Spending rups in Rajasthan

Namashkaar!

We've had all sorts of India in the last eight days. Shimla was India 2.0. A mountain town more like Austria than India. Rishikesh was genuinely spiritual, if for nothing else than the amazing river running through it. I swam there, by the way. Dunked myself in the Ganges well and good. My prayer beads -- bought outside the Golden Temple at Amritsar -- are now also Ganga soaked. Jarrool [Yes, for sure], I am blessed.

Rajasthan, where we are now, is original India (let's call it India 0.1) but also tourist India, even more so than Rishi or Delhi. Wonderful, but a shopkeeper in your face every step. It's hard not to pay over the odds for everything, mainly because what you're begrudging is generally a few bucks. Whether a shirt is Rs 250 ($7.50) or Rs 150 doesn't make a whole lot of difference to us. What's fair? And to whom? We have money; Indians need it. In the end, there's enough for everyone, though the global distribution thereof sucks.

So, in Jaisalmer, we suddenly spent more rups in a day than we have all trip, I reckon. We blew 5000 on an evening in our one ritzy hotel, the Mandir Palace. It was cool and clean, the water hot, the Fort view spectacular, the sandstone carving exquisite. The scotch and sodas went down delightfully too. But Mandir was no less enjoyable than the bright (if stinky; what price clean air I guess) guest house we stumbled on next, just across the road, where we could have stayed 16.5 nights for the same price as the Mandir. Then we paid way over the odds for camel safari turbans -- the turban buying was the culmination of much chai drinking, room inspecting, safari describing and 'this is fair price, not tourist price' imprecating -- it's nothing personal, of course, but we're slowly learning what's friendly and what's a put up. We are tourists but travellers more so. My pack is full; trinkets and souvenirs I don't need.

Actually, our camel safari (for which the turbans were required) was great fun, even if things didn't go quite according to the chai-drinking safari-describing preliminaries. The final dissimilarity, though, broke our patience, when the room we'd been promised on our return was not the one we'd been shown but, rather, one (far less salubrious) in the 'other hotel'. At this point, we politely and firmly backpacked out the door.

None of this is tough for you travel vets out there, but for me it's fantastic fun. Learning, learning, learning. 'Kal', by the way, is a great Hindi word I've learned. It means 'tomorrow' (or 'yesterday', depending on the context) and implies something similar to the Spanish 'manana'. That is, 'tomorrow but maybe never'. It stops most shopkeepers cold, as (I'm pretty sure) they know that I know that they know that I know.

We're in Pushkar, a few days before the famous camel fair. Population 15,000 but with 200,000 people and 50,000 camels on the way by full moon next week. Or maybe it's 200,000 camels and 50,000 people. I forget. The camels don't know either. Our plan is to sit around for a few days, after generally being on the go the past ten.

Thanks again for your comments! We're glad you're reading and enjoying. Next post Varanasi I suspect.

Apse milke bahut achalago! [Very nice speaking with you!]

Namaste xo