing is that they didn't have plastic bags. They had small bags sewn out of what seemed to be leftover fabric. So you can reuse it. It is now my dirty underwear bag. Take that, WalMart!

For the past few days Martha has been debating what to do, whether to break off from me or continue in the rickshaw. Besides the fact that her trip is winding down and she wants to see more of the country than is possible at the pace of a rickshaw, she was also thinking of leaving early. So she decided to break off and head south. She has been a great travel companion and I will miss her! She was calm, understanding and adventurous during our short ride together. I know she would have liked to at least get out of Rajasthan in the tuk tuk but it just didn't happen. I decided I was going to stay in Udaipur for another week so I could wait for an important package, but in the end I never did that either. Hopefully in the next city…..

Tuk tuk in the shop one more time before I head out of town, this time hopefully for good. Replaced the axle-rod-thingys and adjusted a few things and I was happy. Met some cool people, a few girls from Australia and a British Indian. W ell drove up to Tiger Lake one afternoon talking, playing cards and relaxing. Rajasthan is a beautiful place, I will miss it for sure. I have a feeling I will be back soon.

After going back and forth on whether to leave or not, without a replacement travel buddy, I finally decided to leave early this morning and head for the next state of Gujarat! I planned to make it to Ahmedabad in one day, only 250 kilometers away! I even got up early, packed my things and headed out at a decent hour. But trouble along the way left me on the side of the road only about 70 km from Udaipur. I thought I was perhaps out of petrol. And I didn't have any spare fuel because someone stole the empty tank in Udaipur. I didn't think it was possible to be so low on fuel, even the reserve was empty. Maybe someone siphoned it out in the night? That might be a bit paranoid, but it happens! The hard thing about this situation was that a rickshaw is open air, and there is no way to lock my belongings, apart from buying a chain and lock and locking it to the vehicle itself. Not that I'm above that, and I'm actually thinking about investing in one. So I didn't want to leave my life's belongings there unattended, didn't have anyone to watch my things, aside from some naughty looking children on the side of the road who were staring at me the whole time. Although I opened the door to the engine and stood on the road like a poor helpless woman, no one stopped. I flagged someone down, but with little words to communicate other than "no" and "petrol," they told me the closest station was 5 km away. This could be walking distance if trusted enough to leave everything behind. But I decided that someone would stop and help me and so I waited. And waited. THen I flagged down a few men who ran a hotel down the street. They told me they had to run to the hotel and would then be back to help me. Forty-five minutes later they returned with an empty jug. Then I gave them money to get petrol and I was grateful. I started to worry that maybe I was scammed and they were never coming back with the petrol or my $10. Another 45 minutes or so later they returned. I decided that breaking down alone isn't nearly as fun as if someone else is there. Then I saw them in the mirror and I was ecstatic! But that feeling didn't last long, when the petrol made no difference and the POS was still unable to start. We tried push starts down the hill, tried the choke in many different ways, they even fiddled with things near the engine (probably not good). They decided to call their mechanic friend and I was starting to think I wouldn't leave Rajasthan today after all. The mechanic arrived and immediately noticed the power wire was disconnected. He reconnected it and told me to replace it in the next town. I was back on the road, but not before making a short stop at the guy's hotel for a quick snack and some water.

I was having mixed feelings about being on the road alone. It's not a scary feeling of being all alone. The roads are somewhat busy, mostly nice and smooth riding, and it was good to be driving and thinking. It's not like a lot of conversation goes on between driver and people in the backseat as everything is too loud to chat anyway. But it still felt a little lonely, and to be honest I was scared my first day out alone. The day was getting late and the sun was getting low, so although I only made it about 170 km and am still 70km from my next destination, it was time to take rest for the night in HimmatNagar. I stopped at the first decent-looking hotel along the road and it even had parking! I was going to content on, but one thing I have realized on this trip is that I cannot afford to not take the opportunities given to me. This was a place out of the way, had safe parking, Wifi, and clean and comfortable rooms. The room rate was more expensive than I would have liked, but I decided it was worth it for a good night's sleep, good food and a comfortable stay in a place where I was completely alone and will actually spend some time in the room.

All in all, I had a great first day driving alone. There were a few hiccups, but that's what makes it interesting. I think I was talking to an Indian one day when something went wrong. I was upset that things didn't go my way, but he told me that maybe there was a reason things didn't go as planned. So in the case of breaking down, or similar circumstances, I think maybe breaking down on the side of the road changed my fate. Maybe it prevented me from being driven off the road. Or maybe it changed the course of my day so much that my life is changed forever. It is realizations like this that make me think I am actually becoming Indian. There are worse things in life…..