golddog goes for a ride

Taj Mahal looks like the most amazingly beautiful experience imaginable.

Congratulations on seeing a tiger.

Thanks guys, tigers awesome

None today, but saw plenty of other animals and nice scenery. Pictures later

Also, hotel doors don't auto close like in the US. Went down to the lobby the other day, and the two rooms next to mine had the doors ajar, up against the jamb. Mentioned to reception they might want to go check that everything's ok.

As mentioned, day 2 in the park. Samba deer

Saw a dude feeding wild boars, but the images were blurry due ot the jeep bumping along, and totally not incompetence on my part. Came to this nice view.

Kingfisher. Now I've seen them in the wild and in the bottle, fan of both.

Peacock

Here's an idea of what we were going through. More hilly today, a little more forested.

I liked the reflection. Another bird joined him, but I missed the shot.

Wild boar

Some kind of duck

Guide made a joke about this being the monkey grocery store

eagle

Then drove to Jaipur. Saw city palace, which is a museum now. The king of Rajastan lives in the palace behind. He's out of town. The flag flying is bigger when he's around.

This silver pot was commissioned by an ancient king to get holy water from the Ganges, and bring it back here.

King's place

This was a little interesting. The artwork below the windoes was plastered over at some point, and they're working very carefully to try to restore it.

Here you can see some of the current restoration

A gate. Note the elephants on either side

Each of them carved out of a solid block of marble.

Got to the hotel. Decent looking room, but it's a little off

Went to a local family's place for dinner. Victory tower nearby

It was nice. Got some Indian home cooking, and got to know them a little bit.

Get back, ready for bed, and some couple and their kid are on the plaza right outside my door, jabbering at the top of their lungs. JFC, nobody thinks of their affects on the environment around them. Finally had to tell the to STFU.

Didn't sleep well, off to breakfast, then some other fort for the morning.

Oh yeah, the hotel is close enough to a mosque that the morning call to prayer comes through loud and clear. Great.

When in the shower, felt some of the water slide down my throat. No way this could go wrong.

Enjoying following along as always. Was just curious if you ever turned on the TV and if so what channels were available.

Thanks for taking the time to bring us along golddog!

Is anyone else missing the last ~15 pics in that last post or is it just me? The last pic that shows up for me is the grazing deer pic.

I'm on an Android tablet using the old forumserver.twoplustwo.com. All of the pics are showing up for me.

Brag: got rid of cold
Beat: replaced with food poisoning
Variance: Not sure when updates will resume

On the plus side, Varanasi is not far away if we need to go that route n

Fine here.

I LOL'd, so I really hope this is a joke--at least at this point in time. Still enjoying the ride, but I can not adjust to seeing spotted deer with antlers. It throws me every time.

i'm going to be massively disappointed if this trip doesn't end with a morning hefeweizen and weisswurst at the munich airport

Tom, not a joke. Miserable for ~6-7 hrs last night.

Fitful sleep, as happens when one's sick. During one of the awake sessions, couldn't think of a time when I've been this sick.

Not better now, but past the real bad stuff.

Left a substantial tip for room cleaner. It's a disaster.

During another wake session, was texting some friends to let them know. Martin asked if I was enjoying the trip.

"Well, sure, except for the near-death experience. "

I'll get through. It will be fine.

Damn. That's miserable. Hoping the upswing is soon and steep!

Thanks, Tom.

This will be out of timeline a little (you know, I'm kind of like Tarantino). Posted about the illness just so you guys would understand the delays. Now we're back to the morning of that day.

We went to a place called Amer Fort in Jaipur. Once again, a great guide, but with a firehose of information.

Upon arrival, this dude was doing the snake-charming thing for tips.

It's motions looked herky-jerky enough that I asked if it was automated, but was assured it was an actual cobra. OK then.

On the way up, saw some elephants

Some nice scenes around the fort

This is a popular place for wedding/engagement pictures, lots of couples doing that. I was told that, since covid, there's also a pre-engagement period. Apparent Hindu weddings are five-day affairs costing huge sums of money (for those that can, I imagine).

