The Taj Mahal

"You have to see it."
"If you haven't seen it, you haven't seen India."
"The golden Temple in Amritsar is way better. Don't go to the Taj Mahal."
"I thought the Taj is just another nice temple, but when I saw it in real life, it was breathtaking."

When I thought about, what I want to see in India, I was considering to skip the Taj Mahal. Even after all these comments above from other travellers. The golden temple as well, because it's way too far north. But in the end I passed by the Taj Mahal, which means I came to Agra (that's the City the Taj Mahal is at), because it was on my way anyway. It fit into my route.

8th of february 6am. I am sitting in front of my hostel to wait for Giani.
This early because the Taj Mahal has two special rules. No, not the Taj Mahal.. Travellers have two special tips, which seem to you like rules:
1.: You have to come at sunrise, because then it's supposed to be more beautiful.
And 2.: You have to be the first in line to get a picture of the Taj without any tourists on it.

And the two rules of the Taj Mahal are:
It opens at 7:15 (depending on when the sunrise is) and it costs 750 Rupees (ca. 10,50€), which is really a lot in India. (Indians pay 20 Rupees..... (ca.30 cent))

Giani shows up at 6:30am blaming his rickshaw driver. Giani is also half Italian - I don't think it was just the rickshaw driver that was delayed. :-P
Anyway we arrive way too late, when the queue was already huge. Still we got some nice pictures:

From another side (it looks identical from all sides)

Standing with the Taj in the back, looking towards the entry of the whole Taj area.

Behind the Taj

Typical tourist pic no.1

Typical tourist pic no.1 - fail

Typical tourist pic no.2

From far away

I have more.. But now it's getting boring.

Travelling alone

The 3rd of february I went on to Jodhpur with the bus. The first time since Goa I didn't have any appointments with other travellers. This time - compared to Goa - I really enjoyed the thought and was happy to be on my own at least for a few days.

I arrived in Jodhpur (a 1mio. city, which is quite average population in India) in the middle of the night (3am) and went to the train station nearby to wait there until the sunrise. The whole station was full of people sleeping on the floor covered by blankets (no foreigner, all indians). I squeezed into one corner, put my bag down and half standing, half sitting I leaned against it for the next 3 hours. I would have never sat in the corner at a train station in Germany - way too ugly. Well, in India it's not cleaner...
After few minutes more and more people started staring at me. When a person saw me, still half asleep, he/she would not turn around and keep on sleeping. To look at me was way more interesting than sleeping.
But I didn't just attract Indians, after a while also two helpless South koreans came up to me, to ask me what to do.

In a really surprisingly good mood I left at 6:30 , happy to escape the smell and stares, and went to a travel agency I had looked up in the guide, because I had to book my ticket onward already. It was still dark and there was still the same scenery I had seen on my way to the train station: A lot of beds with a lot of people on them, blankets even above the faces, covered the whole street. Homeless people or what? Don't know.

The travel agency wasn't open yet, but a little chai shop next to it. Still in a good mood, the shop owner raised my mood even more. He was such a funny nice guy. He even showed me his best-friends-hand-shake. The only problem we had was the language. He no english, I no Hindi. But hand gestures and smiles everyone understands. And when I started playing some Ukulele, all 4 old friendly men I was having a Chai with seemed to like it a lot. What a good start to the day.
At 7:10 the agency opened, I booked my ticket and then I went to look for a good hostel. I found one, relaxed at the luckily empty rooftop and enjoyed to have some time for myself. Afterwards I went up to the Fort and met two guys from Holland and Chile and we spent the evening jamming and eating. For the evening it was nice to have some good company.

The blue town - view from the fort

The next morning I took the bus to Pushkar, my next destination. In the afternoon I arrived at the small touristy town next to a lake.

Really delicious desert!!!

Two nights I stayed and on the 7th I took the train in the afternoon to Agra (the city of the Taj Mahal).
On my last evening I met Giani from Australia at a Burger shop. He was in a hurry to catch his bus to Agra. After 5 minutes talking we said we'll meet the 8th in the morning in Agra.
My travelling alone was over already. Nothing sad though, a few days on my own were good enough.

Jaisalmer & The desert

The bus ride from Jaipur to Jaisalmer was very relaxed, I had a good sleep and I was looking forward to the next experience:

A camel safari in the desert.

