We leave Bombay in the very early morning for our flight to Cochin, cruising through the darkened streets. People sleep outside their shops, all lined up next to each other on thin mats. I start to think how unsafe it must be to sleep outside, but then realize that if everyone is sleeping outside, then it must be okay.

Our flight arrives at 8am and I immediately relax. The airport is tiny, with almost no one around, and there is a prepaid taxi stand. We pay to go to Fort Cochin and get in the back of the Ammbassador cab. The ride takes ages, but I dont mind, because I have the windows open and I can breathe in all the thick tropical air and look at the scenery.

We decided to go to Kerala because we repeatedly heard how nice it was. Kerala was Indias first socialist state, and also has a 92% literacy rate. Socialism + literacy = fun times! Cochin is outrageously green, with swaying palm trees and surprisingly little curbside trash. I give it my highest compliment when we are walking around town: it looks like Laos. The Fort Cochin area has wide, empty streets with colonial buildings and a canopy of green overhead.

At the far end of town, there are Chinese fishing nets dangling over the sea, and T and I take a walk past them and the men asking us to check out their fish. We walk along the water and I start to breathe more deeply, the way I always do when I am near the sea. We sit for ages on the rocks and watch the waves roll in, and try to eat our ice cream before it melts all over us, which is far easier for T than for me. On the way back to the hotel, a group of boys asks to take a picture with us, and we end up in yet another stranger’s photos. The best thing about the proximity to the water is the seafood, and our first night in town I eat chili garlic prawns that are so good, they almost make me cry. Another day, we sit at a waterside cafe and watch some dolphins frisking in the water as we drink lime juice.

The one problem with Cochin is the humidity. When we told our friend Deepak from Dharamsala that we were going to Kerala, his eyes widened and he told us it would be hot and sultry. Later, we laughed at the word sultry, but he was exactly right. Cochin was H-O-T. Our guesthouse, the Padikkal Residency, is nice enough, though too expensive for the basic amenities it offers. We have a big room without A/C, and at night, we stick to our flat pillows and have trouble sleeping.

Another thing I love about Cochin is the kids everywhere. They run around in the afternoon in their little school uniforms and beg me to take their pictures. What can I say? I can never refuse an adorable child. Most of the kids in the Fort Cochin area seem to to go to the Catholic Church, but we also see Muslim and Hindu kids out on the streets as well. The kids at the guesthouse are similarly adorable, calling out LOOK! LOOK! when we come back, wanting to show us the henna tattoos their mother did on their hands. The older one tells me quite seriously, FISH, or MONKEY, as he points to the designs. In response, I ooh and aah. The best thing these kids do is when we come back on Saturday at about 10pm and they are running loose in the house. The older boy, who is about six, is dancing around all over. I am surprised they are still awake, and the boy sings out I DON’T SLEEP UNTIL TWO! T and I are shocked and ask when he wakes up. His father, looking exhausted, answers, eight, as he rolls his eyes.

Cochin is full of Christians, to the extent that many of the rickshaws have JESUS emblazoned on the front of them. On the other hand, there is also a Jew Town. I say this not because I am racist, but because it is the name of the neighborhood, and to prove it, I have pictures. T and I walk down to Jew Town one day to wander the narrow streets looking for some spices. The shop owners are highly solicitous, and many of them try to lure me into their stores to buy clothes or jewelry, even though I have repeatedly walked by and told them no already. We cant go into the synagogue in Jew Town because I am dressed like a skanky American (it is too hot to wear clothing with sleeves, and I also have shorts, which means my shoulders and knees are all exposed, which makes me a big white slut).

In Jew Town, we stop to get some drinks and the owner orders me a vanilla milkshake. It is the best vanilla milkshake I’ve ever had; so good that I have to order two. We also end up buying tickets for the kathakali performance that night, because the owner promises us front row seats and we havent seen any local performances in ages. The owner is a liar, because when we arrive that night, we are in row 8 out of about 10. And the kathakali is painful to see and hear. In a nutshell, it’s mime with eardrum-breaking cymbals and cool makeup. The makeup takes about an hour, and for the second hour, we are left to listen to the CHANG CHANG CHANG of the cymbals, and we leave with agonizing headaches and a vow to never see local arts ever again. EVER.

The worst thing about Cochin is the heat, which is humid and sticky and causes me to sweat like a hog in heat (do hogs in heat sweat a lot? If so, then consider me one. If not, find another sweaty animal for comparison). People start to stare at me and say, So hot when I stagger over to speak to them. So, it turns out Deepak was partially right, though I would definitely say that Cochin was more sweaty than sultry.

We get into Bombay (yes, Collette, I know it’s called Mumbai now, but I like to be contrary) at night on another Shatabdi train, one that had TV screens but no food (those cries you hear are our sobs at having no delicious Shatabdi food). Since there are no rickshaws in central Bombay, we end up taking one of the Ambassador taxis to our hotel, cruising along with the windows down, feeling as though we are in a 1950s movie. Just when I start to think that the drivers in Bombay aren’t too bad, we careen through a six-way intersection and barely miss crashing into an oncoming truck.

Our hotel is a business hotel and is an endless maze of weird and narrow hallways, leading to a tiny but clean room with really soft sheets and comfortable beds. The next morning, it is a real effort to get up.

T wants to go to the local market and the old Victoria Station (now called CST or something), so in the morning we eat the hotel breakfast (some dry toast with jam, egg and weird Indian breakfast pastries) and hit the road. As we approach the market, a one-armed Muslim man offers his services as a guide. We refuse until we get inside the market and see a sign that says visitors must have guides. A man tells us to use the guide, and sure enough, we see the man about five minutes later at the spice shop our guide recommends. The market is interesting enough, but it’s no Victoria Market in Melbourne, and we start to feel a little voyeuristic, just wandering around. So we head outside and are immediately face-to-face with a little boy with his hand out. He keeps making signs for food as he follows us down the road, so eventually I tell T I am buying some bananas for him. I give the kid two bananas and he gives me a look that says, Are you kidding me? Where’s my friggin’ money? I turn away and take two bananas to the old woman, begging on the street. As I bend down to give them to her, she takes my hand and squeezes it gratefully before kissing the bananas. Now, that’s the kind of response I like!

After the market, we walk over to Victoria Station, mainly because T is a nerd and wants to see it. The roads are wide and leafy, and we pass all kinds of ornate Victorian buildings before arriving at the station, which is bigger and more ornate than any of the others. We walk inside briefly, but most of the time we stand outside, staring at the giant clock.

Were a little worried about getting actual taxis as opposed to the cheap-o rickshaws that were used to, but since we have no choice, we pop in one going to India Gate. We are pleasantly surprised to see that the fee is 30 rupees—less than a dollar. Suddenly, we decide that Bombay might be better than we thought.

We’re standing at India Gate, a giant Arc de Triomphe-looking structure, looking at the boats in the harbor, when a man comes over to me. He starts telling me how nice my face is, how friendly I am, and how I have such a nice smile. T sees this dude talking to me and veers straight over, just in time to hear the man ask if I want a friend in Bombay. In my head, I am thinking, Sure, as long as it’s not you, freak! But I say, Um…sure, instead. In no time, I am giving him my email address and promising to recommend him to any friends I have going to Bombay. As we walk away, T starts mumbling about how he can’t believe I gave him the right address, and I try to explain that I’m not good under pressure and I couldn’t think of fake one fast enough. What should I have put instead? youaresupercreepypleaseneveremailme@yahoo.com?

We spend most of the afternoon in a restaurant called Leopold’s, where I befriend some nice guys from Singapore, who are in town on business. One is Indian, and he starts the conversation by looking at my Lonely Planet and asking in that charming Anglo-Indian way, Does this restaurant feature in that book?

We take a walk around the area, going from India Gate past the University, and then past the Supreme Court and into a giant field where everyone is playing cricket. Bombay seems to be like the love child of New York and somewhere more tropical, like LA or Miami. There are swaying palm trees and beaches, but also tall, cosmopolitan-looking buildings that T say make it look like a real city, unlike Delhi.

After watching the cricket in the park, I decide to go to Chowpatty Beach and get some ice cream. We get in another 30-rupee taxi and cruise along the coast up to the long, sandy stretch of beach. The beach looked nice enough, but our guidebook warned that the water was toxic, which made the empty waters make sense. We get some ice cream and started walking along the sidewalk by the water when a bunch of kids appear out of nowhere and started grabbing at my ice cream. T tries to shoo them away and I immediately revert back to being 10 years old, trying to keep food away from my siblings. In my most mature act in ages, I take the cone and try to shove it all into my mouth. Meanwhile, T is trying to be stern with the jumping kids and ends up making them all burst out laughing and run away, as I stand, horrified by the fact that I just tried to consume an entire ice cream cone so that beggar kids wouldn’t. It is not the highlight of my life.