It didn't come out too well, but up on the ridge is the wall to surround the original city. The 2nd longest wall in the world (12.5 km. Or maybe in India, can't remember for sure).

Bonus monkey!

This is the hall of mirrors. Lots of shiny plates in the ceiling & walls.

After this, we took a tour of a place where they're trying to give women from villages who have suffered a working skill.

They do block printing onto fabric, then take that fabric and make stuff to sell as crafts. Had some sample material so those who wanted to could try their hand. This is what one of the girls on the trip made.

Then we walked down to their little shop which sold the goods. Cloth purses, tablecloths, shirts, dresses, lots of stuff. Some of it goes to local markets too; when we went in the sewing area, there was a white board from various places for their orders.

Trucked back into town. More elephants along the way.

And this cool old Ambassador

Saw the Lake Palace along the way.

Then met for lunch. It was at this time that I had the fateful meal.

It was a nice restaurant, inside City Palace which we'd toured the day before. Supposedly owned by the King. I'm gonna punch him in the head if we ever meet.

Three of the eight in our party got sick, to varying degrees. More on that later.

After lunch, we went to the observatory across the street. Not in the telescope sense, but ancient (and huge) tools they built to determine latitude, time, astrological signs, a bunch of stuff.

Was feeling worse as we went on. Toward the end, pulled Ruby aside and told her I needed to find a washroom. Felt a little better after that, then it started hitting me. At first, leaned against something, then sat, then needed to lay down. After a minute, the guys noticed me slumped over and came to check.

That was the end of our day anyway, so we tried starting to move toward the bus. Fortunately for me, a guy from the site knew where to get a wheelchair; pretty sure I wouldn't have made it walking. At this point, I think it's around 15:00

Now it's going to get slightly graphic. I know some people aren't comfortable about illness, so don't open the spoiler if that's you.

So, the next morning, we went to Pushkar, a lake up the road a way. It was a nice little rustic resort with these little cottages.

That box on the shelf is a heater, which made it nice and comfy. Of course, this part of India hardly ever needs heating, so there's no central systems.

Lunch was ready, but I was not. Just had a few fries to get a little something in. Oh, BTW, this is Christmas Day.

In the later afternoon, we went into town. Took a walk through the market to see the Lake.

This is also holy water. Some of the Mahatma's ashes ( as well as many others, of course) were spread here.

Get back to the resort, and there's some other people showed up for dinner. Apparently, you can't drink in town on the holiday, so they came out for dinner and wine. I think they were British.

And brought along something Christmas music. One song. At full volume. On a loop.

Needless to say, I wasn't having that. Turned that **** down. Had just a couple scoops of steamed white rice to get something in, then to bed about 19:30.

yes!

worst food poisoning i ever had was in thailand after some curry

first time in my life that i thought i needed to go to the hospital but was unable to move so couldn't even consider it so just rode it out laying on the floor of my shower as i was unable to lift my head or my butt up to make it to the toilet so just let everything fly out both ends laying on the shower floor in a delirious state until i'd been squeezed empty and felt strong enough to stand up, shower off the filth and make to my bed where i basically slept for 48 hours straight

Woke up a few times during the night, but mostly power slept and broke a sweat. Felt almost back to normal in the morning. Some scrambled eggs and toast (tried a couple Indian things that didn't work for me), packed up, and down the road we went to Udaipur.

Some scenery along the way.

Along the way, there were hundreds of granite & marble stores like this.

Rajasthan must be one of the marble capitals of the world. Huge blocks, like 5 feet cubed. Some really nice looking stuff too. A lot of ure white, but some pinks, greys mixed in.

We stopped for lunch along the way. I went back to butter chicken, there were some jokes about why no mutton (from the previous episode).

BTW, we got differing stories whether mutton here meant lamb or goat. I think something even more exotic, like a stray dog.

