India: "Players gonna play, play, play, play..."

This was a parade for a boy's first hair-cut! 

I've been in India a bit over 3 weeks now, and I can confirm that when people say it's full on, they aren't kidding.  I was in a car yesterday trying to find my guesthouse, and we were trying to navigate through the impossibly narrow streets of the old town. The driver didn't know where to go, it had just rained and there was water pouring down the street with rubbish and pigs and cows everywhere, and we had caused a little traffic jam so all these bikes were honking at us.

Then this guy leaned right in through my window as we were trying to get directions and asked over and over again in this wheedling little child's voice, "Madam photo? Photo madam? MADAM PLEEEASE PHOTO?!!", and I felt like turning to him and screaming in his face "F#%^ YOU AND YOUR WHOLE F$%^ COUNTRY WHERE IS THE NEAREST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TAKE ME THERE RIGHT NOW!!" But, I didn't.

I can really see why travelers have meltdowns here. It's like the whole country is trying to game you, thinks it's hilarious, and you're always about 3 steps behind whatever game is going on. Sometimes it's to get money, but I'm starting to think they just all love screwing each other.

Laxmi the elephan was also trying to play me, I just don't know how. 

At the same time, I've met some really interesting people, and life is certainly not dull. So, I will hang in here for as long as my stomach will allow.  (I've already spent three nights awake with nausea and am on antibiotics...so I don't know how long that will be).

I moved to a new town a few days ago, and yesterday came across a store selling trumpets. I just stopped to ask for directions to the doctor, who just laughed at me (of course!) when I told him I accidentally drank some tap water. (Because stupid white people with nausea + diarrhea = hilarious). Anyway, the music store guys started talking to me...which ended up with me treating the main street to a rendition of "Danny Boy". 

So,  India is the place where you THINK you are going to the doctors, but are actually heading off to serenade 5 guys and a squashed rat on the pavement with an Irish ballad.

I stayed in Udaipur for 3 weeks, which is a gorgeous small city on man-made lakes with a palace in the middle and a castle overlooking it all. It was really stunning, as you can see...

My guesthouse was just next to the lake, so I had some nice morning walks. I didn't do much tourist stuff (being the world's worst tourist), but I had a quick trip out to a rural village to capture a monitor lizard in someone's loungeroom (they had to beat the lizard senseless with a hockey stick before it weakened its grip on the couch long enough to be stuffed into a bag). 

I spent a fair bit of time just helping people with marketing - the guesthouse I stayed at was new, so we put them on trip advisor and some other sites. And, another guy I met wanted some help doing a facebook page and a few other things for his tailoring business. 

Naresh the tailor, with some cushions I got made up. I went to the temple with him and his family so I gave them to him. 

Naresh's wife and gorgeous little daugher

One guy I met, Ansh, who does traditional massage and has best mustache in Rajasthan, funny guy. He spends most of his day working on his mo.

Something for the Melbourne hipsters to aspire to. 

I was talking to one of Ansh's friends one day in his store and he was saying he was getting married in a few months. I asked about his fiancee and he didn't have many details. He said his parents had chosen her for him and he could date her if he wanted to, but he didn't want to. "We can talk after the wedding," he said, "why would we want to talk now?"

So, arranged marriages are alive and well (-ish) in India. Even love matches seem fairly fraught. I'm staying at a guesthouse in a town called Bundi at the moment. The owners are away on a 5-day negotiation session with the parents of the girl their son wants to marry. It's a love match, but neither set of parents is particuarly happy with it, so they are on their second round of negotiations around the whole thing. She is a modern girl (an architect, doesn't wear a sari), and he's from a very old, established family in a small town. So, the guy's parents want her to give up her work and move to the country town (and wear a sari, I assume).

At a temple I went to in a little country town on the way to Bundi.
I was tying to take photos of the locals and they were trying to take them of me!

Beautiful local ladies, one of them asked if I wanted to try her nose ring.
 Their clothing and jewelry were just stunning.

The owners left their pot-smoking youngest son behind to (mis)manage the guesthouse while they're away. On the first morning I was here I walked through a cloud of smoke to ask him a question and he told me, "I'm high. But don't tell my grandmother." I thought that unless his grandmothers olfactory senses had completely died she probably knew, since she was sitting about 5 metres away. He then sent me off on an overpriced motorbike trip to a doctor whose office was closed. Later, when I went back, I payed $2 for to the doctor to laugh in my face. There is a lesson in there somewhere. I think the lesson might include a flight back to Nepal.

The view from the roof of my guesthouse, I think that castle is about 500 years old. 

These are the young kids who work at the guesthouse I stay at, which is owned by an old artisocratic family that owns a lake and a temple as well as their 500 year-old-house. Anita and Ghopal are basically their young servants. They are both 14, and she, unfortunately has never been to school. The grandmother wants me to teach them some English, and I have to teach them sitting on the floor, because they aren't allowed to sit on chairs (being from a lower caste, or kids...I don't know the reason). Anyway, our conversations usually go like this:

Ghopal: Good morning mam!
Me: Good morning Ghopal, how are you?
Ghopal: Thankyou Ghopal!

So, my ESL skills have a ways to go.