Purell-er-ific

I don't even know how to start this. Purell, I bring it everywhere I go. I use it all the time, all over. I only brought one bottle. This is not even close to enough. Fortunately, Lila brought another 4 or 5. You see people urinating and defecating all over. There's no facilities to wash and if there are, odds are the water isn't any good. Kids love to come up and say hello and shake our hands. I've seen where they play. It's necessary. So far I've seen cows, horses, donkeys, camels, pigs, dogs, cats and elephants walking around the streets. This ignores the pigeons, rats, chipmunks and other "normal" animals I'd expect to see looking around. Most of the animals wallow in rotting garbage and crap. Both sleeping in it and eating it. At times, the smell can be overwhelming.

On to better things, in Jaipur, the pink city, we saw lots of nice palaces and other sites. We went to a bollywood movie (all in Hindi) and even had a bit of an idea of what it's about. I've had masala flavoured chips and eaten lots of food on the Shibati Express trains - it's the only train where they serve you food and it's ok to eat it. Right now I'm back in Delhi, staying at the Metropolis in Paharganj. It's going to be a slow day. Tomorrow we're hitting up the Taj and then we fly out to Goa.

so, since i last wrote we also went to McLeod Ganj, up in the Himalayas. We met a Tibetan monk Dawa who showed us around and also visited the Dali Lama's temple. All in all, a great place. I went for walks in some of the local villages (no cars, just paths on the mountain) and we also went to a waterfall where we met a bunch of overly friendly Sikh men who invited us to their house in Punjab. We're constantly being photographed by people. We now reciprocate and take their picture too. hmm, not a very interesting post.

I'll end it by stating how unprepared I was for India and how glad I am that Lila is here. She's a walking pharmacy. Imodium, anti bacterial wipes, purell and everything else under the sun. there's nothing like a very upset stomach and 19 hours of travel with either no bathrooms or very gross ones to make you appreciate the marvels of modern medicine.

Here's to surviving and thriving.

p.s. Yes, i'm going to Purell my hands after leaving the Internet Cafe, I can feel the layer of grime transfer from the keyboard to my hands..