Friday, March 20 cont'd

Flight depart 11:30ish. Stop Udaipur; not deplane. Very dry desert. Sounds redundant but that’s intentional.

Arrive Jodhpur 1:30ish. Raju & Mangilal greeted with leis. Did not recognize Mangilal. Should have expected him. Very embarrassed after telling story so many times. Raju’s infant son Joshua sick; Sini took to Raju’s mother to get medical treatment.


[The text in blue shows the notes I made shortly after the events.]


Rajasthan is about as arid as you can imagine. I recall more sand in the El Paso area. But dryness in Rajasthan is incredible. They get occasional clouds overhead; but almost no rain. National government has developed a system for piping water from Punjab state (north of Rajasthan) down to the latter. So there is some agriculture. But the whole mentality is aclimated to a desert context. When I watched and joined them in their native dance on the previous trip, it became very easy for me to picture them in a desert encampment around a fire at night, singing tribal songs and dancing their gentle steps.


I felt embarrassed about not recognizing Mangilal because I have told his story more times than I can recall since meeting him on my previous trip. I've shown his picture almost as many times and have looked at his pic while praying for him just as many times. But this time his face looked thinner than before. That's the only excuse I can come up with for not recognizing him immediately. But when he smiled, it was definitely "Mangi's" smile!


This is Mangi seated nearest the camera. Mike Harmon traveled and roomed with me all the way, until the other members of the team left for home on the second Sunday.

They drove us to the Kalinga Hotel, where Raju had arranged for us to enjoy the same room I had last time, overlooking the busy street below. Then we had a quick snack before heading out for some quick sightseeing.

I forget what they called this morsel, but it was tasty and filled the bill for a quick snack. Then we headed out to see the sights. I had seen them before--the Palace and the Fort. But Mike had researched the city of Jodhpur before departure. So he was especially pleased to get some time exploring these places. But we didn't have much time. So I kind of rushed them through the palace so that we could get to the fort before it closed. Below is one of the attendants at the palace, dressed in traditional attire, at least the turban is traditional and I gathered that the clothing is also traditional for palace attendants.

I took this video trying to show the height of the fort at one place. Don't get too dizzy waching it. :)

It turned out that "Bollywood" was filming a movie at the fort. So after touring the fort itself we paused at an overlook area where we could watch the filming process.




Well, it had been a long day, especially for Mike. As I mentioned yesterday, he did not sleep at all through the night. Our hotel (in Mumbai) was right under the flight path for planes coming and going at the domestic terminal. Plus we were right next to 4 railroad tracks which apparently were busy all night long. I say "apparently" because as I mentioned, I slept through it all. I recall hearing the planes and trains as I prepared for bed. But didn't hear them long because I slept soundly.



So after the long days of travel and sightseeing, we went back to the hotel and crashed, preparing for leadership session on Saturday morning and graduation in the afternoon.

More later....



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