Perspectives on Tour Guides

One thing the wife and I have in common is that we tend to breeze through tourist sites quickly. We see it, we appreciate it, we move on. We tend to operate best without a tour guide. That's not to say I'm not interested in the history and the story, it's just that I'd rather read about it in a book than have some long-winded guide try and prove he's smarter than me (which is quite likely the case). If I get a tour guide, that tour guide really has three jobs:

1. Read my non-verbals. I'm not a terribly complex person. When I'm done listening, you'll know. When I'm done listening, stop talking.
2. Keep me away from emporiums. I hate emporiums. In fact, 99% of foreign tourists hate emporiums. If a foreign tourist is at their second emporium and still pretending to watch whatever handicraft is being produced, they're being polite and don't realize it's perfectly acceptable to act obnoxiously to the tour guide.
3. Take good pictures. This is what 99% of tourists really want; a good picture to take home. If you're a tour guide and you're not taking good pictures, I guarantee it's impacting your total income. Note, more on this in a later post (as a hint, I'm reviewing the archives for my best bad shots).

It had been a while since I had been around a person that felt differently about tour guides. Then Lindsay's friend Melissa came to India. Did she have questions? You would have thought someone had assigned her a research paper on the familial lineage of the mahanranas of Udaipur. The picture below, taken at the end of a tour through Udaipur's City Palace, clearly shows our respective attitudes toward the guide:

• Melissa is still intently listening to the guide (her smile was genuine), hoping to soak up every last morsel of information about this wondrous place
• Jeremy, her husband, can be seen simply appreciating the fact that Melissa is enjoying herself. 
• Lindsay is in the background, eagerly plotting out the rest of our day, having completely tuned out the guide within the first 8 minutes of the tour.
• And finally, there's me, entertaining myself by taking pictures of the entire situation, also having tuned out the guide.

Part of me thinks it's a bad thing that I've lost some semblance of curiosity about this country; part of me thinks people just value different parts of travel. Regardless, it was refreshing to see Melissa's enthusiasm to engage with the guide rather than to simply tolerate the guide, as had been the case for me lately. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it was a better time for the guide as well. 

Probably the Most Romantic Dinner?

As we had been told but chose not to believe, Lake Pichola is a seasonal lake that dries out in the summer until the monsoons bring enough water to fill the lake to its banks. As a result, what is left is a dried lake bed used by grazing livestock and as makeshift cricket pitches. In addition, the palaces located within the lake that appear to be islands are merely building out in the middle of nowhere. The most famous of these palaces is the Lake Palace, which the Taj Hotel Group has turned into a luxury hotel. One side of the palace appeared to have some sort of channel dredged so that the guests could still be ferried by boat, though I'm sure it loses a bit of its mystique when you could just as easily approach the hotel by foot from any other direction.

It was from the "watered" side that we had our view from dinner at the Sunset Terrace located within the City Palace grounds in Udaipur. I believe this was the first time that both Lindsay and I had elected to order Indian food from a menu that included continental selections. Said another way, I believe it was the first time that Lindsay had ordered Indian food from a menu that included continental selections. Midway through our non-veg kebab platter and dal makhani, the sun had set and the city took upon a floodlit glow. It was also around this time that we noticed a flock of birds flying out in front of the palace from the south to the north. They kept coming and coming and coming. It started to get a little noisy and as Lindsay looked a little closer she remarked, "Um, those aren't birds...those are bats!" Sure enough, we were witnessing the nightly awakening of the colony of bats that call the exterior of the palace home. I'm not one to get weird around animals, but suffice to say that that many bats was enough to trump the view of the Lake Palace and the sunset behind the Aravelli Mountains as the most memorable part of the evening.

Where Are You From?

As I've written before, the novelty of having westerners around has basically worn off in both Delhi and Gurgaon (i.e., the National Capital Region, or NCR). So even though we've traveled outside the NCR before, I had kind of forgotten that white people, for lack of a better term, are still a bit of a curiousity to some people, and more often to children. Even while waiting at the gate for the bus to take us to the plane, a small group of children lead by the oldest boy, Nikhil, approached us to ask where we were going. His family (yes, what looked like much of the extended family as you might expect in India) had been on a holiday to Shimla which is a hill station north of Delhi. They were on their way home to Udaipur. I've never seen a group of children get so excited as when we said that was where we were going too. Quickly, the rest of the family came over to meet us as well. For a second, I was convinced we were going to get an invite to dinner (we didn't).

When we arrived in Udaipur it didn't stop. When our rickshaw broke down, we were immediately swarmed by children who wanted to talk to us, but more importantly to get their picture taken, and even more importantly to see their image on the digital screen. While we were touring the City Palace in town, Lindsay was again approached by a shy young girl and her mother. For some reason, the girl really wanted to meet Lindsay (I mean, let's be honest....who doesn't?). While I'm not sure exactly where this family was from (I was too busy taking pictures and looking surly so no one would approach me), it's possible that we, or more appropriately said that Lindsay, is one of the few westerners that this little girl might ever speak with, at least at this young of an age. There's some level of implied responsibility with that kind of interaction as Lindsay (Luth) might be the lone impression this individual has of the United States outside what they see in the newspaper about that other Lindsay (Lohan).