After I begin to recover from the shame, we get in another taxi to go back to Victoria Station. We have seen a movie theater in our book that shows American movies, and since I am not sure if Bollywood movies have subtitles, and I am not in the mood for music, we stupidly decide to go see Jumper, the worst movie ever made. The only redeeming features about Jumper are the fact that the entire theater stands for the national anthem at the beginning, everyone goes out for a smoke break at the intermission in the middle, and the back row is the most popular by far.

After the movie, we go downstairs and get sandwiches and chips at the Subway stand inside the theater, and start to walk home. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Obviously, as soon as we get outside, we are surrounded by another bunch of jumping kids, trying to snatch the food from our hands. We eventually get the food crammed into T’s backpack and walk back to the hotel, but their desperation has killed our desire for food.

Because of the new itinerary, we added an unplanned stop to our route: Ahmedabad. In our book, it said that if you can look past the smog in the city, Ahmedabad is quite a nice place. There was a luxury bus going from Udaipur to Ahmedabad, and then a Shatabdi to Bombay the next day. We figured we could probably survive the bus and one night in a new city.

We booked two seats in the luxury tourist bus, which had regular bus seats with a row of sleeper bunks overhead. The seats worked in the normal fashion: one person, one seat. In the bunks, however, there were anywhere from four to eight people, all crammed in together, most of whom appeared to be strangers. The bus itself was like a Cambodian public bus, with a coating of grime covering everything, but this time, it also had a strong stench of feet. Mmm, delicious.

Having taken the non-luxury local buses in the north, we were prepared for a terrifying ride. Instead, we cruised along at regular and reasonable speeds on a brand-new, Western style highway, through the reddish desert of Rajasthan and the green fields of Gujarat. In what seemed like no time (barring the scent of foot), we were there.

As we were leaving, we met an inquisitive American woman who asked us where we were going, and when we told her, she wrinkled her nose and said, WHY? The pollution there is SO BAD! Good luck! I fought back the urge to punch her in the eye and we continued on our way. As it turned out, the pollution in Ahmedabad didn’t seem bad at all. It was everything else.

When we got off the bus, we were immediately approached by the rickshaw dudes. They promptly charged us the princely sum of 140 rupees and we climbed in the back. We drove through town with no more exhaust inhalation than normal, and then stopped at a different hotel than we requested. No, we said. Yes! Good hotel! they cried. And then the manager came out. At this point, T got hard and said No, take us to the Hotel Alka!  They grimaced, said, You will not like that hotel–this hotel much better, and then took us to the Hotel Alka.

Oh, the Hotel Alka. To begin with, it looked as if it had already been condemned. It was across the road from a row of stinking dumpsters and was above a series of auto repair stores. We walked into the building, through the urine stench on the ground floor, past the betel spit stains on the stairwell, and up to the hotel. I was misled by the Hotel Alka because it had a New Yorker in the lobby. It was the first hotel I had seen with any kind of American magazines in it, let alone one that I actually read.

The rickshaw dudes were so convinced that we would hate the Hotel Alka that they sat around and waited for us to check out the room. The room was tolerable, with clean-ish sheets and towels and cable TV, so we took it. Finally, we were rid of the creepy rickshaw men and the proud residents of a $10/night hotel room. 

So we went out for lunch. We walked around the corner to a restaurant and ordered some food. As the place cleared out, we ended up talking to the maitre d. I should say that I talked to him because T had his back to him and the man couldnt understand anything T said. Join the club, brother. After a while, the man makes muscle movements with his arms and looks at me and says You are strong, healthy. I am skinny man. Um, thank you? Once more, my enormity in India has been reinforced.

We saw a little of Ahmedabad, but to be honest, we didn’t have the inclination to wander too much. The city is very Muslim, and we saw a couple of the mosques, but spent most of our time in our room or in an Internet cafe with outrageously cheap prices. On the streets, we saw a collection of all kinds of people: Hindus, Muslims, Jains. Jains are strict vegans, to the point that some of them wear face masks to keep from accidentally eating bugs.

