Perkielski's in India, a Comedy in Three Acts

Act I

There is so much to update an so many adventures that have happened!
I met up with Joshua in Delhi, an extremely dirty hectic city with tangles of electrical wires shadowing trash filled alleyways. We spent his first day sight seeing in Old Delhi, a way to ease him into the insanity-if easing is possible here. The next day we headed out to Jaipur in the state of Rajastan-west of delhi. Rajasthan has a desert as we got closer we saw more and more camels on the roads. Jaipur is a beautiful city- with monkeys, old archetecture and a beautiful fort right outside of town. I also has some of the most tenacious touts that i have yet encountered in India. It is low season now and the bazaar shopkeepers were out desparate. Often times they would physically block the sidewalk in front of us to prevent us from walking past their stores. But there were beautiful things to be had and we made an amazing bargaining team-Joshua is the best! I'm sure that we still overpayed but we were able to cut the prices by 70-75%! So much fun!
At my insistance we ate in jaipurs newest building with a revolving restaurant-i thought it would be kitschy and funny but really it was kind of nausiating.

Act II
Having our fill of big cities we caught a bone rattleing bus to Bundi-a smaller town 5 hours from Jaipur and absolutly fell in love with it-definetly one of my favorite places that i have been. Still dirty and full of goats, cows (one of which head butted joshua-sending two men across the street into hysterics) and trash Bundi has so much old charm. Most of the buildings in town are painted Brahmin Blue and there are monkeys everywhere. One morning while eating breakfast a monkey walked into the room.
Looming over the town on the hillside is an enormous abondoned palace and fort. Every evening bats would pour out of the doors and windows. The town is small enought that foreigners still attract curiousity and shouts-children followed us through the streets begging to have their pictures taken (also adults) everyone liked to see themselves on the lcd screen. It was a great place just to wander and abserve daily life-like the barbershop-open in the front with a goat wandering in- really funny to see goats and cows walking up and down stairs in and out of stores and houses. We have a great picture of a cow licking the side of one of the huge street woks. (no wonder my stomach has been off...)
Many of hotels were just locals houses and the restasurants just part of their homes. We went to one "rooftop restaurant" and the family was thrilled-we were led up narrow dark stairs to the empty roof asked to wait and then they brought up a table and 2 chairs. The very proud mother cooked our food while the kids and their friends sat all around us staring and chattering. Then the mother came up to hang out and of course everyone wanted their pictures taken. The younger boys striking poses and sandwiching their faces against mine. The whole situation was hilarious. At another similar place the 11 year old daughter waited on us, after we ordered we saw her take off on her bike to the vegtable market for the ingredients. The food was fabulous!
We spent a day exploring the old palace and then further uphill to the abandoned fort area. This was amazing, a bunch of old buildings with elaborate marblework and mural painting just left to nature-it was like something out of a movie. The monkeys have claimed it as their own and can be seen hanging out in the windows, lounging around the courtyards and swimming and diving in the stepwells. We decided that this would be the perfect place to leave Josh Simpsons marble (http://www.megaplanet.com/site/index.php?page=infinity-project) and placed it on a path and waited. Sure enough two curious baby monkeys ventured out. We have some amazing pictures of them playing with it.
Act III

The entire time that I was traveling alone in India I was very careful to book my train tickets ahead of time, for the time that Josh was here I decided to ease up on the planning-a decision that did agree with the India transportation system. We knew that we wanted to go to Agra and see the Taj Mahal, On our last morning there Joshua ventured out to the train station for a solo adventure. Well anyone who knows Josh knows that this story will end up with him lost and running. This is possibly the first time though that he has been chased by goats(they gathered behind him as he ran). At one point a teenager on a motorbike offered to help him-but first he wanted to take josh to the school around the corner to "impress a girl". The girls wasn't there so Josh left and was next picked up by truckers who through some miscommunication drove him in the opposite direction that he wanted to go in. After all of this the train was full and we were waitlisted.
To be continued.....