Jaisalmer - Rajasthan

Jaisalmer, "The Golden City", of Rajasthan. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone, crowned by a fort, and many houses where people are still living.. Many of the houses and temples are finely sculptured. It lies in the heart of the Thar Desert. We also found a nice guest house inside the fort. We spent there one week and also went on a short camel safari in which we spent a beautiful night on a sand dune in the desert.

Iris in the main market at the foot of the fort

The view from the roof of our guest house

Sunset in the fort - the stones get a golden color

The man made lake near the fort

The amazing fort of Jaislamer

Lunch in the camel safari

Morning chai on the sand dune

Sunrise

Pushkar - Rajasthan

Pushkar in Rajasthan is a small village on the banks of a small lake. We stayed there for 10 days, resting and shopping – Iris :). We also saw the Divali, Festival of Light. The village was light with fireworks all night. We ran across many people we met in places we’ve traveled in India before. We stayed in a nice hotel with papaya trees and a swimming pool! We even ate labane in laffa (well almost labane…) for 20 rupee (2 shekels) in a small place in the middle of the market where lots of people like to get together when they get tired from all the shopping.

"The Laffa joint"

Eating healthy breakfast

Sunset at the lake

Iris liked the monkeys -we called them "kruvy" because they look like moshe ufnik from Sesame Street

Orcha - Madhya Pradesh

Orcha (“hidden place”) is a sleepy little village but it was once the capital city of the mighty Bundelkhand Empire and was founded in the 16th century A.D. We stopped there on the way to Delhi for 2 days. In the village we saw the ancient, and also old wall paintings describing life at that time.

Khajuraho - Madhya Pradesh

After Varanasi we went to Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh. This small village used to be a capital of one of the dynasties in India at about 1000AD. It is surrounded by the remains of many temples and is considered to be very beautiful and peaceful. The temples are unique since they were not destroyed during the various wars in India, and because they have many erotic statues with figures from the Kama Sutra. We took a night train to a town called Satna and then a taxi. The train was 3 hours late and it had even more delay during the night so we arrived 5 hours after what we had planned, but we joined a Spanish couple and shared a taxi so we compensated a little for the delay. Khajuraho is a nice village and was a good change after all the noise in Varanasi but unfortunately it’s impossible to walk in the street without having the shopkeepers jump on you and call “come look my shop”… “so tomorrow???”…”I will be waiting!!!”.

The temples

We said Kama Sutra....

We rented bicycles for touring the village

Varanasi - Uttar Pradesh

From Rishikesh we went to Haridwar and took a 24 hours train to Varanasi. Varanasi is an ancient on the banks of the Ganges river. It’s holy to the Hindi. It has 3 names: Kashi – the first name, Banares – the Muslim name, and Varansi – the modern name. We had a great time in Varanasi and stayed for almost two weeks, mostly in Phandai Ghat (Ghat = stairs to the river) in the old city. It’s a lovely place with many small street and allies with lots of big cows and many music and silk shops. Varanasi is a busy Indian city with a lot of noise and air pollution, but very colorful with lots of things to see and to do. We saw the evening Hindu ceremonies ("Pooja"), We took a boat to see the sunrise on the Ganga river and all the Indian doing there laundry there and washing, we saw the places where they burn their dead people, we went to the local university to see the local Chemistry faculty and we met a local researcher in chemistry who declared he wants to start the first biosensors company in India and he offered Iris to join his team..., this time the Hindu also had a nine days festival - the Durga festival, so we saw them in the temples and the Ganga during their prayers. They built statues of their gods for the festival and in the last day they throw them to the Ganga river. We also went to the new mall and saw a bollywood movie which took 3 hours and was very amusing.

A colorful street

Iris in a market


We are on a boat ride at sunrise. Behind us is the main Ghat

The main ghat during the early morning hours

A view of Varanasi and the Ganges river from Assi Ghat

Varanasi railway station at 3:00 AM !!

Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh

We arrived to Rishikesh and went to Lakshman jhula to the New Swiss Bandary Cottage. Iris had stayed there six years ago and liked the place. We had a great time there, relaxing, reading books, strolling along the banks of the Ganga river and to the near waterfalls. We saw the Puga ceremony on the bank of the ganag river – a holy Hindu ceremony held every evening. In the evenings we used to meet with other people at Mama G’s, a little guest house that was firmly run by an old lady we all called mama. We ate thali and had great banufi cakes for disserts (a banana cake with bisquits and dulce de leche (ribat halav)). We spent 12 wonderful days before we went on to Varanasi.

Iris having lunch in the New Swiss Bandary Cottage after we arrived from Amritsar

The Ganga river coming from the Himalayan mountains


Iris at the banks of the ganga in Ram jhula

Tasty butter cakes in ram jhula street

A man meditating on the bank of the ganga

We are dipping in the snow cold ganga

The evening puga at ram jhula

We are having a banufi cake at mama g's

A baby monkey and its mother

at one of the waterfalls near Lakshman jhula

Sunset on the ganga

Iris and a VERY big cow...

Even HABAD send people to Rishikesh :)

Amritsar, Punjab

From Dharamsala we took a jeep with four other Israelis to Amritsar to visit the golden temple of the Sikh, and then we went to see the daily ceremony of closing the gates between India and Pakistan, which is done every evening. Unfortunately we missed the ceremony by 10 minutes! but it was very funny to see all the Indian people get so excited. They wanted to take pictures with Iris and with me because we were tourists :). After that we went to the railroad station and took a night train to Haridwar which is a city near Rishikash, both cities are located in the banks of the Ganges and considered holy to the Hindus. In the train, we took a sleeping-car with beds in it. It was okay, the train took 12 hours to get to our station, and then another hour with a rickshaw (a three wheeled taxi) to reach our hotel, the whole journey took us 30 hours.

The Sikh golden temple

A Sikh guard in traditional uniform in the temple

The Sikh golden temple

And again...

Last picture :)

Iris with an Indian soldier at the border with Pakistan

The border gate with Pakistan