Everytime I look at a menu these days, and see _tandoori anything_ (at every other meal), I think of myself baking slowly in a 5 hour bus journey from Agra to Jaipur. Non-aircon state bus, and it’s _forty something degrees celsius_ outside.
I feel like a country bumpkin: pulling into Jaipur, I was agog at the sights – TRAFFIC LIGHT! Plants by the road! I can see uninterrupted by cows or smoke or dust! Our hotel room – mostly importantly – is spacious, clean, has a sofa and a tv, an air-con that works, and a toilet so clean I could sit down for a bath (it’s a habit). Jaipur is quite a change for the better, especially since I’ve spent the last night as a feast for mosquitoes, and the three nights before that baking in a badly ventilated room. For one, my hotel’s restaurant serves up excellent tandoori chicken and chicken afghani. I’ve _vegged_ it out for too long.
Coming from the plains in Uttar Pradesh, to Rajasthan, I start to worry about my newfound threshold for heat. They say you haven’t really _done India_ until you go sleeper class in a train, and gone by bus in a ‘packt like sardines in a can’ state bus. I’ve done the two of them in the past week and all I can say is: my bum hurts and I have never, ever, ever, sweated so much. It’s so hot that when you drink you feel it’s instantly evaporated from every pore of your body. It’s so damn hot that when you get off a bus (after baking in it for a few hours), step into 42 degrees Jaipur, you think: _it’s actually not as hot as (insert last place you were at)! Cool! 42 is just nice!_
So begins the second leg of the journey; Rajasthan. For region which used to be known as _marwar_, ‘region of death’, I’m sure there’s a good reason behind it and I’m finding out right now even as I type (the heat, that damned heat, and in summer too). I may have had my fill of India for a while.
(Sidenote 1: We met our first Singaporean backpackers in Jaipur – “NUS”:http://www.nus.edu.sg students. I could tell they were compatriots – as well as _family_ from a mile away.)
possibly related
The Global Soul /
Kashi /
The D Word /
This Tshirt Was Outsourced in Bangalore /
No Lassi in Bhang Lassi /
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Everytime I look at a menu these days, and see _tandoori anything_ (at every other meal), I think of myself baking slowly in a 5 hour bus journey from Agra to Jaipur. Non-aircon state bus, and it’s _forty something degrees celsius_ outside.
I feel like a country bumpkin: pulling into Jaipur, I was agog at the sights – TRAFFIC LIGHT! Plants by the road! I can see uninterrupted by cows or smoke or dust! Our hotel room – mostly importantly – is spacious, clean, has a sofa and a tv, an air-con that works, and a toilet so clean I could sit down for a bath (it’s a habit). Jaipur is quite a change for the better, especially since I’ve spent the last night as a feast for mosquitoes, and the three nights before that baking in a badly ventilated room. For one, my hotel’s restaurant serves up excellent tandoori chicken and chicken afghani. I’ve _vegged_ it out for too long.
Coming from the plains in Uttar Pradesh, to Rajasthan, I start to worry about my newfound threshold for heat. They say you haven’t really _done India_ until you go sleeper class in a train, and gone by bus in a ‘packt like sardines in a can’ state bus. I’ve done the two of them in the past week and all I can say is: my bum hurts and I have never, ever, ever, sweated so much. It’s so hot that when you drink you feel it’s instantly evaporated from every pore of your body. It’s so damn hot that when you get off a bus (after baking in it for a few hours), step into 42 degrees Jaipur, you think: _it’s actually not as hot as (insert last place you were at)! Cool! 42 is just nice!_
So begins the second leg of the journey; Rajasthan. For region which used to be known as _marwar_, ‘region of death’, I’m sure there’s a good reason behind it and I’m finding out right now even as I type (the heat, that damned heat, and in summer too). I may have had my fill of India for a while.
(Sidenote 1: We met our first Singaporean backpackers in Jaipur – “NUS”:http://www.nus.edu.sg students. I could tell they were compatriots – as well as _family_ from a mile away.)
possibly related
The Global Soul / Kashi / The D Word / This Tshirt Was Outsourced in Bangalore / No Lassi in Bhang Lassi /