Jaipur Trip

It was a warm Saturday morning and I woke up feeling just ten cents short of a million, I was eager to get out of Mumbai. My break from work had just started and I didn’t want to waste a single minute of it.

So after a quick shower and a scrumptious breakfast, my edgy fingers tapped away furiously looking for holiday packages across India and internationally.

I had initially thought of just packing my bags and heading to the airport, however, I wanted to get a better deal online. I didn't want to be too fool hardy and risk spending, the little I had saved.

So after a few quick taps and clicks, I was heading for Sri Lanka, I entered my credit card details and was about to click ‘process payment’ when sanity struck me and I decided to check the cost of the hotels.
Well thank God, I was born with some intelligence, I was relieved that I waited. The hotels were out of my budget and I wouldn’t want to go to a different country and have no money to spend on shopping.

So Sri Lanka, was put on the back burner and I decided to go local. Cochin was my next destination, a beautiful place, affordable hotels, and very romantic, I was all set to finalize the deal, when I started to think, Beautiful place, pretty romantic, and I am going alone. It would have been too depressing.

So another destination thrown into the bin, time was running out and almost half the day was over. I had to decide, so after another quick search I checked the deals on Jaipur. I got a good deal on the air tickets and the hotel I selected wasn’t too bad, Well so I thought.

I decided the more I thought about the pros and cons of my trip, the longer it would take for me to decide and I would land up at Little Flower staring at the ceiling, until my vacation got over.
So without further thought I clicked ‘Process payment,’ the moment I hit that key, I knew that there was no turning back and I would have to make the most of it.

So I packed my bag, net book, camera, and clothes, and checked to see if I had everything in order. It took me 10 mins to pack and 3mins to do a quick check. I got dressed and headed for the airport.
I engaged a rickshaw and I was on my way. My rickshaw driver presumed I was getting late and he spared no effort in getting me there in less than 15mins.

I am sure that Schumacher would have been very proud of his driving skills. He swerved, cut and zipped and zoomed through traffic lights and within an inch of other cars. He cut through traffic like a surgeon on steroids. Well, I must give him credit, I did enjoy the ride. I was hoping that this would not be the only excitement or highlight of my trip.

It’s been over a year since I went to the airport, the domestic airport is pretty swanky, I was impressed; I checked in and waited for my flight.

G8 111, echoed on the intercom and I got up and heading to the boarding gate. After screening your carry on, at security check, they also check your bags thoroughly before you board the aircraft. They ask you to open your bags and they look through everything. I just don’t understand why they can't do it earlier.
A very attractive lady, probably in her mid-thirties had her bag opened and out popped some racy lingerie, much to the amusement of the other passengers. She didn’t seem too fazed by the incident. I put her down as a frequent flier.

I boarded the aircraft and a couple of minutes later I was on my way, as the plane flew higher, I sat back and thought to myself ‘this is it’ in a couple of hours I would be in Jaipur, no plan, alone and 5days to make the most of this trip.

2hours later I was over Jaipur, it was a smooth landing and as the plane grew to a halt I switched on my handset. Low and behold not a single message, I guess no one missed me; The Jaipur airport is absolutely stunning. I was amazed how advanced they got since I last came to the pink city.
I went to the prepaid taxi stand and got my ride, I soaked in the architecture and scenery and after an hour I reached my hotel.

I checked in, had a shower and headed out to get something to eat; I went to the Kebab Palace, awesome food great service. Then I took a rickshaw back to my hotel. Day one was uneventful, I changed and headed for a shower and crashed.

Sunday was a better day, I woke up at noon and headed for brunch, I stopped at a local café and after a quick bite I went to Jal Mahal only to find it closed for renovations. I travelled by the Jaipur local transport bus.

I could write a whole new chapter on my experience, but I’ll cut to the chase and try and summarize to the best of my ability, well I learn t over the last couple of days, on the travel etiquette of a foreigner in Jaipur, I refer to myself as a foreigner, cause the only thing different about them and I, is the colour of our skin and accent to some extent.