I arrived at the bus stand in the morning and didn't know yet what hostel I would go to. Nadir, a Canadian who's parents are Indian and who was in the same bus with me, suggested me the hostel: Dylan's Café, where he had already booked in advance. It sounded like a good suggestion to me and so I got into the rickshaw and we drove the short distance to Dylan's Café. A nice hostel with clean good rooms and a chilled rooftop Restaurant. Dormroom beds 200 rupees (almost 3€), a double room 400.
Xynia wrote me she would arrive the next morning and so I spent the rest of the day with Nadir, looking around Jaisalmer, a very nice small town with a beautiful fort, small streets, nice people and buildings all sand coloured. As Nadir said Jaisalmer looks very similar to a lot of parts of Pakistan. Pakistan must be beautiful then...
While we were having lunch, Indian combat aircrafts (Kampfflugzeuge) flew a few times past us - so loud even though they were very far away. (Jaisalmer is very close to the Pakistani boarder, that's the reason. But it's a little scary.)

A wedding celebration in the middle of the street

The Fort

Sunset from the Fort

The next day Xynia arrived. I slept for ages and when she woke me up I wasn't feeling very well. I couldn't start the camel safari already the same day, but Nadir didn't have too much time and therefore he started on his own with an organized camel Safari from the hostel. Xynia wanted to look around the town the first day anyway and so we started the morning after.

26th of january. Raju (Dylan's Café's manager) drives us with the jeep to the camel point, where our camel guide Ali and our two camels Papu, 4 years:

and Morier, 8 years:

are already waiting.

Mine is Papu, the brown young male camel, who is a bit stubborn. (Well, to be honest all safari camels are male.) We adjust our luggage on the camel's backs and get on ourself.

Morier with Xynia on top walks in the front and then Ali follows, a rope attached to Papu, with me on his back, in his hands.

For around two hours we're walking through nice landscapes. Even though not everything looks like cliche desert dunes, I enjoyed the landscapes a lot because people had "warned" me before that it doesn't look like you might imagine the desert to be.
After a while we stop at a sort of oasis for the camels to drink some water.

Around 12pm we have a break, Ali puts down the saddels and luggage, lets the camels walk free and then prepairs food.

Almost an hour after we arrived it is ready. Chapatti (a kind of flat bread) with vegetables and potatoes. Simple but tasty.

This was gonna be the lunch and dinner for the whole time in the desert. Only rice was added as well for dinner and sometimes even chicken or sweet potatoe in the late evening.
After eating and relaxing a little we go on for two hours on the camel. We arrive at some sand dunes, where we are going to stay over night.

The kitchen corner

All trash must be burned... Also the plastic

Before sleeping

The first night: With almost all clothes (I had brought on my 6 months trip) over each other and three thick blankets I'm ready to sleep outside on the sand in the desert. Looking into a black sky filled with millions of white bright shining dots - called stars.

A few sunsets

Sunrise. Yes, a little unromantic the wind crafts, but it's actually very positive.

I already loved the desert and in the end Xynia and I did 3 days the camel safari and then stayed at the first dunes for some time. I stayed three days more (so together 6) and she stayed around 10 days more.
We had a little hut to put our luggage inside, but we didn't really use it. We were all day outside - also sleeping.

In the evening other tourists came, stayed over night and went away again in the morning. During the day Xynia and I were on our own and just enjoyed the silence and the view at the horizon, no matter which direction you would look at.

The camel guides from the new tourists coming in the evening would prepair our dinner and breakfast. Lunch we got from a woman coming from one of the closest desert villages.

Quite a lot of camel & cow sceletons everywhere

31st of january I came back from the desert and wanted to leave jaisalmer straight away to go on to Jodhpur. Instead I stayed until the 3rd of february because I met three really nice German guys in my hostel and there was a desert festival for a few days, which was fun.
One day we participated at a parade, where we tried to promote for a NGO "Greening Jaisalmer". I'm not sure how successfull we were, but it was a lot of fun. We sat on a camel cart dressed in traditional wear and green ponchos and lots of people came to watch the parade, where different kinds of people (mainly Indians) participated. So many photographers were there and made us feel like celebraties getting a lot of attention. Oh and obviously the NGO would be happy if you have a look at http://www.workaway.info/432566271256-de.html
They are planting trees in a permaculture garden in the desert and promoting other ecoprojects in Jaisalmer.
So have a look!
We didn't get any pictures from the photographers but at least we took some afterwards when the parade was over: