Here. Go to Pakistan.

When camels stand up, the back legs go up first and then the front
so you have a moment of imbalance where you hope you don't fall off. 

Me after playing Holi

Colors!

These are the words, Sahil, my camel driver said to Juli as he handed her the reins (he was joking). We were only 80 km from Pakistan in the Jaisalmer desert in Rajasthan.


I apologize for the delay. The past 2 weeks have been full of papers, class, a bit of illness, 3 days of crazy traveling, a trip to the movies (Matt Damon in Hereafter...which had the cheesiest ending that closely resembled Bollywood, caused me to cry way too much, and showed the London train bombings which felt too soon), some shopping, yoga, PACKAGES!, pregnancy news, heat, heat and heat. I received 2 wonderful packages full of cookies, granola, magazines, and candy plus prayers and letters from special people, like my 7 year old friend Jackson. Here's my shout out to you guys- thanks!

So that crazy trip...the 7 of us had a driver take us from Pune to the Mumbai airport- we flew to Jaipur where a driver picked us up and drove us to our hotel on Friday. The next morning our driver for the weekend, Mahavir, took us into the city to see the palace and a fort, we had some lunch and went to the elephant festival- raved about in Lonely Planet- a huge tourist attraction filled with more white people in one place than I've seen in India so far. We arrived early to get seats, then as soon as the procession of painted elephants started, people ran up to take pictures and stood right in front of us in a large crowd. It was kind of a disappointment- there was some dancing and music but we left early (our friends who stayed longer said it didn't get much better). From there, Mahavir drove us all night to Jaisalmer- a 15 hour drive including all the stops (yes he stopped to rest). The drive began with a flat tire at dinner. I probably only slept 2 hours, constantly changing positions, and losing energy coming up with creative positions to sleep in with the crowded space.

Sunday was when we played Holi- color throwing (which we thought was Saturday and had to wear our white outfits 2 days in a row)- so we had Mahavir drop us off in the center of town at Jaisalmer. Everything was closed for the holiday, the town was slightly deserted except for people riding their motorbikes around stained with every color of the rainbow. We bought some colors and walked around a little, immediately attracting attention, being smeared with powder on our cheeks, shrieking "Happy Holi!" Through spluttering pink spit, crowds of people overwhelmed me with piles of powder and little boys squirted dye (powder mixed with water);  we called quits to the human sand art that lost its appeal relatively fast. After carefully tiptoeing through the hotel lobby and being photographed by German tourists with a disapproving look from the staff at the counter, we attempted to wash the tie dye off our bodies, coming out clean with slightly stained purple skin and streaked hair.

As I sat in the car on our drive to the desert where we would be staying for the night, I remembered the melting half chocolate bar sitting in my new elephant purse from Didi. I squeezed out the gooey paste from the top, not realizing that the bottom of the wrapper had decided to release its sugary contents all over my white shirt. I lapped up the chocolate from the wrapper until Melissa opened the door to let me out of the car. Upon asking a store manager for the dust bin, he laughed, gesturing for me to dispose of the mess in the street. I couldn't do it (but I did see a girl from my program who I'm sure never litters in the states throw her candy wrapper in a pile of garbage on the sidewalk, justifying out loud that she had no other choice- trash cans are almost impossible to find and overflowing if found) so I left it on the sink where I washed the Cadbury marks from my face.

Anyway, driving through Rajasthan was beautiful. We rode camels from our tent hotel rooms in the early evening to watch the sunset.The desert sand felt like silk and the glowing sun disappearing behind the rolling hills of sand dunes was beautiful.  It was a fun little ride, but I felt bad for my 5 year old camel, Rocket, who was being led with reins coming from silver spikes in his nostrils;  Sahil, our camel driver, also kept trying to make the poor thing trot faster but he stubbornly remained at a slow walk. There actually were not many other foreign tourists, but it still felt strange- especially with one of the camel drivers being a 10 year old boy. I have become so conscious of being a tourist that I carry around this awkward feeling; no matter what we do to lay low we attract much attention. We sadly had to leave the beauty behind to escape a group of young male gawkers who pulled a donut in the sand on their way out behind us. The next morning we left at 5 am for a return 15 hour drive to the airport to fly to Mumbai and drive back to Pune, finally arriving back at 4 am Tuesday morning. It was quite something.

