India&south-east-Asia

FREEDOM!!! Now I really feel like I can do everything, going on my bike towards Jaipur, the wind refreshing and cooling me down, the sun burning on my skin.
I arrived in the late evening in Ajmer, 10Km before Jaipur, a beautiful town with lots of elephants, two lakes, a traditional swimming pool, beautiful ancient temples, and nice landscapes.
In Amer friends invited me to a muslim wedding (arranged one) and it was nice but everything little bit too formal and serious...
In Jaipur I had a bad experience with jewellery and hiding taxes and bit of trouble, but I managed to get out clean and with no damage, and I learned of it for my future life.
During my stay in Amer I went to see the elephants every day, very big and nice animals with a so hard skin… I don’t know if they feel much when I touch them….
And I went nearly every day to swim in the lake, it has a nice island in the middle with old temple ruins on it, and there’s a place to jump in from very high. I saw lot of beautiful buildings and temples, and the on I liked the most was the monkey temple, where were hundreds of mokeys and a small lake to swim also.
In Jaipur there is a observatory with a lot of strange things to measure stars, time, etc, and a huge kind of clock that gives the time with an accuracy of2 seconds...
Then I continued to Ajmer (150Km away), where after some hours running around in the city searching for my couchsurfing friends place I found it because after 2or3 hours he finally picked up the phone and told me where exactly to go. Here I’m staying now in a nice clean room with AC, from my window I see the Darga (big temple). In Ajmer there is a temple that is believed to have been buildby one single man in 2 days...
I also went to Pushkar (10km away), where I made a friend in a jewellery shop. While walking trough Pushkar, some people asked me to sell them the bike, or to change it for a camel :-) …. Would be funny to go around India on a camel.
Some tourists told me about Bhang Lassi (yoghurt drink with something special inside, Bhang, a plant), and I decided to try it… I didn’t expect anything like what happened; driving from Pushkar back to Ajmer it was everything Ok, but arriving in Ajmer the special effects started:
-First, the sound perception changed, I heard everything one second after it happened…
-Then everything started moving and shaking, so I parked my bike (somewhere, no idea where), I just remembered the shops name where I put the bike and started moving.
-Then I didn’t know anymore where I was nor the way home… no orientation at all.
-Then my brain started working ( :-) ), I thought I understand everything people’s speaking around me (it sounded Spanish to me), but they where talking in hindi…
After more or less 2 hours walking up and down the streets, some once, some twice or more (I got to see my own bike parking 3 times :-) ), I finally arrived at my couchsurfing’s place and I fell on the bed and couldn’t move no more (but I still turned off the light).
I woke up next morning with a kind of hangover, and first I spent some time to remember everything that happened the night before. Then, after milk, some fruits and muesli, I went to search my bike. Again for more than one hour walking up and down streets with no idea where the bike was, only asking for the shop’s name: SP Taylors. Then suddenly I saw my bike standing at a place where I was 100% sure I didn’t park it; It was parking on a 50 cm high cement wall beside the road with no possibility to drive it up, no ramp, nothing, and I had left the bike with handle locked, so they have had to carry it by weight with lot of people….. I found out that the police brought it there because it was not properly parking (possible…. Special lassi effects), and after talking a little bit with them and my couch surfing host to translate, they let me go without problems nor fee to pay.
Same day I went back to Amer, where 2 very nice guys from USA and Pushpeder (my host) went to see his home town, a very small village 45Km from Jaipur.
They took us on a safari to see 2 farms from friends where they show us peanuts plantations and where we tried fresh green peanuts, the taste is refreshing and very different from dry peanuts. We also saw 2 temples and a lot of beautiful landscapes.
We went to see the sunset to the top of the mountain behind his house, it was all rocks and cactus, and people told us there are plenty of snakes, including black cobra, but despite of cactus pinchers in some of us (luckily not me) we all got down happy and safe.