Travels: Jaipur

I stopped a while, with so many other tourists who also stopped a while, in Jaipur because they were going to have an Elephant Festival and I thought it would be fun to see. It was to be on Tuesday 26 March.

In the paper of the 25th it reported that some events had been cancelled due to animal rights concerns but the event would go on. These events were Elephant tug-of-war and Elephant polo. Better, I thought. I had myself already considered if I was willing to go the the festival due to treatment of the animals, but had decided to go along and see. I read somewhere, and I believe it is probably true, that Indian elephants would be long extinct in India if they hadn't made use of them as part of temple worship and used them for practical labour. So I was able to give some merit to this displaying of these beautiful creatures.

On the morning of the festival it was advised that all Elephant participation in the Elephant festival (a parade of decorated Elephants was left) was cancelled. But tourists could still see folkloric dance. (Yeah).

A new friend from the hostel and I went. It wasn't so much fun, so we left after just an hour.

The next day was the Holi festival. This day celebrates spring and people run around the streets throwing coloured powder all over each other. I went out with 4 other people and came back multicoloured. It was fun, but the day comes with big warnings to be wary of attacks since no-one is recognisable after a while. As the morning got later we noticed it certainly didn't feel as safe on the street and we returned to our hotels.

My hotel was having a party on the roof. The day is a Hindu celebration and my hotel was run by Sikhs that had no qualms about throwing a westernised party during this important Hindu day. It was fun! I danced like I hadn't been able to in 3 months!

The other important Jaipur must-see is Amber Fort. It certainly is impressive and I'm glad I visited.

Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan, it has plenty of sights and nice people.

Travels: Nasik

First stop out of Mumbai for me was Nasik (26 Jan). I got there on a real bone shaker of a bus. (Varsai Travels (Roshan travels)), all suspension died years ago.

Nasik is a pilgrimage place. Apparently the waters of the river are holy (they looked a little dirty to me) and lots of pilgrims go to wag themselves or the ashes of their loved ones to purity. It makes for some interesting people watching.

It is also a wine growing region. I didn't go out to any of the vineyards (not much fun to do alone anywhere, and I could imagine the disapproval of the Indian driver who I would have had to pay to get me there).

I did, however, go to a nice restaurant (the best I've been to in India) and have a nice glass of wine from "Sula" vineyard. I recommend it.
The restaurant was called Kyber.