Holi !

Ill take a small break from writing about the North trip (/there will be more, don't worry) and tell about the wonderful festival i was lucky enough to experience yesterday. Now it is harvest time in India and with that comes the festival of colors! People gather on the streets and in the societies and play with water and color-powder. Its so much fun.! The night before there is held a big bonfire in the villages and in the building societies. They do pooja (De tilbeder ilden og beder for et gunstigt udbytte) to the fire and roast coconuts! Then on the actual day of holi (which was yesterday) I went to a big holi party along with a bunch of other exchangestudents and around 100 other people everyone was in crisp clean white shirts that would soon be ruined by the fun games involving gulal (the colorful powders used everywhere on this day). We would mix it in a bit of water and splash it all over each other! We had a blast!

Before & After

Its also a tradition on this day that you do Bhang, an indian 'drug' put in a sweet milk drink called Thandai and gets you high for days! Of course we didnt do that. But walking on the road you would see so many people obviously under the influence of something (if it was alcohol or Bhang - ill never know, but it sure was fun to watch! )

Even the dog on mahalaxmi station had been playing holi!

North India - Jaisalmer and the desert!

Jaisalmer, still in Rajasthan, was the third city on our journey through the North. Even though we had seen a billion things already we were still equally exited about the new place. The busride from Jodhpur had been exhausting, sightseeing in the morning followed by 8 hours in a bus. And we didn't have time for a lot of stops like earlier because we had to reach our destination before the night with its darkness and danger of highway robberies arrived.

We did have time for one stop on the way - the sand dunes in the desert! As the sun was about to set we passed a couple of wonderfully untouched sand dunes in the middle of nowhere! We managed to convince Mithun, our travelguide, that we needed to stretch our legs, and that there were no better place than here.














In jaisalmer we had a nice hotel but most of us were to tired to do anything else that sleep in the evening. But the next morning we again got up early because our sightseeing program was packed! We started out at an artificial lake that was made to provide clean drinkingwater to the people of Jaisalmer.

There was A LOT of catfish in that lake, and when you threw out a bit of bread they would be lying so close in the water that it looked like it was only fish and no water!




In Jaisalmer We went inside the city fort, And inthere we entered a couple of jain temples. They were small but beautiful, and while we were in there a small group of nuns (or whatever the hindu-ones are called).




We had a lot of fun taking amazing photos in those wonderful settings. Like a dream!


















After all of this we took the bus a ouple of hours outside Jaisalmer to our new hotel - a desert hotel - all the 'rooms' were actually tents and in the afternoon we went for a desert safari riding camels. It was awesome even though it was pouring down from above. I was on the camel with Riina and we had so much fun!!! In the evening we had a traditional dinner and danced with unaks (men dressed like women) All in all a great day!

North India - Jodhpur (the blue city)

The second stop on our trip was Jodhpur. In Rajasthan it's like every city has a fort and a palace and endless amounts of french tourists. They we're everywhere and our group contributed with 3 of them!





On the way from Udaipur to Jodhpur (a VERY long bus ride of almost 9 hours) we made a stop to see a Jain Temple. It was amazing! One of the most beautiful temples I've seen so far, It was massive and all made in sandstone.




When we actually reached Jodhpur, we were exhausted from all the traveling and we just had dinner and then we enjoyed the evening. The next morning we got up rather early to finish all the Jodhpur-sightseeing before noon when we had to move again.










This used to be the Maharaja's bedroom! Notice the mirrors everywhere, imagine having decorations like that in your own bedroom, or even having one of that size!


On the right you see the outside decorations of this fort, all handmade a long long time ago.








On the left is a picture of one of the many saddles for the elephants which the Maharaja, and his family, were using. See the fort is now working as a museum, and all of these royal items (which actually once upon a time was in use!) are displayed.






Of course we went to the city fort and from there we could see all of jodhpur - also called 'the blue city' because of its many blue buildings. They belong to the Saddhu's (holy men) who paint their houses red in sympathy with

And we also saw a temple raised by the former Maharani (queen) of Jodhpur in honour of her husband the Maharaja. It was pretty and the garden was very pleasant.

North India - Udaipur

Udaiur was the first stop on our 18-days long NorthIndia trip. We went to the city palace and saw the hotel whereat the bond movie octopussy was shot! It was a good day, everyone was still fresh and up for a lot of sightseeing!



On the left - A guy selling Bhel, on the street. A delicious snack characteristic of north India, but very much available in Mumbai also.

Down - All the students in front of a wall painting on the city palace.



Down- Location of Octopussy, the Bond movie ;)




Udaipur was a nice city and a perfect start for a wonderful trip.

Home (in Mumbai) again

This will not be a long blog post, Im very tired after 36 hours in a train with a bad cold and topped with a rotary meeting 3 hours after my arrival yesterday. Just wanted to let you all know that I am back after 18 fantastic, wild, wonderful, funny, exhausting, hilarious, crazy and beautiful days in Northindia. We were first in Rajasthan (Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur) then we went to Delhi and we saw the Taj Mahal in Agra, we went further on to see the Ganges river at Haridhwar and last, but certainly not least we went to Amritsar before returning to Mumbai.