Saree Shopping

I tagged along with my host mom and her sister in law to shop for sarees on Laxmi Road- the most popular shopping place in Pune. They were looking for summer sarees- cotton ones and light colors to stay cool. As we walked down the street and passed teens in jeans and Western tops, Didi asked me, "Don't girls get hot wearing these tight clothes?" Sarees are apparently cool because they expose the back and midriff while being loose on the bottom. They can be 10 ft of fabric, sometimes longer, and it must take some time to master wrapping them around you. We went into 3 shops- you take off your shoes, sit on a thin mattress on the floor and men pull out dozens of brightly colored, elaborately patterned fabrics. Didi would say "white and cotton" and they would bring colored, non-cotton, then try to convince us how nice they were. The best was when the men would open up the fabric and hold it up on themselves to display (this isn't only in saree shops- men are workers in every store and restaurant, you don't find women working in any kind of sales job). The walls of the saree shops are lined with hundreds of designs and materials. There was a lot of arguing at the first shop and I was convinced that we were leaving without purchasing anything until I saw Didi's sister in law paying for 3 sarees at the counter. One of the workers also threw down the words "modern" about the patterns and how they were changing with the times. I even saw one with ships on it which was just strange. Many of them just appear to me as fancy tablecloths, which doesn't mean they won't make good sarees...I just view it differently. I also have a terrible American perception of color combinations- like how orange and black means Halloween or red and green means Christmas, and I refuse to wear those because of the holiday associations. In between stores, we stopped for a drink of coconut water where the man hacked off the very top of the coconut with his machete like knife, stuck a straw in and handed it to me. I've heard good and bad things about the taste, but I didn't think it had any taste at all. We ended with a visit to the blouse shop to find matching fabric for the little shirt that you wear underneath the saree. I think they're quite pretty but have no need to buy one unless I find a wedding to go to, and Didi told me I could borrow any of hers if I had to. She has many gorgeous ones. Who wants to bring a new fad to America? 

Bombay



Quote from the Gandhi Museum



Marine Drive

Gateway of India, built for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911

On our train ride to Mumbai, I finished reading Shantaram-an amazing 1,000 page adventure story based on the author's life in '80s Bombay. I highly recommend it- you won't get bored. It's been a great read here because it's about a foreigner experiencing and falling in love with India, having introduced me to new Marathi and Hindi words as well as Indian foods and cultures. I visited Leopold's Cafe during my stay in Mumbai the past three days, which is where the main character, Lin, hangs out often in the book.

Mumbai is a neat city and very different from Pune. It's on the coast with a nice ocean view, so we ran to Marine Drive to watch the sunset the other night. Unfortunately we missed it, but the salty smell and the cool wind was still refreshing. Mumbai also has a lot of pretty British architecture that makes you feel like you're in London. The humidity was kind of gross but the city has some western luxuries I have not experienced in 2 months...our group stayed at a hotel with real showers and regular towels ("you don't know what you got 'til it's gone..."). I also went to Theobroma, a bakery/cafe, that I could talk about for days. I ate the best brownie ever that tasted like a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie had a baby-warm, gooey, delish. I definitely saw some American food offerings during our stay that are hard to find in Pune; there is significantly more Westernization and tourism in Mumbai. I couldn't believe how many foreigners there was walking down the street; I am not used to that and I totally stared at them (in Pune when we see white people, we assume it's a student from our group). We met some students from Michigan at our hotel who were on spring break. The Westernization was even evident when we visited St. Xavier's College. All the students were wearing Western clothes, which might not be that surprising, but it's more than at the universities in Pune where it's common to wear traditional Indian clothes as well.