Udiapur!

Hi all from the 'City of Lakes' (Udaipur.)

It is indeed a very beautiful picturesque city, much more so than Jodhpur (at least in my opinion) but, for the first time, we are all in the company of other tourists to India, and having a more typical Indian experience. The following picture is of Udiapur, anbd you can see the mountains in the backround (going through them on bus was fun, scary, and slow) and a lake that Udaipur is famous for.


But, before Udiapur, I still had things to do in Jodhpur, including visiting quite a few government officials, and figuring out what our project in Setrawa will actually be. In Jodhpur, we ended up visitng high officials. The Chief Executive Office head talked about how he fights corruption: by being open, honest, and always reachable so that peoiple can call him with problems. The highest official for all of Jodhpur District, the collector, talked about his efforts in rural areas, and also sympathized with us for staying in a rural village like Setrawa. We are all pictured with him below.
Friday morning we discussed our project, and I will be working on creating a student government with two other people Jackie and Melissa. The point of the student government will be to provide a forum for students to complain about the problems of the school and talk to the headmaster/government about it. We haven't worked out all the details, so more on my next blog will be posted.

Friday night, Dennis and I went out with our host brother (who doesn't live at home, but Saturday was a holiday, unlike most Fridays) to see the local neighborhood. In the process, we went over to his mother's parents house, we went to a Hindu temple (the service had recently gotten out), and I got a fine haircut for 20 Rupees (including tip (which is about 50 cents).

The drive from Jodhpur to Upiapur the next day took about 6 hours even though it wasn't even half the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Typical Indian rural roads. However, we went through the mountains which were very beautiful, and went into a very nice Jain temple. (Because I was wearing shorts, I ended up having to put jeans over them for the duration of the temple visit, but I can tell you that cargo shorts under jeans doesn't work particularly well.)

One really interesting part of the trip was the small portion on the almost completed Golden Quadrangle of India. For India, it is the equivelent of the interstate highway system in America, and it is about 99% done (but our portion was the part that wasn't quite completed.) It is a freeway system that connects Delhi to Mumbai to Hyperbad to Kolcutta back to Delhi. As can be seen below, it looks very modern unlike the rest of Indian roads. (ANd doesn't ahve any speed hazards, which are everywhere, as if the drivers didn't know to drive slowly already with all the potholes and other obstacles on the road.

In Udiapur, we have all just been shopping and sightseeing. It is a really different culture to have to negotiate the price of certain objects when the shopkeeper knows so much more than you do about it. They are really able to take advantage of tourists as I have noticed from going shop to shop. Oh well, 50 rupees ($1) makes much more of a difference for them than for me.

This last picture is of me (notice the 20 rupee haircut?) out of the palace on top of the hill with the city of Udaipure in the background.
That is all for now,
-Andrew