You and I, the last refugees

City of Lakes and Beyond

The next morning arrives to us sitting on our patio, eating a bite, and going over final logistics for the rest of the trip as we part ways two to Udaipur, two to stay in Mumbai. I now decide (now as I sit on the final trip back to NY that I really need to stop flying, it is making my body unhappy, and yes I know I have to fly again tomorrow --- but really really after this next one, I’ll stay put --- until end of May I think) Udaipur is the city of lakes, Lake Pinchola among others. Through a good friend, my teammate and I stayed at a girl’s hostel off in the suburbs of Udaipur. Being fed constantly and made to eat more fried goodness is not good on my stomach. The city is beautiful, the countryside even more so. Yes yes, I only had about 3 hours of sightseeing time in between the lethargic feelings of sleepiness, but the rural areas are beautiful. One of the days during my trip out to the rural areas to study rural development NGOs, we stumbled across the local festival with women in colorful saris arriving in trucks overloaded by people. A humbling and insightful experience even though I kept thinking (okay, if you’re a development person you’ll have read Robert Chambers and understand the term “development tourism”) that yes I was being a development tourist – merely parading through, talking to the better off and zooming off in our car. So in between meetings we did get a minute or two to see the Monsoon Palace and the City Palace which were/are lovely. I’ll have to go back for a longer sojourn, the same can be said for Delhi.

So Delhi, what can we say, it was nice, although I’d heard worse. It’s actually a very green city, not as brown as Udaipur, but the traffic is not good. But hey, for large portions of it I just felt like I was in LA traffic, not moving for 5 minute intervals. Once again, I had a few hours to run to the Red Fort, Dilli Haat, and the Qutab Minar before heading to the airport once again. However, it seems SIPA people are all over the world, hence it was great to meet up with a couple of folks who had graduated in SIPA in 2000 for dinner and drinks one of the nights, even better that she was working for a foundation we wanted to meet.

India, a vibrant country, stressful, but beautiful, I’ll have to go again and not run through areas in 3 hours before departing for the airport, as of now I’m in Seattle, heading back to NY, I can’t really handle another airplane, but hey, it’s the only way to get back to the East coast.

India Here I Am

Moto Photo

posted by Mai-Lan @ 06:06