Elsien's Traveblogue

I've now left Rajastan, a beautiful but touristy place with some nice countryside, lots of Rajput forts on hills, overlooking towns with a palace or two, or three, tourist streets with tourist shops and tourist guesthouses, a scruffy Old Town with the usual fruit and vegetable market, saree stalls, household stuff and kids' clothes and sometimes a newer area or a shanty town. I cannot be 100% sure as I only went to Jaipur, the Pink City, although I'd say the colour was more burnt orange, and Udaipur, with Lake Palaces, very pretty.
I liked Jaipur, although lots of people don't, but I steered clear of the tourist shops and rickshaw wallahs - I can say no in three dozen different ways now. Instead I walked for miles up the hills above to the old forts and temples. I struck especially lucky with the Monkey Shrine in Jaipur: it was a special day / week / month and dozens of women were going up there as well, singing, dancing, half naked, stripped down to their petticoats, then put on dry sarees they'd been carrying in bags on their heads and had a picknick and did some more singing, drum banging and dancing. The walks up to the forts were lovely, not a tourist in sight: they were all taken by road to tourist shops by pushy rickshaw drivers. You have to like walking, mind, and you may deduce from this that my legs aren't letting me down.
Udaipur is built around some artificial lakes with some gorgeous palaces - one is an expensive hotel you can only get to if you are staying there. James Bond did, for the filming of Octopussy there. Another is the current Maharajah's residence who has opened part of his palace to the public - it's really fabulous with beautiful views of the lake and the hotel palace. I stayed in the guesthouse of a Dutch woman from Wageningen who'd married a tourist rickshaw wallah - some women like them or maybe she didn't know how to say no - a really nice place, a mini palace, under the walls of the Maharajah's palace. In the evening you could see and hear the sound and light from her rooftop terrace.
I skipped the other Rajastan tourist cities (for the moment, at least) as from the book and travellers' tales they sound like more of the same, but may come back later on or on a next trip, I do like Rajastan. Also, it had got cold at night, although still glorious by day.
I was in a hurry to make my way down to Diu, an ex-Portuguese island off the coast of Gujerat for Christmas, as I have this (crazy?) idea that I want to celebrate Christmas somewhere with some Christian traces, but not Goa, too busy, expensive and touristy at this time of year. There's a working Catholic church here with Mass in Portuguese, apparently, not found it yet, but I've heard the church bells, too tinny to drown out the muezzin or the recorded Hindu prayers, but church bells even so. It is also a duty-free enclave where I might be able to find a bottle of red wine for Christmas dinner. Booze is scarce or expensive or even foul, like Indian made whisky, in most of the country I've visited so far. Gujerat is completely dry and I can count the Indian Kingfishers I've had so far on my fingers. There's also beaches here and swimmable Arabian Sea, what more do I want?
To get to Diu I had to stop off at Ahmedabad - and this bit is only for those of you reading these e-mails to see where NOT to go - which is apparently nicknamed the Manchester of India - they think it's a compliment, sorry Mancunians! It does bear similarities to the old, gritty, dirty, smoggy , industrial city Manchester used to be (Pax, Mancunians), but Manchester has improved no end (that better?) and Ahmedabad still has a long way to go. They've greened up the tuk-tuks, major air and noise polluters, and some of the buses, but the historical buildings, lots of interesting mosques, are still grimy, falling to pieces and impossible to find among the non-historical, grimy and falling to pieces buildings. There's a newer part of the city which looks like Ahmedabad is on the up. I did have some really good curries here though.
From Ahmedabad a 10 1/2 hour bus-ride to Diu. Some pretty countryside and lots of cottonfields. The guesthouse was another piece of fabrication from the Rough Guide - Lonely Planet is even worse: instead of the 'friendly atmosphere' in the Jay Shankar Guesthouse I was met with an almost Dickensian scene of father in filthy vest hawking his lungs out in filthy kitchen, slovenly mother in filthy saree serving disgusting curry floating in ghee, two little boys of maybe 8 and 10 serving noisy, Indian drunks their tots of foul Indian whisky. I won't be having my Christmas dinner here, don't you worry.
It looks better this morning in the daylight especially after some (instant) coffee on the roof terrace. The sun is shining, there's a sea-breeze, lots of trees and birds cawing.
I'll go and see if the Portuguese have left traces of real coffee anywhere.
Wish you all a very Merry Christmas and think of me with my bottle of Red wine on the beach listening to the tinny churchbells and the Messiah on my IP3 player!