After dusk, we went back to our room. The Hotel Alka was even more intimidating at night than it was in the day, and I was afeered for our lives. Once we got back to our room, we relaxed a little, until we went to bed and in the quiet, I noticed a strange smell and started to fear creepy crawlies.

Ahmedabad was fine for one night, and I’m sure that there is far more loveliness to be seen, but I was perfectly happy to say goodbye.

I forgot to mention one important thing about Udaipur. One day T and I
 walked down to the boat jetty, just for the sake of it. When we gt
 there, there was a band from Ahmedabad, all dressed in Rajput traditional
 costume hanging out by the water. Inside the gates of the City Palace,
 people were getting elephants ready for a procession, presumably for the
 ministers daughter’s wedding. After standing around for a while, we
 started walking back up the hill to town.

As we were walking, a couple with a baby appeared. The wife walked up
 to me and handed me her baby. Here, take it, she said, planting the
 little boy on my hip. I stopped for a second and looked down at the
 adorable child, who must have been a little more than a year old. Then I
 thought, I could run away with this kid right now! I didn’t because A: I was
 wearing flipflops and who can run in those? B: I am scared of Indian
 jail and C: Kids wake up so early, yo. So instead I stood there like a
 fool, holding on to the little boy as the wife stood next to me and the
 husband took the picture. In response, T took a picture of the three of
 us, but unfortunately the wife took her son back so you cant see me
 awkwardly holding him, trying to plan my escape. Please admire my
 restraint.

When our train pulled into Udaipur, the two men in our cabin started telling us about tourism in India. Jaipur is beautiful, yes, but Udaipur is the most beautiful place in India. Mmm-hmm. We believe you. We read the book. We ALREADY KNOW!

What we didn’t already know was just how pretty it would be. Our rickshaw driver took us to our hotel just as kids were going to school; we passed kids in red and white uniforms and girls with long braids tied in circles, so that their droopy braids were held up by perky red bows. I liked Udaipur already.

And then we got to the hotel. As the second hotel on the crab-free plan, the Krishna Niwas was even more expensive than we planned, but we needed a place to stay. As we checked in, I sat on a bench, riveted by the paintings on the ceiling. All along the perimeter of the ceiling and the walls were delicately painted flowers in red and blue and gold. The owner of the hotel told us that he painted them himself. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken him to paint every room and the atrium and the stairs, but it was worth it, because the hotel was stunning.

And then there was the roof deck. We went up for breakfast, which was brought to us by a waiter at the neighboring hotel. We sat in the scorching sun and ate toast, while looking at the two Udaipur palaces in the lake and the third, perched on a hill. The views only got better at night, when we went to dine twice at the neighboring hotel. On one night, we got there just before sunset, when the sun sank into the distant hills, turning the sky a bruise color before the hotel lights across the canal twinkled on, sparkling in the water. And, during this lovely meal, we ate my new favorite dish, masala papad (pappadum with something akin to our friend Ems salsa on top), and dal makhani and kadhai paneer. And things were good.

Udaipur’s old city was a delight. First, there was so little trash and feces on the street that I could wear flipflops and my feet rejoiced at seeing the sun again. Second, the old city is a maze of tiny alleys and twisting roads, winding around and around. On our first day, we walked around and got lost in the little streets, as shopkeepers languidly waved hello and children ran up to shake our hands and run away. Third, there was no staring in Udaipur. It was like a gift from God. Instead, people were sunny and friendly and the kids were adorable, approaching us and saying Pen? Chocolate? Ten rupees? We had no pens or chocolate and they didn’t look as if they needed 10 rupees, but it was incredibly endearing nonetheless. Fourth, good food in Udaipur. I love you, masala papad! Fifth, great shopping. I bought some cute leather shoes for $5 each. Because they were so cheap, I got two pairs! There were also Ganesh statues everywhere, t-shirts on every corner, and the ubiquitous pashminas. Finally, they had the world’s cutest donkeys.

The bad thing was that we arrived just in time for the wedding of the power minister’s daughter. Rumor had it that they had rented out the entire hotel at the Lake Palace and were being married at the other lake palace, which meant both were closed to tourists. This depressed me until I realized that a wedding costing $20M (again, rumor) meant FIREWORKS! Both weekend nights, we ran to the roof to watch fireworks falling over the City Palace, and then, over the Lake Palace. It looked like a million stars exploding in the sky and I like to think they weren’t for the wedding; they were for us.

