Saturday, September 23 Mount Abu, Tour, Gujaratis, Bus Ride

I guess I’m a pro at sleeping in transportation centers while traveling. Along with San Francisco and JFK International Airport, I can also check off my list “Bus Stand in Udaipur, India”. I hopped on the 5 am bus to Mount Abu, Rajasthan’s only hill station. Who made up that name? That’s equivalent to JK Rowling naming her Asian character “Cho Chang”. The ride was more desert and some rivers. We stopped once at a small town called Mt. Abu Road. Along one small portion of road while we stopped, I saw an old man sleeping, a woman breastfeeding, a toddler pooping, a woman puking, a boy bathing, a man urinating, and men selling fruit and clothes. The street really is where all aspects of life take place in India. I had to wash out my eyes (because it was so dusty, though). As the bus snaked up the hills to Mt. Abu, it seemed we had left the dusty parched plains of Rajasthan behind. It was beautiful; everything became green and moist. Palm trees and deciduous trees lined ponds, which fell into the sloping hills of the plateau that formed the town. I got in about 11, and had a Rajasthani thali for lunch, after which I thought my face was going to turn into liquid oil because they used so much butter. Mt. Abu is a resort-type town, catering mostly towards Indian families. It’s filled with rich Gujaratis, as opposed to Mussoorie, which is overwhelmingly patronized by rich Punjabis. It seems that these two groups have the money and like to travel. Or, it could be the fact that Gujarat and Punjab are the two most boring states in India. Hence the reason these are the two most numerous groups found among the Indian diaspora. The costumes of the people make for good entertainment. I saw a Gujarati tourist with a Vietnam Veteran’s hat. Rajasthani men usually wear white draped cloths and large red turbans. Everyone wears jewelry here. All the Rajasthani women are very well (if not extremely gaudily) dressed. A woman will be wrapped in a bright and colorful silk sari with gold trim, tied together by a silver sparkly belt. She will have white ivory bangles from her shoulders to elbows, and sparkly colorful bangles and wristbands covering her forearms. She will have silver rings on toes and fingers, and around her ankles will have silver jingling anklets. She will wear golden dangling earrings, and of course the quintessential gold nose ring and rhinestone bindi on her forehead. These ladies are like walking jewelry stores. They are every Paris Hilton’s mentor, and they make Queen Elizabeth look like the bearded lady. I reserved a space on the government bus tour of the major sights of Mount Abu. Turns out I got on the bus and the window was open; no, not open. It was shattered, with shards of broken glass all over my seat. Having gotten glass lodged in my feet before, I was naturally pissed when we started moving and pieces of broken glass would fly into my lap and onto my head. A lot of other people were, too, and they took pictures and everything, for proof when they went to file a complaint. In India, I’m sorry but no one is going to sit down and read a complaint; no one cares. The tour guide didn’t even care enough to change the buses, he just went on lecturing in Hindi as normal. The first stop was a marble Shiva Temple, where everyone but me was Hindu and conducted puja. Then, we drove through the forested hills to a weird spiritual healing garden. People actually spent money buying worthless CDs and books about the word ‘Om’ and how atman merges with Brahman so you can attain moksha. It had an enormous ‘Om’ sign, though, which was cool. Then we went to another Hindu temple built into huge rocks atop Mt. Abu.The views were spectacular. Every site was commercialized, with food and drink stalls, camel rides, and souvenir shops. The last stop was the Dilwara Jain Temple, a private temple with thousands of strict rules. The Jains are the ones whose holy men go naked and wear mouth guards so they don’t kill any bugs and fast so they won't kill any living thing. The rules were as follows: No leather items, no mobile phones or cameras, no holding hands, no inappropriate gestures or touching, no food, no photos, no going in the room with statues of deities, and no women on their period. Or else there will be consequences. Guess which one was the only one that was visibly broken? The one about holding hands, and of course two young men were the culprits. Besides this, the Jain Temple was absolutely breathtaking. It’s the finest, most intricate carvings of any temple I have seen so far. Erotic sculptures, deities, big breasted women, warriors, and kings were all carved into the marble walls, pillars, and ceilings. They were all extremely 3-D, and if you had an entire day your eyes could not possibly cover every statue. There was a team of about 20 workers polishing and restoring the world-famous temple. The Jains are and were, obviously, loaded. After the tour, I waited for the bus. I had to use the bathroom, and people sitting there tried to charge me, so I just walked to the side and peed on the adjacent pile of trash. I know people are not trying to make money on bathrooms. Except for temples, India itself is an enormous toilet bowl. I got on the bus at 7 pm, for the return trip back to Udaipur. The ride was an insane adventure compared to the five-hour trip I made this morning. It was dark the whole way. I fell asleep, and when I awoke the bus driver and all the passengers were different. We even had to get out and change buses. For the Gujarati festival Navratri, all the temples were lit up and playing loud music. We had to make stops at each one, and we gave money, and priests came up and gave us prasad in return. It was like a drive-thru worship, and all I could think of is…Taco Bell. I felt like I was in Las Vegas, or on acid living Alice In Wonderland. We stopped for a midnight snack at a dhaba, and I got attacked by a hummingbird-sized dragonfly. Unlike the bus ride over, instead of five hours like I expected, turns out it is a local bus that made stops and took the long way. It was ultimately an 11-hour journey. Sweet.