So back to the Jaipur bus, it comes in various sizes large, medium and small, but you don’t get fries with that. Large – like the Ac buses sans Ac, we have in Bombay they are known as the Jaipur Transport bus; however to me I know them as the stealth express or the invisible beast, because this bus magically appeared only once I boarded the small bus and would disappear as soon as I alighted.

The medium bus, as large as a regular school, or Goa bus and Small, you will find a lot of these guys running around, the most easy to catch and I’m guessing the cheapest.

So I get into this small bus aka sardine express and it’s empty and I’m thinking to myself this is not so bad, until a couple of seconds later the bus is filled to capacity, and I don’t mean the Virar local capacity, a Virar local would be a much better option.

So now that the bus is filled, and I am assuming we are going to be on our way, when I hear, the conductor yell out, now to the locals or disguised locals I’m guessing he was calling out the following destinations, however to me it seemed like he was saying, let’s see how many people we can pack into this bus.

What is worse than traveling by a packed bus, is traveling by a packed bus filled with people who believe on expressing their flatulence freely with flair.

I learned a very short time to breathe every 4mins; I believe I cleared SCUBA training level 2. I wanted to contact the Guinness Book of World records and show them how you could squeeze 50 people in a mid-size bus.

I am 5.7 and very lean, however my head almost touched the roof of the bus. So you can imagine how spacious it was, at one point I felt I was practicing for a part in the black swan, I had just about enough place for the little toe on my right foot, and I managed to sustain this balancing act for half an hour until I was spewed out onto the street.

For some inexplicable reason throughout my trip, I noticed that people of Jaipur wanted to go everywhere I went. Because every time I would board and empty bus, it would get full in seconds and when I got off, everyone else also decided to get off. It happened too often to be a coincidence. I guess the people of Jaipur love me.

The people in Jaipur are pretty friendly and help you find your way. I tried to blend in by trying to imitate the Jaipuri accent, but I was as inconspicuous as a Chinese in Nigeria. So I stuck to my Bombay Hindi, mixed with English. In the evening I decided to go to a new place. I walked about 2kms and finally found a non-vegetarian restaurant, not too fancy but the food was good.

Day 3 started off well, No Monday Blues, what a relief. I got up 6am, heaved a sigh of relief and went back to sleep. I woke up at noon and after a quick refreshing shower I headed to the shopping square also known as the big square, or badi chopar. I browsed around but didn’t find anything appealing. So I headed to the holiday inn and had lunch over there. After lunch I went to the arts and crafts gallery and picked up 2 wooden boxes with ceramic drawers painted by blind one armed Rajasthani workers, well I'm just kidding, they had both their arms.

I visited the Havaa Mahal, clicked a few snaps and headed back, I took the sardine express and reached the hotel drenched with sweat and accompanied by 50 different odours from all parts of Jaipur and Rajasthan. I had the longest ever shower and changed into a new set of clothes.

In the evening I went to the Raj Palace for dinner, the place was exquisite, the food was served in gold rimmed plates and the silverware was actually pure silver. After a scrumptious meal, I took a rickshaw back to the hotel.

Day 4, I got up at noon and went to the city palace, I clicked a few snaps, and then I headed to an art shop, and got some souvenirs for my team, I knew I was getting taken for a ride, but I was in no mood to bargain. I was just tired and wanted to head back to the hotel. Day 4 was a pretty lazy day. I spent the evening packing my bags and I did a quick check on what I spent. I went to sleep early.

Day 5, the final day in Jaipur, I got up a 10am, I settled the bills and I was on my way to the airport. I hitched a ride with Thomas a Spaniard who was also heading to the airport. We started chatting along the way and I learned that he was in India for 3months. I was really hungry so I stopped at the Marriott for breakfast and paid my share of the fare to Thomas.

The breakfast was absolutely amazing; I ate to my heart’s content and was happy that it was 50% cheaper than Mumbai. I decided to walk the 2.5km stretch to the airport, as I was stuffed and needed some exercise.

