In Which I Latently Remember To Title This Entry

Evan told me that one hasn't truly, truly experienced India until you find yourself puking out the window of a public bus.

Of course, he might have only been saying that to make me feel better.

It stands to reason that the day Evan finally feels back to his normal self I wake up with a brick in my stomach and my body totally desperate to get rid of my dinner the night before out of any orifice possible. I was actually surprised that I'd stayed so darn healthy the entire trip, and now, with only hours left here in India, I've been hit. Ah well. It could've been better timing, but I'm feeling much, much better now that our 5 hour bus ride from Alwar to Delhi is over and I've had the luxury of lying very, very still in the dark for a few hours.

And yes! Alwar! That was our destination when we left Jaipur only a day or two ago. Evan and I were pretty happy to leave at the end, but I think I'm glad we went. Our last day there we went to the Amber Fort, after which we decided to call it quits on forts as we had probably already seen and lived in the two coolest oness in Rajasthan. This one was a bit more rundown than the others, and had all these creepy dark passageways leading into creepy dark rooms, which would have been great for a game of haunted hide and seek. This was also the first tourist destination I had been to where Evan and I kept being asked to pose in pictures with other, more Indian, tourists. So now we're forever captured in random family photographs scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Excellent.

And oh! In the way the world works, who drove us to the fort-bus that morning but our prize fighting driver of the day before! We were glad to see him alive and unscathed, and after making him promise the drive would be fight-free, we warily got into his auto. He proceeded to explain to us what exactly had happened the day before, which according to him was a massive jealousy-induced brawl. Most rickshaw drivers also work on a commission system, where they get 30% of sales for bringing customers to specific restaurants or hotels. And by getting 30% of sales, I mean the hotel or restaurant charges the customer 30% more in order to pay the rickshaw drivers. This means you get a lot of drivers aggressively pushing you towards one hotel or another and it can be a bit of a battle to get them to take you where you actually want to go. Anyway, this particular driver doesn't participate in the commission system, which I guess results in a lot of tension with other drivers, and hence the tussel.

Ali Baba (as was his name) was quite the entertaining chauffer. Are you ready??

Q: How do you fit an elephant into a refrigerator?
A: Open the refigerator door, put in the elephant, close the door.

Q: How do you fit a giraffe into a refrigerator?
A: Open the door, take out the elephant, put in the giraffe.

Q: What animal in the animal kingdom cannot be found in the jungle?
A: The giraffe - he's still in the refrigerator.

And how Ali Baba picks up the ladies...

Ali Baba to Hot Babe: "Why helloooo. Tell me, what's the difference between a woman and a cup of coffee?"
Hot Babe: "What?"
Ali Baba: "How about I take you out for a cup and we'll find out."

Oh Baba, what a card. Turns out he was worth fighting for...

Right before we left Jaipur, we had lunch at this traditional Rajasthani restaurant that served a traditional Rajasthani thali, a dish that consists of lots of little dishes and some bread and rice to mix it with. Interesting to this thali were these tasty little brown balls of goodness, which the waiter crushed onto the plate and mixed with lots and lots of sugar. MMMMMM!!!

We ended up taking this super fancy train to Alwar as it was the last one to leave that night. Getting the tickets resulted in a bit of sticker shock on both our parts, but we bought them anyway as the convenience was too much to resist. The train was much, much shorter than other forms of transportation, and then it turned out to be even better as they kept giving us all this free food and drink, and played background music that actually stayed in the background, and the bathrooms had both soap and toilet paper! It was insane. We didn't want to get off.

Yet eventually, diembarkation had to occur, and we went from the lap of transportation luxury to stuffing ourselves and all our gear into a bicycle rickshaw. We could have taken an auto, but as soon as we got off the train we were immediately surrounded by ten bajillion drivers all offering their services, so in the name of fairness and of escaping as soon as possible we went with the first guy who approached us. Between the fort that morning and the swarming masses that evening, Evan and I were feeling fairly celebritylicious, and were quite ready to retire in a quiet, paprazzi-free bungalow for the night.

The ride through the streets of Alwar was deliciously quiet, cool, and pollution free. It seemed most of the transportation was by cycle rickshaw or motorbikes, with only a few autorickshaws and virtually no cars, trucks, or buses, at least not at that hour. Such a difference from Jaipur.

And as these things always go, we were able to successfully locate a hotel, at which point it was only an hour or two later before we called it a day.

As for right now, I'm off to ready myself for the long flight home. Next time I write in this thing, I'll be stateside.