Monday January 20—Day 7 (Bundi)
This morning when I woke up, I came down with a stomach bug
for the first time since living in New Delhi. I don’t know if it’s luck or not,
but after studying abroad in Mumbai during college, I’ve come to have some
tools of the trade in regards to the traveler’s bug. It also helped knowing
that one of the people in our group was a doctor. So I loaded up with
prescription drugs, yogurt and bananas and hoped for the best….because this
morning, we were going to be stuck in a passenger van/bus for a five hour drive
to Bundi.
I tried to sleep it off during our drive, but all the bumps
and car horns made it pretty difficult. Every so often when I peeked my eyes
open, I saw some green fields, colorfully decked out trucks and some cars
decorated for the bride and groom after their wedding. Wedding season is in
full swing here in India since the temperatures are finally at a bearable
temperature…unlike the 40 degrees Celsius that they get in the summer.
Once we got into Bundi, we dropped our stuff off at our heritage
stay and headed out to visit the Bundi Palace. Even though I wasn’t feeling
that great, I knew seeing Rajasthan was a once in a lifetime trip and still
wanted to make the most of my time here. Plus all the monkeys we saw in the
palace made it all the more enjoyable! The palace was covered in wall to wall
murals, depicting different scenes of life in India. Since the majority of the
palace is still owned by a family and not the government, restoration work
hasn’t really been done at all. It was sad to see all the gorgeous paintings
knowing that they might not be there in 5-10 years. While walking around the
palace, I couldn’t help but think of how the U.S. government would have treated
this same historical place so that this gorgeous art could be preserved.
After leaving the palace, instead of taking a rickshaw back
to our heritage stay, we decided to walk throughout the town and back to our
housing.
We finished the night with dinner around the campfire.
Luckily my stomach and I were in good hands that night because I had a
delicious honey and banana pancake and an omelet for dinner. Nothing like
breakfast for dinner to make yourself feel better!
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