Bunch of bananas

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Tried buying fruit - bananas are cheap and convieniently packaged, about 10 rupees (Rs) for 5 bananas. It's strange to have no concept of what something costs, though we're gradually getting an idea. 25 cents for 5 bananas sounds ok to me, but then certain things are dramatically cheaper here, so prices at home don't really give any relative indication. Tried a papaya (10Rs) and pineapple(40Rs), but that got messier to prepare on our own, so I don't know if I'll try that again soon. Unfortunately, its not mango season so there aren't any available anywhere - make you realize how stuff is flown into our supermarkets from all over the world. Custard apple seems to be in season, so we've got to try some of those, its an artichoke-looking thing.

We ate at Dream Heaven restaurant the last couple of nights - 145 Rs for both of us including a pot of tea, full (and tasty!) dinner, and dessert. That's about $3.70, possibly the best food bargain on the planet. Not all meals in India have been outstanding, but most have been quite good. The best so far is at Queen's Cafe here in Udaipur. It's really like moving in with the whole family, but they're very fun. Grandpa invited us to sit up on the landing where there are pillows and a low table; upon mounting the stairs we found two sleeping children - grandpa picked the first one up by one leg and one arm and shifted her out of the way! She didn't even wake up! We whispered our protests and retreated back to our original table by the door. We signed up for cooking lessons tomorrow morning, so we'll see if we can learn anything, hopefully at least how to make chapati.

Water is 10-12 Rs for a one litre bottle, 20 rupees for a 2 litre bottle. Pop is about 20-30 Rs, including Fanta (!) a Farah favourite that has dissappeared from Canadian shelves.

A bottle of Kingfisher beer, twice the normal bottle size costs about 100 rupees. Beer is not always available, and so you'd ask "is beer possible?". The possible/not possible expression is common; some will say "Hello sir! Yes please! Anything is possible here!" which suddenly reminded me of www.zombo.com, where anything is also possible.

Still not entirely clear, but a city guide is something like 200-300 rupees per day, and possibly about the same for the associate tuktuk driver if present. Still not totally sure about this, it may be too much?

Money is working out ok, I can get money from my credit card (Cirrus), but our Canada Trust cards have let us down again (also failed from Portugal), even where the Plus network is indicated by a sticker on the door. I'm beginning to consider that sticker ornamental. Perhaps we'll call and complain soon and see what they can do.

I had a scheme to bank securely via Unix live CD, but so far this has not been possible at any internet cafe; either the computer lacks a CD rom drive altogether, or the connection is dial-up and so the network can't be found automatically. I'm dying to log in and see that no one has cleaned out our accounts, a sort of strange traveller's paranoia. And more practically to see how bad the credit card service charge and exchange rate is.

Also - I felt ill starting in Bikaner, and I was dreading this long drawn-out process of going to a doctor, calling health insurance etc, so I put it off and suffered for a few days hoping it would solve itself. Farah discovered through someone else that you really just need to go to a pharmacist and they'll set you up right away with some antibiotics for about $2 - that lowers the threshold of effort, so don't wait!

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Comments

[Dawn]

Hi John and Farah, I too am really enjoying your journals; they are a great escape into a glimpse of the great experiences that you are having. The pictures are fabulous and the journals provide a great perspective of your daily discoveries; including the 10 rupees bananas :o). Wishing you safe travels and I look forward to reading more. Take care.