Category Archives: India and Dubai
The countries of India and Dubai are as colorful as sarees are! Follow along with this worldschooling family when they spend a month in Rajasthan and Dubai learning about the cultures and volunteering.
From Jodhpur to Delhi for our Last Day in India
It is an 11 hour drive from Johdpur to Delhi. We flew instead. We needed to be at the airport at noon. Before we left Johdpur Sodhi picked us up to take me shopping for spices. People kept telling me to buy my spices there. I had already bought a few spices in Dubai and Jaipur, but I waited to do most of my spice buying here. I bought the spices then checked on the US Customs website to make sure I could bring them home. That was a backwards way of doing it. Yes! I can! I fell in …
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Jodhpur, India
Today we got up and drove to Jodhpur. We are spending one night in Jodhpur, then flying to Delhi. A few kilometers outside of Jaisalmer we passed a long procession of people and animals. Jim thinks there were a couple of thousand people in it. First came the people with camels He is pushing a cart and pulling a camel That is pulling a wagon With people walking behind the loaded wagon At first the groups of people were small Interspersed with elephants, camels, goats, sheep, and cows I am embarrassed to say, this is the best photo we have …
The Desert Safari near Jaisalmer, India
I imagined riding a camel would be similar to riding a horse. Camels are a lot taller than horses, but there are some similarities. They way you move on them. You also turn them using the same method of hand control. You squeeze them with your legs to speed them up. You can kick them or use a crop like thing or the reins to get them to move faster. I didn’t do any of these things. I know these things because I asked one of our guides. I am not actually complaining about this either. Camels are a LOT …
The Road to the Indian Desert Safari
We are driving to an Indian desert safari for the night. Jaisalmer is surrounded by little villages. Some of the villages have people in them and some do not. Some are crumbling, and some have been fixed up. The first village we went to was not welcoming. The adults hid and the kids followed us around asking for money. These villages probably get tired of tourists showing up. They are very small, more like collections of a few houses with a wall around the complex. This is a view in so you get the idea of what I mean about …
Daydreams and Fairytales in Jaisalmer, India
Here is a secret you don’t know about me. I am a daydreamer, an over the top, lose myself in my own head, fantastical daydreamer. It used to drive my mother wild. I was forever getting lost, because I would begin to daydream and just lose my way and everyone else too. I have many memories of being lost on streets and in department stores as a child. I would come out of my reverie in a panic, because I was lost and even felt a little lost as I went from the dream reality in my head to the …
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A Long Drive to Jaisalmer. What a day.
When I woke up this morning my plan for the day was to catch up on all my blog posts. The drive was going to be a long one. I am writing about events that happened a couple of days ago in present tense. It is easier to do that when events happened yesterday. The real problem with getting behind on my blog posts is that I forget some of the things I want to talk about. Well that didn’t happen, I mean the catching up part. The drive was too good to miss. In addition to photos and thoughts …
Christmas in India
Merry Christmas from Udaipur India! We started Christmas at 1 a.m., when we got to our room from the dinner. We all had two presents to open. Just little things, one from each of us to the other. Our Christmas presents to each other have been this trip and this experience. It has been special. We love India and the people who live in it. As far as the commercialization of the season, I will most likely get caught up in it next year. It is hard not to. But it got us thinking. I have not missed a single …
Christmas Eve, Udaipur, post 2 of 2, the dinner
When we checked into the hotel they told us we had to pay for Christmas Eve dinner even if we did not plan on attending. So of course we decided we might as well attend it since we had already paid for it. After watching the hotel staff spend 2 days setting up we probably would have wanted to attend anyway. If I could even get close to correctly putting the saree on, I planned on wearing it. I did it all by myself! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the dear ladies of Delhi who taught me …
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Christmas Eve, Udaipur, posts 1 of 2
As Christmas drew near it became more and more strange to be away. I have always loved the holidays starting with Halloween and ending with New Year’s Day. It is my favorite time of year. It was certainly a different holiday season this year. The negative is, I really miss my friends and family. The positive is, I will never look at the crass commercialization that Christmas has become in the United States the same again. I have been finding it increasingly depressing the way in which my culture seems to worship things over relationships and events over warm gatherings. …
Driving from Jaipur to Udaipur, a Stay in a Palace
We got on the road about 8:30 this morning. Once we were out of the town of Jaipur, we were in a rural farming community. We drove by 5 carts with men standing up driving in them with camels pulling the carts. I didn’t get a good photo, maaf kijeeyay – everyone always smiles big in India when I say that, which basically means excuse me. Actually when I say anything in Hindi people become very excited, except nahee – that is the one word every foreigner learns, so it is not special to Indians. Every few miles we passed a temple. …
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Jaipur day 2, post 2 of 2, the Monkey Temple
Next stop monkey temple. My fear of monkeys lasted one day. It went from fear to healthy respect. If you do not have a serious respect for monkeys, I know you have never encountered one outside of a caged enclosure. A very healthy respect 🙂 The Lake Palace was on the way to the Monkey Temple. This is a private residence. The palace was built, and then the lake was made around it. All around the lake there are people begging and hawking trinkets. A real example of the haves and have nots. This man is tying down the eggs to …
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Jaipur day 2, Amber Palace post 1 of 2
Today was our day to hike. We didn’t know it when we woke up, but by the time the day was over we had hiked all over the place, and we had conquered some fears. We have been very sedentary for us. Here are the shop names I was telling you about yesterday. This is the old part of Jaipur. Another hazy day. This is the Amber Palace from across the lake. To the left of the Amber Palace is Jaigarh Fort. There is a wall you can walk on that connects the two. The distance is 1 1/2 kilometers. …
Jaipur day 1
Jim and I like to stay in B&Bs when we travel. In India we are staying in B&Bs where possible. They are called homestays here. We waited a bit late to start booking this leg of our trip, so we were not able to get a room in a homestay everywhere we are traveling to, but we did manage to get a room in a great homestay in Jaipur. Actually it started to become stressful to book our plans as late as we did. We could not get a train or a plane except for one leg of our journey …
Delhi Day 14, One of Those Special Days Life Tosses at You Every Now and Then
The girls in our placement wanted to put bindis on. It just didn’t feel right, I took it off shortly after, little did I know. This is Mrs. Peters. She is the teacher Jim and Alecia have been working with. They have had the kids working on these Christmas decoration this week. Mrs. Peters is Christian. One last morning assembly Here are most of the kids I worked with in a group goodbye. These are a great group of kids. I was lucky to have Anil. He was very helpful and really made my two weeks more meaningful. His English is …
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Delhi, India, Day 13
I did not think my placement could get any better but it did. I am going to be sad to leave, and I will miss all the people there. We leave tomorrow for Jaipur. …but first, the carrots here are redder than those we get in the States. I have been meaning to tell you this for a while. See them in the middle of the vegetables. Everywhere you go there are vegetable sellers, not fast food shops, and not people selling junk food. My guess is if you were to conduct a study comparing people in India to people in the …
