Udaipur

The last stop on the River of Sound tour was Udaipur, in Rajasthan. Beautiful city surrounding a lake with floating palaces and hotels in the middle of it. We totally scored with the hotel that Gina picked, the Wonder View. It's name does not lie - the rooftop restaurant has practically a 360 degree view of the lake, palaces and the main city across the water. And the rooms were huge and palatial.

Udaipur reminds me a little of Venice, though they have opposite problems. In Venice the water levels are rising, while here the lake is drying up. Although there was some water when we were there, evidentally earlier in the year they had to start driving people by car to the posh "island" hotel in the middle of the lake.

We spent 4 days in Udaipur, the highlight of which was meeting a family of Qawwali musicians that were friends of Gina's. We had a lesson with them (tough - their vocal range was just a wee bit larger than ours) and they also gave a full-on concert in one of our hotel rooms. It was pretty incredible - the emotional intensity of the music practically knocked you over. And loud too - evidentally people in the hotel were hearing echoes of them from across the lake. I think they played like two songs and that was about two hours. Unbelievably moving.

On Sunday, Muhammad, the leader of the group took us to his mosque. The men in the group were able to go in and have him show us how they worshipped - the women had to stay outside. This was a bit uncomfortable. You also had to have your head covered inside the mosque, and as I had no hat, Muhammad provided me with what looked like a dirty dishrag that kind of floated on top of my curls (hot!).

After praying, the entire family came by and we had a picnic in the shaded area behind the mosque. Finally the Qawwali group performed at the entrance to the mosque - I could watch those guys for hours.

The grand finale of the tour was a camel ride through the Rajasthani desert, followed by camping out under the stars at a ranch outside of town. It was a great ending to the trip as we were able to spend a lot of time with the other tour folks in a relaxed setting. The camels were so sweet, though the riding itself is like doing a yoga stretch for three hours. All of the other animals we encountered, including the normally unflappable water buffaloes, were visibly freaked out by them. The ranch, owned by our host, Dinesh, was really chill and had incredible, fresh-off-the-farm food.

I come away from the tour with a new way to meditate (mantras), much less fear of singing, a lot of memories and a ton of tailored clothes. But the other people on the tour turned out to be the highlight. It was just an amazing group, supportive, generous, good-hearted but also fun to hang out with. I miss them already!

Gina did a terrific job making our time in India as smooth and spiritual as possible, and it was so cool to see her in her natural element. It's no exaggeration to say that in the cities we went to, she was well-known by most people we would run into. We would find ourselves saying to each other, "I found a shopkeeper who hasn't heard of Gina!", like that was some sort of miracle. She also guided us on the best ways to do our part to help out people in the places we visited, so that we were leaving behind us goodwill and compassion.

I got so much out of the tour on so many levels. I was able to experience some moments of deep spirituality and start to understand how to respect and to access that here. It also whetted my appetite for more and I feel ready to dive into the rest of my time in India. I'd highly recommend the tour to anyone - you don't have to be a singer to go (trust me!). Check out Gina's website for details: http://www.ginasala.com/

I've spent the last couple days catching up on things in Delhi (like uploading 40 billion photos). Delhi's hectic, polluted, and the touts here are more intense and trickier than in the other cities I've been to. I've gotten used to them, but it takes a lot of energy to be here. I am now in the station for my overnight train to Dharmasala. Can't wait!

Thanks to Elizabeth for some of the photos on this post!

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