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Published: December 9th 2005
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I'm sure that many a lightweight backpacker has been lured to destruction by the siren song of King of Shaves. This product is a shaving oil that comes in an attractively small container, and claims to provide 100 shaves using only a few drops of the contents per shave. Unfortunately, missing from the small print is anything stating that it will clog up your razor in seconds, and that it is completely unsuitable for more than a couple of days' growth. This I discovered this morning. I may as well have been carrying a small slice of cheese for the assistance that it gave me while shaving - at least I could have eaten that. Consider yourself warned.
Today turned out to be another admin day. Firstly I had to journey to Vijay's Guest House on the outskirts of town in order to put down a deposit for a camel safari for tomorrow. A magician was putting on a show on the verandah - the old which-gourd-is-the-betel-nut-under trick. Vijay warned me that I might be the only person on my safari, which would incur an extra charge - not ideal being alone, but I can't afford to spend any more time in Bikaner, as I must already be setting some sort of record for a foreigner.
I also bought a bus ticket to Jaisalmer, eventually plumping for the 5:45AM private bus on Monday morning. The night bus seems awful, and I'm not risking the government bus at 8AM, due to the inability to make reservations.
The guidebook had warned that it would be a trying experience to buy a train ticket in Jaisalmer, so I went to Bikaner station to book a seat on the Jaisalmer->Jodhpur train a few days hence. There were no blank reservation forms in sight, so I had to reuse one that someone had only scribbled a few words on. Though there was a counter supposedly for "Senior citizens, press, ladies, and foreigners", there was a scrum of people in front of it, none of whom satisfied any of the criteria for being there. I was unwilling to dive in and mix it with the other queuers, so I stood at the back, occupying the moral high ground, and reasoning that eventually I would get my chance. Fortunately the guy behind the counter spotted me, and after he had finished serving his current customer, he beckoned me forward. The looks I got from the other people suggested that I had not just made a bunch of new friends. Apart from a hiccup where the (broken) LED display was showing a price of 335 even though the real price was 635, so I couldn't understand why my Rs 500 note was being refused, the transaction then proceeded smoothly. On the way out, I was greeted extravagantly by a cross-dresser wearing a very fetching red sari.
I had another good queuing experience when I went to the ATM on the way back to the hotel. First of all I waited outside the ATM cubicle, thinking that the person in front of me was entitled to some privacy. Of course several people just marched straight in front of me and took up their position on the shoulder of the current user. Then when I got wise to this and was able to get to the front of the queue, I realised there was a crowd of people breathing down my neck to see just what I was going to do. There's very little here that isn't a communal experience.
One thing that this country is desperately short of is change. I don't mean in the socio-economic sense, but in the sense of small quantities of money. Anything larger than a Rs 50 note is completely unsuitable, and unwanted, for anything besides paying hotel bills. I hoard my 10s and 20s as though they were 100s or 500s. It's a relief when I get a meal bill where I can round it up to multiples of 100 by leaving a tip. I need small change for rickshaws, bottles of water, Internet access, and snacks, but it isn't just foreigners that have this problem. For an Rs 80 rickshaw fare I had today, the driver could not give me change from Rs 100. And when I bought my bus ticket (Rs 140), the guy could not change Rs 200. Where do all the small notes go? That's one of many meaningful questions I hope to answer over the coming months.
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