![]() We decided to forfeit our regular dinner Tiffin in favor of the plentiful chaat stalls on the way back. We decided to make the several-kilometer trek back by foot, since it was fairly cool and we had nothing better to do. We trod down the winding staircase, reaching the bottom just as the sun hid itself from sight. Soon, we were rewarded with a beautiful pastel sunset. Another fun fact: peacocks can fly super well! It was more of a downward glide, but it sure was graceful for such a large and clunky-looking animal. They kept their distance from the peahens (the babies are called peachicks, I’m dead serious), and instantly scattered when I approached. The ones I saw, however, stuck together in large packs and walked with a distinctive chicken’s gait. In my head, though, I always imagined that peacocks strutted around, solo fo’ life. Peacocks, even at a distance, totally live up to their famed elegance. I only got a few brief photos of the thing before he weaseled away. I’m guessing it was a mink, ferret, or some other Mustelid. On the way down, I saw another creature skitter away, which looked like a stretched-out groundhog. Peacocks?! I had to see one, so I ran down the steps to get a better view. Alam giggled, and explained that we were hearing wild peacocks. In the distance, we heard a weird series of ‘cooOo’s coming from the nearby weeds. Maybe that’s an oxymoron, but hey, India man. The sun had yet to set, so we chilled and took some Instagram-style bro pics. We reached the top and discarded our shoes, observing our first fully-panoramic view of Udaipur. A gentle updraft carried the trademark scent of boiling veg-curries, deep-fried chaats, and fresh-squeezed animal dung into our nostrils, serving as a likewise medium for an unusually inharmonious blend of Bollywood classics and Western-style EDM. The view was beyond breath-taking: mud-huts and lavish villas sprawled as far as the eye could see, broken by bustling city streets and muddy-green fields where crowds of children and grown-men alike played cricket. Once we got moving up the small mountain’s winding flight of steps, we paused only twice for photos. It took Abhi, Alam, and me by auto to Nimaj Mata, the hilltop shrine just outside Udaipur, which we kept promising ourselves we’d one day summit. I get the last one more than you’d think. A few times, men on motorcycles have trailed behind me for just a little too long, but most of them will simply ask me where I’m from, what I’m doing in Udaipur, and where I bought my shirt from. I won’t lie, there are definitely nervous moments. This was the only place I could take a photo, since there were no gawkers. It’s probably pretty bizarre to see a crowd of three sun-tanned youngsters riding their bikes at jogging pace beside a huffing-and-puffing American in neon-green Under Armour, but hey, India man. It’s not unusual that someone, old or young, will bike or scooter-ride alongside me for a quarter-mile, eyes glued to me the entire way. That’s an understatement, because literally every single person drops their current chore and just stares. No one shies away from hardcore eye-contact, either: a shirtless old man riding a motor-scooter with a urine-yellow strip of cloth wrapped around his head, three women in saris balancing baskets atop their heads, a group of teenage boys tossing rocks at scabby street dogs, and a small boy pausing by the side of the road to do his business. To compound this, running hasn’t caught on in India yet, so people are pretty confused why I choose to spend my morning rushing from point A to point B, only to rush back to point A.Īs I run through the streets, I’m the center of the attention. So most of the people there have seen few, if any, light-skinned Westerners roaming around the vicinity. ![]() My normal route took me through a series of half-town half-villages too close to the city to be visited by volunteer healthworkers, and too far from the city’s tourist district for its inhabitants to encounter any foreigners. Well… it does have some truth to it, and let me tell you: 25 minutes into my run, there were some really derpish goats.īut what makes running in India so unique isn’t the goats it’s the reaction you get from onlookers. Abhi and I have a joke that, depending on how derpy the surrounding goats are, you can tell how far from the city you are. You can’t really expect anything in particular.Īnyway, the running shoes were on, the first rays of morning sunshine (a cool, breezy, 91 degrees) beat down upon my face, and I started out at a leisurely pace towards goat-country. Running here isn’t like running in America – no, it’s more of a “throw on the running shoes and see where Mother India takes you” kind of deal. I’m going to start with what’s freshest in my memory – my morning run.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |