Last weekend I was invited to join a group of 25 associates from TCS to join them on a picnic in Mt.Abu. My first though was something like…oh nice a picnic on some nearby mountain sounds like a nice little distraction. Not quite. A ‘picnic’ actually stands for whatever short trip. I found out that they rented a bus for two days to go to a beautiful neighbouring state Rajasthan. So sure I was in!
The way up to one of the temples.
It was repeatedly communicated that we would leave at “10pm sharp!” in front of our office. I can’t believe, I still fall for that! …I was present at 9.55 and was the second person to be there. J (Last week I thought I had learned it and arrived 5mins late at an important meeting and I was the meeting had already started!) Around 10.45 our group became complete and we got slowly going. The buswould take us to Mt.Abu by the next morning. It was a very funny ride. Honestly, I didn’t really expect adult people to sing and dance on the bus. It was a lot of fun… remembered me a bit of AIESEC. Just on a side note… India must have influenced AIESEC a lot. The culture of the people here is very close to the one in the organisation… I’m very often quite surprised. So after some shyness, I joined the activities a little…although it’s a bit hard to sing along hindi songs and dance the choreography of Bollywood movies you don’t know.
I just had to wear this traditional dress...
After some issues with the hotel (according to the board on the roof it’s “the only place to stay in paradise in Mt.Abu which is comfortable and amazingly clean”-we changed after 5mins J ) we went to explore the place. During the next two days I realized with what different eyes I see the world around me. All the people on the trip were very impressed by the beautiful mountains and the lake…I was thrilled to know that the Pakistani border is close, to see the beautiful carvings in the temples, to see a lonesome man having a little store (and house?) on the top of a rock to serve the thirsty tourists.
The radar "against" Pakistan
Shop in a rock
Unfortunately on Sunday morning many people fell sick. Not me though, I was all happy. We thought that the lonesome man’s fresh lemonade must have been a little less fresh than we thought. (I smelt on it, had 1 tiny sip and passed it over immediately, smelt like big pot of rotten vegetables)Finally o Sunday afternoon I fell sick as well…so it can’t have been the lemonade. J We had hired some caterers to simplify the meals for our big group, maybe something was wrong with their food. You’d probably think that hiring caterers means that some people in Mt.Abu offer this service for the tourist groups or something similar, don’t you? (at least I did J) Wrong! This is India. Here, you just hire 4 people in Baroda, make them buy all the food in advance, bring all of it plus pans, cups, cutlery, etc. in the bus and join you for the entire 2 days. They travel on the bench behind the driver (all four of them) and cook food for 25 people whenever you want it…and no problem if you arrive 4 hours later.
Oh yes, by the way…of course the bus has no toilet…and with about 8 out of 25 people suffering from vomiting and/or diarrhoea this ride can be a bit uncomfortable. I think for me it stopped 3 times… and once I couldn’t help it and just opened the window. This is India, right? ;-)
Traditional Rajasthani
It was a beautiful trip: the places were beautiful, the people great fun and Rajasthan is very nice for art crafts shopping. I’ll definitely have to visit other places in this state during my stay here.
