mladen in india | take two: January 2008

okay, so my swimming pants are back in my backpack. my first trip in the year 2008 was the 2008 km trip from gokarna to jaipur. the most of the guys had already left gokarna, so two days after that i hit the road as well. it was hard to leave paradise again, but (simply trying to find some consolation) i told myself it was time to change the climate. the only bad thing is that it's way colder here, but i better get used to it, since i'll be spending the rest of the time in the northern parts.

the thirty-hour train ride was the same as all travels of this kind – painful, annoying, boring and tiring. but i met a girl from london and two guys from athens, so it wasn't that bad. at least i had someone to share my thoughts with and i can say it felt great. once again, i witnessed some things that got me thinking about life, people and myself. i think i best just try to forget this ride and look at it all as part of india, which in the end it is.

anyway, after 32 hours we finally got to jaipur and took a room since it was too late to keep on going, went for a stroll around the old fort and tried to believe our own eyes. jaipur is an extremely hectic place, with the traffic crazier than that of delhi and seemingly more people than mumbai. the city has almost three million people and it's one of the rare cities where i could really feel it. even busier than delhi, the rickshaw ride at around nine in the evening was spiced up by driving in the right lane (which is the wrong side in india), charts pulled by three-meter camels and shameless bargaining for the ride. we spent the rest of the evening sharing our life stories and hit the road again the day after. we took a bus to ajmer, which ended up being a matter of survival, since the bus driver kept taking over three trucks at a time while another three were coming the other way. mind you, this is not the typical style of driving (even in india), since the trucks moved to the side in the end and we kept driving on the wrong side of the road. neat, eh?

after another short ride up and down some hills, we finally reached pushkar, a small city on the edge of the thar desert. we fought our way through people trying to offer us everything from a room to a bride and by the time we reached the main bazaar, marina and nitin spotted me from a roof top restaurant. i spent the rest of the day catching up with them, freezing as hell and trying to stop moving left and right train-style.

it's warm during daytime, but during nights the temperature can go as low as two degrees. this means i'm back to five-layer clothing (visnja, you know what i mean) plus a blanket. the swimming pants are still drying outside, reminding me of a place so much warmer...

i didn't get much sleep last night, since the monkeys kept making mess right under my window. we got them some snacks today, so they'll hopefully behave a bit better tonight.

today i tried to put some photos online, but i got a virus on my usb from the computer in the internet cafe. i was a bit pissed off (since i had to format the whole thing) and i told the guy there's a virus, but he calmly replied he's gonna restart it and no problem. umm, ok.

so we took the car and went for a ride around pushkar. and i drove! yes, on the left side of the road. i was only driving for maybe five kms, making a circle around a hill pinned with temples, but by the time some trucks, camels and warthogs kept blocking my way, i gave the wheel back to master nitin. it was the second time i drove in india and i think i did quite good. i am posting this in the end, right?

one of these days we'll drive down to the blue city jodhpur and after a week or so we'll be hitting the road towards delhi, meeting some more friends and going a bit north, to a jungle tiger reserve and around, but you'll hear all about it when the time comes.

i better wrap it up now, since i'm sitting out on the terrace and one of these monkeys could easily slap me and run off.

until the next update, greetings from rajasthan!