Haveli Holidays

/08
Haveli Holidays
So our weekend excursion to Bundi is over Overall, a beautiful success. On our day in the town we got up and waited leisurely in the sun for mama to get in the kitchen and make chai and then—individual—incredibly good masala dosai (look it up if you don’t know) for the four of us and our fellow travelers: the british couple, their german lady friend, a younger Itallian couple, and later an Australian gal. They are on extended travels and have been to Indian at least once before.
Next we headed up to this towns version of maharaja’s palace and fort. We skipped past the part that cost money (as recommended by the brits) and headed up the cobbled hill the ladies section of the palace. Here was a brilliant garden perched above the lilac-blue buildings of Bundi and a palace filled with grand paintings of kings, Krishna and courtship. A friendly little Indian shows us the highlights of the place and hands us a stick to fend off the monkeys as we head further up to the fort itself. We have the entire upper complex to ourselves, which was rather surreal.
Afterwards, we went to a restaurant on the edge of the old washing tank/lake, which was garbage-filled but an interesting view all the same. We had ‘rajastani pizza’ which means the bread was covered with a large mix of vegetables and fruits including pineapple, nuts, grapes, and apparently live fruit weavels. Greeeat. Although this ruined the pizza for me, it made me gratefully once more for my companions who took the whole thing in stride unlike many Americans who would throw a fit. We shrugged it off and went on a walk of the town.
Wandering the busy, but lower key, streets of Bundi we spot a tourish bureau sign on a fence. Curious we open the gate and step into another century. Suddenly isolated from the street, we have walked into the Queen’s stepwell. This is a giant deep well led down by carved stone steps. The place has its own mysterious aura, no doubt helped by the echoes of the cooing pigeons off the old walls.
We returned to sit on the RN Haveli’s roof and listen to an Scottish dude with dreds practice on his didgery doo. The sunset and we waited for an amazing dinner chatting with our fellow travelers about do’s and don’ts in India. I even got to have hot bucket shower before retreating to bed. The next days return journey had its own set of perks from incredibly cheap, deep-friend and delicious train station food and discovered a new favorite snack: parley-g’s a super cheap cookie pack recommended among the do’s.
Less fortunate was a highly unpleasant bus ride in which a creepy guy sat next to me on the bus and whether for perverted reasons or exhaustion reasons kept leaning into me, putting his arm over my seat and otherwise making body contact even after I repeatedly pushed him over. Yeck! On the bright side, my anger helped us procure a particularly good ‘shaw fare back to the train station.

Jaipur, India