Udaipor

This is a long overdue post about our time in Udaipor in the North. We spent a hectic night and day in the city, but it was too loud and dirty for me. All the honking and haranguing were too much. Also, the whole city, us included, was kept up until 5 am with a disco at a hotel on an island in a lake in the middle of town. Evidently the royal family owns the hotel and can do what they want.

So we went to a homestay with a british/nepalese family called Mountain Ridge a few miles from town. We did a walk in the countryside with a guide that was really interesting. I/we talked a little about the spontaneous dance party/photo fest, and that was along this walk. There was something fun about it. The college students who invited us in were so excited that we came into their farm house. It was like a major coup for them.

The other home we visited the guide's aunt who made us tea as we watched the chickens chase each other. There were maybe four families of chickens and boy did they not get along!

The farming area around Udaipor was surprisingly wealthy. Most of the rural residents had satellite TV, modern homes, etc. The farm animals had shelters to escape the rain and or sun. On the walk we visited a cave/temple. In some ways, I like the really simple shrines more than the ornate/showy ones. While we were walking we saw a small lake where the outlet/river rises from 2 feet, the level we saw it at, to 20 feet, during the monsoon season. It is a brick making reason so we saw lots and lot of small brick yards. Also, there were tons of stone walls. Just to keep the cattle in, but they felt really substantial.

In Udaipor, I did a cooking class. Yona stayed home and relaxed. The teacher was from a small village so she never really went to school or learned how to get a job. This was fine until her husband died and she had no way of supporting herself. She wanted to get a job doing manual labor/domestic service work, because that is all she had the skills for, but because she was a brahaman (very high caste) her husbands family would not let her. She did odd jobs like laundry, hiding it from her family. Eventually her son met a westerner and invited him for dinner. The westerner liked her cooking and suggested she teach a class. Hence her career was born. I enjoyed the class, had a great meal, learned some, but like most Indian teachers, she did most of the cooking and the students did most of the watching.

Before leaving Udaipor, we did a sunset cruise on the lake (where the disco music had been). It was relaxing but a little silly. (Yona would describe it as, "tsss, I wouldn't descibe it...pointless." It was supposed to be an hour but really was 40 minutes, half of which was spent on disco island.