#25 India - week 3

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Hello hello!
Where are you from? You need Rikshaw? What you don;t talk to Indians? ...every 65 seconds. Its impossible to walk alone here.. After our Indian friends left us in Jaipur to explore on our own we have been at the mercy of the locals. It hasn't been all bad. We went to several super fun places here in Jaipur. First I will start with Pilani though.

So Thursday I took a local bus from 8pm to 2am to Pilani, Rajistan, then we sat outside of the Pilani gate for 4 hours waiting to enter. It was total chaos! Eventually we got in and napped on a giant floor with 30 people from 6am to about 10am. I think so many people have such fond memories of this place cause they went when they were in college. As a 29 year old chilling with the 17-20 year olds, it just seemed like such a huge gap. Anyhow there were some neat musical performances and dances and the like; not to mention the great company that helped pass the time. 2 days later, our friend Baan picked me up at 3am and drove another 9 hours to Jodphur where we visited a huge old fort. We went to a drum concert at midnight and crashed for a few hours before heading straight for Jaipur. Here we crashed the birthday party of a privileged 1 year!! The venue they rented had to have cost 7000 US Dollars, but we didn't mind eating the great food and drinking the drinks.. hey, they weren't going to drink themselves! I even drove a bit, but after 3 hours I apparently only covered 30 kilometers! And I was so proud of myself!!

Of note, the drinking age in Delhi is 25 years old.. I thought that the 21 years old in America was about the highest in the world, but now the 25 year old minimum is the highest I have seen. Has anyone seen higher?
A great term they have here when the boys harass or cat-call the girls, it is called "Eve-Teasing" ...I love it! Another random thing is all the Jewish Stars of David here. They aren't Jewish of course, but this is just a symbol. We even see them on Muslim mosques.. How wierd. Also strange is all of the swastikas we are seeing. Of course they also are not a swastika but a religious symbol completely unrelated to Nazism. Still it is strange to see such symbols that have a specific meaning in our culture have such a different meaning in another. Hmm... well Laura and I have to find a bus back to Delhi.

Upcoming: Halloween party at the Hard Rock Cafe in Delhi, and we move from our apartment to a hotel on Sunday. Next week we head to Nepal to attack the bottom part of Mount Everest!

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