Goodbye, Udaipur
We had coffee, took tuk-tuks back to the bus and said goodbye to Udaipur, a town I'd love to come back to. Rooftop gardens, early-morning coffee and the sights and sounds of India make it a lovely place to spend a few days. Even the streets were relatively clean, and the contrasts are so very India.
Marble Country
Heading to Pushkar, we drove through marble country, with quarries, marble yards stacked with cut slabs, and huge blocks on the backs of trucks. Rajasthan produces most of India's marble, and we were told that's where New Zealanders come for kitchen benchtops. 🪨
A Giant Shiva
In the town of Nathdwara we passed a huge statue of Shiva. It's called Vishwas Swaroopam, "Statue of Belief", and it opened on 29 October 2022. At 369 feet (112 metres), it's the tallest statue of Shiva in the world and reportedly the fourth tallest statue of any kind. You can see it from 20 km away. On another hill nearby stood a golden statue of a monkey god.
Sparkly Rocks
We lunched at a roadside café, where the rocks nearby sparkled, probably from silica Along the way we also saw miles of dry stone walls that seemed to go nowhere. I couldn't tell if it was abandoned farmland or just the wrong time of year, but there was a lot of unused infrastructure.
Settling Into Pushkar
Our hotel, the Hotel Master Paradise, is an oasis in the desert, with a (working!) pool. We'll be here for three days, which is nice after two weeks of travelling. Pushkar is a holy town beside a sacred lake, with one of the few temples to Brahma, and it's a dry town and strictly vegetarian🌴
The Stitching Project
On Friday we visited the Stitching Project, a social enterprise on Kishanpura Road in Pushkar, run by Kayef Stitching Project. It supports women from the surrounding villages making block-printed fabric and clothes. About 45 women work there now, and it has had up to 100 at its peak. We were greeted with the traditional ceremony, and it was the nicest garland we've had, made with fresh roses and marigolds that had been kept somewhere cool.
Block Printing
We toured the workshop, saw the women at their machines and watched professional printers, who were fast and very good. Block printing is traditional in Rajasthan, where the craft is passed down in the Chhipa community, and the name is said to come from chhapna, "to print". We chose our blocks from big albums, which was hard, and printed our own lengths of fabric. I printed mine with a very busy yellow block and I'm having it made into a shirt for my Daniel. 🎨
Saris and Lunch
The women helped us all try on saris and showed us how they're tied, then we sat down for lunch together. We also looked around the shop. A few of us bought pieces, and measured up for our garments to be made out of the fabric we had just block printed
Massage and Posh Coffee
Back at the hotel we swam, and a few of us had a traditional Ayurvedic massage. It's very oily and gentle, not deep tissue, and I didn't find it relaxing at first, except for the head and shoulders. But I slept brilliantly, which I guess was the told point.
Afterward the massage Monique and I went for coffee at the very bougie hotel next door and had blended iced coffees and cake. My tiramisu was a show. It arrived in pieces, and the waiter built it at the table, pouring the coffee over three sponge fingers, layering the mascarpone cream and sprinkling it with chocolate. It was worth the money just for the performance. 🍰
Kombucha Hour
My room became the meeting place for pre-dinner drinks, and we finished off some of my Udaipur kombucha. Dinner was a buffet, with a fruit-filled custard dessert so good I went back for seconds.
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