Ambassador Luth greets the youth of Udaipur

It also goes to show the general friendliness and inquisitiveness of the people here. Maybe I was just an anti-social child, but I can't imagine as a kid that I would have walked up to a foreigner just to meet them and find out where they were from. In fact, I'm pretty sure that that kind of thing might be frowned upon at home.

Return of the Rickshaw

The auto rickshaw is a very visible symbol of inexpensive Indian transportation, something you see nearly every day, yet we hadn't had the need to utilize one during this assignment until our weekend in Udaipur. Most rickshaws are green, dirty, old, and probably not the safest mode of transportation. What we initially found in Udaipur was the exact opposite (well, probably minus the safety part). The hotel had a custom rickshaw that was painted a color to match the other hotel vehicles, appeared to be brand new, and even had custom throw pillows and curtains. Basically, it was the anti-rickshaw version of a rickshaw.

We decided it would be a fun way to go to dinner so we rented it for a couple hours. Unfortunately, the gleaming new rickshaw wasn't a very reliable mode of transportation. By the time we made three turns from the hotel gate into the narrow winding streets of Udaipur, the driver had stalled and it quickly became evident that he had no way to fix it. It didn't seem to help that the children of the city found the hotel's stalled rickshaw enthralling and quickly circled the wounded vehicle. After we emerged from the backseat, Lindsay and her camera became instant celebrities. While they enjoyed having their picture taken, they seemed to enjoy seeing themselves on the screen even more. As Lindsay was busy making friends, the driver was busy pushing the rickshaw back to the hotel. Once back to the hotel, they called us a local rickshaw.

A few minutes later, we met Abdul Hakim who ended up becoming our personal rickshaw driver / tour guide for the weekend. While his rickshaw didn't contain the unnecessary creature comforts like throw pillows and embroidered ceiling fabric, it was easily the nicest "regular" rickshaw I'd ever seen. That night he drove us the ten or so minutes to and from dinner at a slightly discounted price compared to the hotel's rickshaw, and we made plans for him to take us around the city the next day (he was enterprising enough to recognize he could meet an otherwise unmet need of having no idea of where to go or what to do).

We had expected just some one to take us from Point A to Point B throughout the day; however, Hakim quickly exceeded those expectations. Of course, we had no idea how much we were paying him because when asked, "How much?" he simply replied "As you wish." After an hour or so stop at the City Palace, where Hakim had a registered guide waiting for us, he took us through the narrow streets to the city center. As we were headed in that direction he said, "I take you to city center. That is the real India." He wasn't lying. It was a phenomenal local market with tea and other spices surrounding the perimeter and a couple dozen produce stands on the ground in the middle. All around were women in brightly colored saris and other traditional garments. It's always fun to get out of the typical tourist circuit and see what life is like in these periphery cities.

After walking through the market, we headed to one of the "other" lakes in Udaipur, Fateh Sagar, which promised to actually have water. The primary (and most famous lake) is Lake Pichola, but it's seasonal and had basically dried until the late summer's monsoons hit. The thing I was most interested in Fateh Sagar was that it was where Hakim said there was less traffic and where he'd let us drive the rickshaw. I really I could say I then drove the ricksahw through the winding streets barely missing pedestrians, dogs, and elephants; however, he stayed int he front seat and basically kept his hands on the wheel the whole time. Driving a rickshaw is a lot like driving a motorcycle, of which I'm not terribly experienced, so Hakim probably made a wise decision to protect his investment.

The best part of the weekend was how we turned the very lazy decision of renting the overpriced hotel rickshaw into a nice little adventure with a local guide. Even if we overpaid Hakim (I'm certain we did), it was better than being "those" tourists getting wheeled around town in a prissy vehicle taking looks of scorn from the locals and other tourists.

As an unsolicited plug, if you're ever in Udaipur and want a local guide (we later learned he also had a taxi so longer excursions are also possible), I'd highly recommend Hakim. Here's his contact information:

Abdul Hakim

hakimabdul61@yahoo.com

+91 98292 76923

Probably the Most Romantic Weekend Trip

We're headed to Udaipur this weekend, which is a mid-sized Indian city located in southwestern Rajasthan, about a ninety minute flight from Delhi. If the overgeneralized picture in your head of India includes deserts, camels, vibant-colored turbans, maharajas, and their palaces, then you're pretty much thinking of the state of Rajasthan. It might seem strange to head toward the desert at this time of the year. In fact, upon telling people at work where we're going, the unanimous reaction has included some flavor of, "It's in Rajasthan. You know it's going to be hot there, right?" What they don't seem to believe when I tell them is - it's actually hotter in Delhi than the desert (or at least the part of the desert where Udaipur is located). Of course, I'm probably wrong and will suffer through the excruciating heat; but worst case, we'll explore in the morning and spend the hot afternoons by the pool.

Udaipur is set on Lake Pichola and might be most noteworthy to Americans as one of the filming locations for the movie "Octopussy". In real life, it's most famous landmark is the Taj Lake Palace hotel. It's a white marble palace that appears to float on the lake. One website, http://www.nivalink.com/tajlakepalace/index.html, describes it as "probably the most romantic hotel in the world". I'm not sure what they're basing that on, but I like the semi-authoritative nature of the statement. Regardless, we're not staying there. But we are planning to have dinner there which I can only predict I will be describing as "probably the most romantic dinner we've ever had" when we return on Monday.