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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Took a car from the castle to the midway bus terminal. Waited for awhile until the others caught up to us. Took a 2nd class bus the rst of the way to jaipur. Got out at the wrong station, on the outskirts of town instead of the center. Had to deal with obnoxious touters and rickshaw drivers while we got our bearings. Finally arranged a couple of drivers to take us the 7 km to our accommodations. Our rickshaw driver was even crazier than most, hooting and squeaking through his red paan stained teeth, looking back at us periodically to confirm the girls’ fear and my amazement… Nearly hit a guy in the street, who didn’t seem as surprised as we were, and then skid up to the dusty road in front of our pre-arranged guest house. We ended up lodging across the street for half the price and almost as nice a place.