Pune, Ahmedabad, Mt. Abu

Between Goa and Udaipur, where we currently are, we made three main stops: a day and a half in Pune, a day in Ahmedabad, and three days in Mt. Abu. Here are quick summaries of our impressions of each of those places.

Pune seems like a cool place to live, but wasn't that great of a place to visit. It's metropolitan, has a relatively large international population, really nice restaurants, and good shopping. It's also home to the internationally renowned ashram of Osho (he's also subject to parody in that Mike Myer's movie "The Love Guru"). Unfortunately, the ashram was expensive (and not to mention eerily cultish) so we only enjoyed it from afar, and spent the rest of our time wandering, making one stop in the old-city to see a fabulous curio museum that featured classical Indian musical instruments.

Ahmedabad, on the other hand, was far less international, to the extent that we were the only non-Indians to be found. People had given us attention for being foreigners before, but in Ahmedabad we could hardly make it a few seconds without a "Hello" or "Which country?" People on scooters would shout "nice to meet you!" as they drove by. While this can be exhausting, it's mostly fun and friendly. In Ahmedabad we did our usual wandering-through-markets routine, and also stopped at the Ghandi Ashram to pay homage to the country's beloved founder. And, it's confirmed: Ghandi is tight.

After all of the running around, we decided that we needed to take a breather at our next stop, which was Mt. Abu in Rajasthan. Mt. Abu, which we picked because it is supposed to have nice weather at this time of year, was nothing like I had imagined it (I had made a huge error of conflating "hill station" and "base camps"). The city is an oasis situated between dried out hills, centered around Nakki lake. I guess when I describe it that way, it sounds obvious that it is a huge tourist attraction, mostly for Gujarati families (usually from Ahmedabad, specifically) and honeymooners. Considering the cloyingly warm greeting we had in Ahmedabad, it's no surprise that Mt. Abu has been the height of our celebrite: literally droves of people would approach us, mostly kids who wanted to shake our hands, speak a little English, and take a picture. Mt. Abu is where we decided that whenever people randomly ask to take a picture with us, we will also take a picture. So, look forward to dozens of pictures of us with Gujarati families!

That decision, actually, was somewhat representative of our overall philosophy that weekend, which was: when in Mt. Abu, do as the Gujaratis do. We went paddle boating two times, got our photos taken dressed up as a Rajastani King and Queen, visited a beautiful Jain temple, and played air hokey. Every night.

Overall, we achieved what we wanted to in Mt Abu (not hard, when the goal is to relax and you happen to be in a resort town), but I'm glad we left when we did, because Udaipur, so far, is really, really wonderful.