After a deep breath and yet another harrowing train experience, we arrive to our current Oasis (Jas Villas) in Jaipur. The Villas are absolutely lovely - not only is it a clean, fresh, tranquil reprieve from the disaster outside otherwise known as India, but it comes replete with a truly lovely garden, and a pool long enough to do laps in - YEAH!! I want to take a moment to give the credit, and many many thanks, to Deb for doing soooo much work to book our itinerary, hotels and trains. If it wasn't for her, we would be sandwiched between cows and smelly men in the 3rd class train compartments, and we would never have found gem hotels like this one, which aren't even in the Bible (aka Lonely Planet India!)! Deb - you ROCK!!!
In exchange for these services, I willingly accept the burden of serving as Confrontational Exchange Manager for the team, dealing with interpersonal battles/warfare as the need may arise. That's pretty frequent around here... train stations being the worst so far. We were uncermoniously dumped at the train station last night and left to fend for ourselves to find our train... this would seem a small feat, but was unfortunately complicated by 1) power outage on the screen that would normally list the trains; 2) train listings were in Hindi anyway; 3) no mention of track number aside said power-outed listing (it flicked on briefly); 4) long lines of burly pushy men who did not see why I should deserve a place in line (until my elbows came out and my voice rose to match theirs, HA.). Ultimately we figured it out, and got here in one piece!
Today we chilled out poolside, and ventured 'out there' to check out the markets in Jaipur. I was excited to find all sorts of little bags of candies sold by street vendors, which resembled a lovely little chewy mix that we got on the plane from Heathrow to Delhi. I bought 10 packs in different flavors, and when we came back to the hotel, I opened one sac and poured it into my mouth... BLECH... to find out (the hard way) that I was the proud owner of 10 bags of chewing tabacco!! Whups... no wonder the vendor was giving me such weird looks. Truth is, I just want to be able to spit back when spat upon by the locals (there is a lot of horking going on, and often their aim is somewhat misguided).
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1 comment:
i gagged when i read the tobacco bit!
Someday, get Bob to tell you what it was like cleaning Jidi's garbage can when we were kids at the Drumheller Mail.
Hoping you have a spit-free day!
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