it is my belief that the best place to buy something is in a dusty shop along an out of the way alley. every city in every town, all over the world, has a few such shops. usually there is an old man, equally dusty as his piles of treasure, and rarely does he seem very interested in relieving himself of his wares.

this particular old man happened to be smoking hash in a circle with his friends and a much younger dreadlocked girl, probably israeli. the room was no larger than most coffee tables and all the walls were covered in old offset hindu god prints. i had already flipped through the stacks outside the tiny shop, like lps in an american record store, and now reluctantly broke up their smoky group to peer through the dusty frames at these amazing 100 year-old prints. although i didn’t find the varma i was looking for, i paid 1000 rupees for an amazingly diabolical print and a half tolo of decent smoke.

too much school or too much privilege or too much travel or too much guilt makes every simple tourist destination and each temple/hovel/shit stained street/brightly streamered vendor/hole in the cieling restaurant/etc. a uniquely difficult experience which we never tire of discussing. some might suggest that this would ruin the “joy” of travel, but that would incorrectly assume that travelling should be a uniformly pleasurable experience. this trip, thus far, certainly is not. too many cloying children and snotty grannies, too many cows eating plastic bags and rickshaw drivers with broken teeth, too much pollution and loud noises, too many colorfult shawls and shiny jewelry hiding too much unseen.

They say don’t eat the vegetables, with their crispy freshness and tempting colors a striking contrast to the consistent sloppiness of of indian dressings and dips.  It doesn’t seem possible that such a sickness could survive on these lively greens… and against all good advice and my better judgement, and even by a small accident of translation, i was too bold and too confident and got my first poisoning.  It was surely a breakfast wrap in Pushkar.  Left me the rest of the day more uncertain than uneasy.  But by nightime I had no appetite (surely a distressing sign).  And by bedtime I was vomitting.  All in all, not such a bad case - a couple days of crackers and water… only a few spews in total. Just now getting my appetite back and excited to return to the relative safety of deep fried street food and questionably pasteurized dairy products.

At the end of the day in any of the cities, small and large, to which we have traveled I am exhausted by the politics of looking and being looked at. In Delhi, everyone on the street wanted to talk to us whether it was to lend travel advice, give directions or a ride on their rickshaw, find out from where we come or where we were going. Most of the time, their “recommendations” resulted in a fat commission for them. When it was just us ladies walking around, we were subject to kissing noises in our ears, unabashed stares, and even Cassidy being called a “beetch.” Needless to say, the attention was anything but flattering,

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