The walk was very pleasant as the skies were overcast. At the airport I met a fellow traveler Jagdish from Gujarat; a very friendly fellow. He introduced himself as “Myself Jagdish, you can say me Jag”, You say your name please”.

Jag probably thought I was listening very intently to every word he was saying, and he was right, I was because I was trying to decipher what he was trying to say. Some sentences like “I was shutter last night, as I wet in thunder rain” ,“my house have father, camel and mother” and the best one “Camel is my brother”,
He’s got one kinky father, I thought to myself. Well Jag had to leave as he was taking the spice jet to Bombay. I was leaving an hour later via Go Air.

I learn t a lot from this trip, as I do from most of my solo trips. Looking forward to many more trips across India and the world, hopefully I’ll have company next time.

Phoenix Reunion-RiverGate(Karjat)/Nandanvan(Thane)/Dominica’s(Gorai)

It had been a very long time since I met my ex team 'Phoenix', so I shot off an email to get everyone on board. A couple of mins later I got a flurry of replies.

I put that down to initial, uncommitted excitement. "Awesome", "Phoenix Rocks", "Count me in" and "Wouldn't miss it for the world" were some of the responses.

I was excited and got into planning this exciting event; Venue: RiverGate- Karjat, as the days went by the initial excitement settled down and reality set in.

"Sorry can't make it", "Just realized I have other plans", the awkward I'm not coming in spite of committing grin and other fantastic excuses, made our 16 strong phoenix team, look like a sparrow ninja (just coined that term). So now we were down to 10.

A couple of days later we decided to book RiverGate, party of 10. Luckily they were already booked, so we decided to go to Nandanvan; a place with good food, a private swimming pool and clean toilets/washrooms. So Liz our chief organizer made the arrangements.

Nandanvan it was, excitement was still simmering and most of us were anxious and looking forward to this reunion. A week later we had 1 more cancellation. Now were down to 9. Expenses revised, updates sent. Approximately 1300 per person. A week later another one bit the dust. We were now 8.

I did a quick revision of the picnic cost and sent an update. Samuel sent teasers, trying to uplift the waning fervor.

8th and 9th of July was the D-day, all my bags were packed and I was ready to leave. “Nandanvan here we come” echoed in our hearts.

I was doing an early morning shift and in my excitement in left my wallet at home (ID, License, and Money)

We had collected money earlier so it didn’t really matter, at first. So we had a team huddle and decided how we were going to go. When we got another suicidal sparrow flame out, it looked more like phoenix was turning into ashes. So now we were the super 7.

Now, the price just went up per head and it was too expensive to go to a place that was half way across the world, and required ‘Me’ to travel by public transport, it was just not going to happen.

So Liz, our dear Liz was on the phone again, finally we called this place called Dominica’s.

It was 2pm and we were scheduled to leave at 4pm. Liz seemed absolutely baffled when she called up as they told her we needed to adhere to 2 very important rules. 1# No loud Music – understandable and 2# No Hookers - ???

Who did they think we were, and why would 4 guys and 3 girls take Hookers for a picnic???

Well after checking with the rest we all in agreement that we would have to skip the hookers this time.

Now that we were downsized to 7, like the global economy in 2008, I decided that I had to get my wallet, if I was going to drive all the way. So Liz and I headed to my place. We reached my place and were back in a jiffy (5:15pm) just an hour and 15mins behind schedule.

Tanya, Adrian, and Sam took the ferry and reached the place. Liz, Shiv, Tina and I drove to Manori, we reached at 8 after picking up the alcohol.

Finally Phoenix reunited, we had 7 important people, and the rest didn’t matter that that time.

The food at Dominica's was pretty good.  We talked for a bit and then started playing ‘Taboo’ and then ‘Monopoly’.

At 1am, Tanya was tired so she decided to take a quick cat nap; I guess she was referring to the cat that swallowed a whole box of sleeping pills. Her cat nap lasted 9hours.

By 2am, most of us were operating on standby mode; one by one we all took our own cat naps.

10am, most of the cats were still sleeping, so we woke them up, ordered breakfast and started a another game of ‘Monopoly’

I don’t want brag, but since it was a dream run, I thought I’d let you know how the game ended. Well to say the least, I owned everything, I mean everything, and one by one I picked them off, putting them out of their misery and on to the street, well figuratively.

After a quick lunch we packed our bags and a couple of snaps later we headed back home.

Overall it was a nice spontaneous picnic with some great company…

Looking forward to more outings with my ex team, let me correct myself my team, they will never be an ‘Ex’ cause they are always there!

Love and Relationships

B
Being in a relationship is a wonderful feeling when things are going well and can be the disastrous when it hits troubled waters.

Now relations can be romantic or platonic. In case you are wondering it’s the opposite of romantic. My knowledge on this particular matter has improved leaps and bounds over the years. My astute power of observation and a few personal experiences have propelled me to be a relationship Guru. 

Don’t let my single status sway your faith at my ability to provide good sound advice. At the moment I will just talk about the 7 stages of Love.

1.   Admiration/Attraction

2. Infatuation

3.  Hope

4.  Love

5.  Passion/Obsession

6. Fear/Doubt

7.  Ecstasy

It all starts with admiration and when you start to feel comfortable around that person you get attracted to him/her. You see yourself spending more time around your object of affection and find the slightest excuse to meet or interact.

Over time, your attraction gets a lot stronger and then you start to get infatuated with that person and enamored by his/her presence. You feel a nervous energy consume you when that person is around.

You hope your feelings are reciprocated and accepted. You will tend to scrutinize every word action and inaction to get validation of the person’s level of interest in you.
If the feeling of infatuation last for more than four months, you can presume that you are in love. 

In time you will become obsessed with your new found love and will find no fault and accept all imperfections. At this stage you can say that ‘Love is Blind’

Over time you get used to the attention and your attraction and excitement of being in love will diminish as you will start to take this for granted. At this stage you will tend to question and doubt if your lover still feels as passionately as they did before. 

Most couples part when they fail to keep the roaring fire of passion alive. They tend to slip in to a routine and boredom creeps in.

Very few get to the stage of unconditional love and ecstasy. This stage consists of a higher form of love spiritual love.  

During each stage you will come across certain choices

1.   Continue and moving forward

2. Stall

3.  Slow down or go backwards

4.  Exit

At each stage, your intuition will tell you what to do and when to do it. 

By taking notice of the signals from your head and heart, you will be better able to interpret what your intuition is telling you. At each stage, consider, “What am I thinking and feeling?” Are you receiving conflicting messages? Is your head saying one thing and your heart another? This is often the case, particularly in romantic relationships. What happens is there is an agreement error, a contrast between your thoughts and your feelings. This is perfectly normal. 

They make a conscious effort to progress slowly and purposefully through each stage, enjoying the process, while allowing their love to develop naturally.

Communicating is the key ingredient in making any relationship work

You should be open and honest about your feelings, so that you can trust that everything has been said and understood by both parties. 

Don't be afraid to speak your mind. If love is true then you will be able to share exactly how you feel without the fear of what your partner will think about you.

Its important to feel a 100% comfortable to say and do whatever you want to do. Don't try and be someone you are not, as in time you will just become a clearer picture of who you really are.

Even if you find that things aren’t what you would have hoped for, at least you know what is going on and then you can work on making it better.

Most of us have experienced love blindness. We either think we love someone or do not realize until it is too late that we actually did love someone. You do not have to be blinded by love. You have the power to recognize it, but you must use smart decision-making skills to avoid making fatal relationship mistakes. 
 
As you progress through each level, you will no doubt experience excitement and anxiety, hope and fear, arousal and dis-arousal, certainty and uncertainty, along with a myriad of other feelings. You will need to work hard at balancing the messages that you are receiving from both your head and your heart to most accurately interpret the incoming, overwhelming information—it is very easy to be misled.

So my only advice to you is to look out for signs, listen to your head.