Gare the Patriarchal Guide Here

Negotiating traffic in Jaipur is a bit like finding Nemo in the Star Wars bar scene. Ted & Erin & I squeezed butt to butt to butt in our motorized rickshaw with room for only one butt. Our driver, an old old man about three months younger than I, needled his way through the maze of bicycles, motorscooters, donkey carts, camels, the occasional but very visible elephant, and a gazillion small cars with sewing-machine engines and horns never in the off position. We entered our first round-about Wednesday morning and emerged sometime Friday night just in time to get in line at Asia's swankest Hindi theater where we drew quite a crowd of children who wanted to touch us and giggle.

Now we're in Mandawa in the Shekwati region, which of course is Hindi for we-have-no-clue-where-we-are. The highlight here came last night when Ted & I took turns getting haircuts in a streetside barbershop, again drawing a huge crowd of onlookers wanting to touch us and giggle and make humorous remarks at our expense in a foreign language. We giggled back knowingly.
This morning after an omelette and yet another cup of Nescafe we took turns getting a massage by the minister of misery who insisted on crunching us repeatedly against the cold hard wooden table in complete and total nakedness which here is not something to consider as odd. No worries here about which parts go which ways. My parts for example went every which way but the way Sahib wanted them to go.

Ted & I ducked in here to escape our ubiquitous guides who wish only to get us into their fathers' shops and take hundreds of rupees for their efforts. We wait now for Erin to emerge from the massage chamber so we can forage for more Puri Banghi, Hindi for last night's leftovers rolled in Nan which of course is a Hindi burrito.

For the reader's edification, Indian men wear towels on their heads for convenience, just in the off-chance a hot shower might be working. This is a rare occasion, but when it does work one can be sure the lights won't. Your choice is to have half a hot shower in the dark or a cold shower also in the dark. Dark is the natural state, as is cold. Hot is unusual and short-lived, although it does last long enough to soap up your hair. Exactly long enough.

Women wear saris of red and blue colors not found in Gap. They carry heavy objects on their heads, children in one arm, and a vegetable garden in the other. Men smoke.

G