While eating, Ruby made the statement that "India is chaotic". Looked at my watch and pointed out that on December 26, we have a new leader for understatement of the year. Got a good laugh.

One of the other guys told us a friend advised him, "Forget the condoms. Bring the Immodium." which also got a good laugh.

The trucks in India can be very colorful.

Not a great picture (wrong side of the bus), but this is the largest Shiva statue.

Get to the hotel. Seems like a nice enough room.

Here's the view.

For dinner, we walked up to a rooftop bar at the hotel where The Exotic Marigold Hotel was filmed. Also apparently, some of Octopussy was filmed on this lake. A nice view.

Get back to the hotel, the requested heaters aren't in the rooms, but they did bring extra blankets. When asked, they said they had some, but five of them quit working.

I don't care. Go to Home Depot India.

Of course, there were a number of inconsiderate *******s throughout the night making noise in the hallways. Somewhere nearby there was apparently a Rajasthan rave party; shitty electronic music pulsing.

Some rainstorms through the night (first rain of the trip, been very lucky) woke me. Between all this, didn't sleep for ****.

Breakfast not ready, so went for a little walk about 7:30. Nothing open, which surprised me. back to the hotel, breakfast still not ready at the appointed hour of eight. **** it, I'm not waiting, I can at least make some toast while they're getting their **** together.

Anyway, just lots of little things. Told Ruby at breakfast this is the worst place we stayed in, by far, and I'd fire them if I was G Adventures.

Now up to speed. They went on a tour of City Palace here, but it's seeming like rain, and I'm worn down enough. Hoping I can find some decent rest before heading to the Delhi Airport early the day after tomorrow.

Oh yeah, forgot this. First morning, I'm up around sunrise, ~7:30 local. Went looking for a Coke to wake up.

First solo venture in Delhi, so figured I'd walk down the street on one side of the hotel a way, then come back, just to get a little oriented.

Not 5 minutes out, a pedestrian passes me, carrying a Trader Joe's shopping bag.

****, I traveled 11000 miles when I coulda just went to Boulder.

LOL!

Glad you survived that ordeal. I don't think I've ever been anywhere near that sick in my life. Thanks for the report and pics. It was a lot of fun traveling along--most of the way.

Checked in for flights, seats assigned. 61C to Munich, 11D to Frankfurt.

Lufthansa initially put me in 87B on the first flight. Looked at seat map, most of Economy open. Guess they auto-fill from the back? Anyway, nice aisle seat.

Surprisingly, they didn't show the entire plane on the seat map. Seems like a missed opportunity to upsell.

Had to sign in to look at upgrades. Not a member, they're a United partner. May look deeper later, or query at airport.

~21 hours now! While India was mostly fun, it's a lot. I'm done, ready for home.

They will never show you all seats that are open, just airline algo BS. Yeah inquire at checkin and/or at the gate. Occasionally BC upgrades can be had for 400 euros. But depends on availability/demand. Also forget about weisswurst at 7am, Bavaria doesn't work like that. Beers and bretzels can be had at some shop, prolly. In the unlikely case you are stuck at Munich, from 10am at airbräu, best restaurant/pub ever at an airport, also reasonably priced. I was last there last Saturday. Google it.

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate it.

For a huge business, Lufthansa's site is ****. Up early, have time, so thought I'd sign up. Saw a link earlier where you could bid for upgrade, but needed to be a member to place your bid.

What a pain in the ass. I get some of it is formatting for different cultures, but drop downs that don't let you type ahead? We've been doing that for 20 years, guys.

Got finished about 10 minutes ago, they sent an email with a confirmation link. Sites are still doing that? Of course, haven't received anything, but that could be comcast as well.

Also learned something mildly interesting about the whole "cow is sacred" thing.

It's because Vishnu's ride is a bull. For cows, it's because if the mother can't give milk for a baby, they'll use cow milk. So, they see killing the cow as kind of like killing your mother.

However, they will use the skin to make leather and create good. Just not the meat. IDK, there we are.

ban!