Today has been a very relaxing day. I have done very little. I spent the majority of my day reading on the deck of where I am staying that overlooks the lake. There have been a few “Merry Christmas” here and there but for the most part it has been Indian life as usual here in Udaipur. I have seen a few back packers walking down the street with their Santa hats on, and I did see a little Indian kid running down the street with a Santa hat and a beard made out of cotton balls. Some of the hotels and rooftop restaurants have put up Christmas lights but they don’t stand out too much.

On my walk to have lunch I turned a corner and came face to face with an Elephant walking down the street. At first I was not shocked at all since I have seen so much already, and simply gave it the right of way but then after about 10 seconds I stopped and turned around and had to make sure I didn’t just imagine walking past an Elephant in the street. Sure enough, when I turned around to get a reality check there was indeed an elephant walking in the street. It turns out only two people can have an elephant in India in each town. The richest man and the poorest man. The elephant I saw belongs to the poorest man and the elephants home is in a nearby temple. The poor man guides the elephant down the street and asks for hand outs. It is good luck to give out money to the poor. However, there are homeless in San Francisco that don’t even have an elephant so I am keeping my spare change for the poor back home.

I took a sunset boat ride around the lake this evening and as I was waiting to get on the boat I continued being told to wait as boat after boat would receive passengers and depart with me standing on the dock by myself. After waiting for about 20 minutes and several boats later I boarded a empty boat but I was told to get off and again told to wait some more. The boats that tour the lake hold about 30 people but I was being pushed aside while about six people max would get on the boats that I was not being permitted to board.  I was standing on the dock by myself wondering what the heck was going on. I finally figured out that these were “special” groups/family’s that have paid more rupees to have the boat to themselves. A huge waste. I would have happily sat in the back and not said a word but I guess that is not how it works here. There was one guy that arrived with his wife and kids and it was easy to tell that this guy was an Ass-hole based on what he was wearing (alligator skin loafers) but it was really obvious he was an Ass-hole when we said to his wife while passing me on the dock, “Honey!, Just shut up and get on the boat.” “Just do what I say!” There were a few more commons waiting for the boat with me at this point and I could not help myself from loudly saying in the jerks direction, “Happy, Happy!”, “Merry Christmas!”. This got a few chuckles from the other commons on the dock. And of course this jerk had to have a private boat.

I have been pondering where to go next in my remaining week, and originally had planned to visit Jaipur from Udaipur but have not received any great feedback from the travelers I have met who have recently been there so I have decided to go to Pushkar instead. The tricky part has been the planning of getting to Varanasi from Pushkar via Agra. I only want to go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal but that’s it so I want to get out of there quickly. Because of the high volume of tourists this time of year the trains are very much booked and since I have not known exactly where I am going to be and when, my attempts today to purchase a train ticket from Agra to Varanasi was not successful. However, it seems that it is going to work out since I have decided to drive from Pushkar to Agra. Spend the night in Agra,  get up very early the following morning to be at the Taj Mahal before sunrise. I plan to spend a couple of hours at the Taj Mahal and then plan to drive to the Delhi airport (about four hours) the same day and fly to Varanasi on Airline SpiceJet early evening. I have also booked a return flight from Varanasi to Delhi the same day I fly from Delhi back to San Francisco which is great since I was going to spend a night in Delhi before flying home but this way I can bypass having to stay in Delhi again.

I hope all those who are reading my updates are having a good holiday.

Merry Christmas!