On our second weekend for this assignment, we spent a day in Ujjain (an hour from Indore). As this was the Easter Sunday for some, we thought it would be fitting to visit some temples in India. We have been told that Ujjain is one of the holy cities of India and thus organised ourselves a bus and a tour guide for the day (who looked eerily like Tiger Woods).
Our first stop was River Shipra, a river that people will come to bathe, spiritually cleanse and wash their clothes. An interesting mix of activities. Whilst it is not Varanasi, you get the idea. Here are some photos of the river bank:
River Shipra
Temples along the river
River Shipra
River Shipra
A family that asked if we would take a picture of them. It is very interesting as we get asked this a lot and it's not like they will ever see a copy of the picture, nor are you asked to be with them in the picture. It makes me think about where the need comes from where they want to exist in a strangers memories...what drives that I wonder?
On the banks of River Shipra
On the banks of River Shipra
I have to apologise for my lack of interesting photos of this location. For some reason, when visiting this river, I felt really really uncomfortable to take any photos of my surroundings. I know that there were others around me who were doing so but there was just this feeling in the air... It made me think of a life that was a constant struggle and that those the people around me who were performing these activities in the water; just seemed to deserve the privacy to be left alone, left alone to exist in the way they do, without me gawking at them.
There were plenty of visions here to see. I will share a story with you that Maria had told me she saw when we were there. She watched a man walk carefully into the water, holding a white bag as if it were very precious. Slowly he opened the bag and gently tipped the ashes into the water. He stood for a moment as if saying goodbye. He then stepped away, suddenly throwing away that white bag away from him carelessly into the water as if it were a piece of rubbish that he could disregard. What do we read from this? What do we assume from this? Is our perception of his behaviour accurate or was something else going on? If it were right, how is it that the same space exists for saying goodbye to loved ones but at the same time it is used as a garbage can?
We moved on to the next sight and it was here we quickly realised that our tour guide was less of a tour guide and more of a dodgy con man. He didn't come out to each temple with us to explain what we were seeing. If he did leave the air-conditioned bus, it was only to walk us so far near the temple and then show us where to take off our shoes. But he did not follow us into the temple to explain the various sights and sounds. It was for this reason alone that I didn't fall in love with Ujjain, because I did not understand what I was seeing.
There was one temple however that he did accompany us to and it was literally one of the most painful experiences of my life. Why you might ask?
Have a look at this photo:
Looks like a normal outdoor area, does it not?
WELL IT WASN'T!
It was the hottest piece of stone I have ever walked across in my life. You literally had to run across the stone as fast as you could and even then you could feel the burning of your flesh. Anika and I had a pedicure the previous day so our poor baby skin was crying out in pain :(
Here are some pictures from around the caves:
After running across the hot burning stone, we had to basically crawl (well, sort of crawl. Ok we weren't on our hands and knees or anything, but there was a severe forward bend to get in) through an opening in a cave. It was hard to get into as the opening was quite small and once we made our way underground, we were immediately drenched as it was so humid. As seen below:
Mere seconds I tell you!
Once we were in the cave, these were the sorts of things we could see:
And then it was time to come back out into the scorching sun. I was seriously not looking forward to the 30 second journey across the stone as it was that painful. It was the sort of pain where you could not even grit your teeth and bear it, you were more like 'I think something is wrong'.
Scorching sun
Now I don't know what happened to our tour guide in that cave but when we came out, he decided to turn a little weird. He engaged me in a very direct conversation about my marriage status and upon finding out that it was nil he then continued along his investigative line of questioning. Questions like: How long have I been in a relationship for? Am I going to get married? Imagine if we were married? How long am I going to wait until I get married? In an attempt to end the conversation I said that I intend on being married in the next 2-3 years.
His response? "Oh, ma'am..If I were your boyfriend I could not wait 2-3 years to have beauty like yours. If I had you and your beauty as a man, I would be given much confidence". Now as I write it out as a sentence it doesn't sound as creepy as it felt when he was saying it to me. There was definitely some suggestion and innuendo through-out the conversation, more direct than I had experienced since being in India.
We moved on to our next temple and I enjoyed (as always) watching the kids interact in their local habitat:
Little babies lining up to get lollies
Ever complained about getting water? I would imagine not compared to these people:
One of our last temples for the day:
It is quite a common sight to see buildings and concrete fences built around a tree such as this one.
Our tour guide (who remained in the car for these temple visits) had managed to move on to the suggestion of me finding him an Australian bride. I flatly told him that is not how things work in Australia.
We had reached the end of the 'tour' and he had been telling us all about an NGO he had been working with. He had said that should we like, we could financially contribute to his NGO as a group. He suggested we take some time and let him know. Ten minutes later, from the front seat of the van, he turns around and tips his baseball cap upside down and passes it around to collect money for his 'NGO'. By this stage we are all fed up of him so we donated a few dollars just to finish the day as quickly as possible.
But not without his parting comment to each of us, the one he said to me? "You need to go for morning walks as you are getting a bit fatty".
My friend, that is not how you go about getting a bride. Good luck with the rest of your life.
(Too harsh for a blog post ending?)
Haha, I am not worried by this at all and I share the story as the sheer audacity of the entire day did actually amaze me. I suppose we were due for one dodgy experience in a different country where we have been very lucky so far.
Here are all of us very happy at our late lunch in Ujjain without the tour guide:
#ibmcsc 
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