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.