As T and I wandered the streets of Udaipur in the afternoons, the power
 to the town was cut for a few hours every day. Shopkeepers would sit
 in the darkened doorways of their stores, all chatting with their
 neighbors and not looking as though they were making any attempt to do any
 work. Kids ran rampant through the streets, playing cricket and chasing
 each other. T and I marveled at the fact that in India, it is not at all
 unusual to have scheduled daily blackouts, and secretly wished that
 things like that happened in America, so we could all chill out and talk
 to our neighbors. It should be noted that the power cuts did not happen
 during the weekend of the power minister’s daughter’s wedding. For $20M,
 you get electricity all weeekend.

Since we couldn’t get into the lake palaces, we decided to tour the City Palace. Before we went in, we sent a few things back to America under the watchful eye of a very bossy postmistress, who informed us that it could take up to a year for the sea mail to arrive. Uh, great.

The City Palace was a disappointment to me. It was a rabbit’s warren of back stairways and dingy hallways with a collection of thrown-together exhibits. Some rooms were lovely, but then they were negated by the narrow, dirty stairs we would have to navigate to escape. However, there were some good views.

One other noteworthy event happened while we were in Udaipur. I mention it not because I take pleasure in my husband’s pain, but because it was the one time I have refused sugar. We decided to buy some sweets in Udaipur, to see if we could find the delicious halwa we had in Delhi. With the sweets we wanted came some dodgy-looking brown balls that resembled doughnut holes. We tried them, and I took one bite and spent the next 10 minutes trying to wash away the taste of the bottom of a shoe. T finished mine and the other two while I munched away happily on my Cadbury bar. The next day, SOMEONE was sick and for once, it was not ME! Thank you, Jesus.

T, everyone knows you shouldn’t eat food that tastes like poop. It will never end well.

The first thing to happen in Jaipur (or on the way) was that we met a beautiful French family on the train with one Indian daughter, two African sons and a Cambodian son. Meeting these people restored my faith in France and made me a little more likely to enjoy Jaipur.

As in Agra, there was a prepaid rickshaw stand, but like everywhere else, as soon as the train arrived, rickshaw dudes were everywhere. One immediately found us and started talking, telling us that he could get a good rate and we really wanted to drive with him. I liked him; he looked like our friend Naz. Unfortunately, when we got to the pre-paid stand, his friend leapfrogged and stole the fare from him. The friend was not as likable. His name was Jimmy and he and another dude took us to the hotel in a real car, forcing us to look at Jimmy’s book of comments from tourists the whole way. When we got to the hotel, they jumped out of the car and asked if we wanted them to drive us around the next day. We politely said no and tried to walk away and Jimmy immediately got in our faces and started yelling about how we were suspicious. WHY WERE WE SO SUSPICIOUS? Yo, Jimmy. We’re suspicious because you are dodgy as hell and hey, here’s a hint: this is not the way to get customers, you obnoxious prick.

Despite our unfortunate introduction, we were still so relieved to be out of Agra that everything seemed nicer in Jaipur. And we were certainly right about our hotel. As our first hotel on the no-crab-blankets plan, the Karni Niwas was also probably our Nicest Hotel Ever, or at least since the Relax in Phnom Penh. We had an immaculate room and a BATHTUB and a human-sized bathroom with two showers. Needless to say, we slept like babies there and then awoke very late and had a lovely brunch on our veranda, basking in the sunshine and listening to the thump-squeak of the shoes of the little girl wandering the hotel, calling for her papa.

When we emerged from the hotel, we were happily walking down the road when a rickshaw driver suddenly sprung out at the end of our road. I am Jimmy’s friend, he said. Do you need rickshaw? What the FRIG?! What is Jimmy, the frickin’ CIA? No! We don’t want your stinking rickshaw, and even if we did, we certainly don’t want it now, you creepy spying freak!

Our book had said that Jaipur was a little crazy, with all kinds of people and honking cars. Sure, this is true, but this meant two things: Jaipur was not Agra; and also, Jaipur had restaurants we had heard of, like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. Never in our lives have we been so excited to see a Pizza Hut.

But first, we walked into town. We walked down the main street, which was indeed full of honking cars and people, most of whom were staring at me, especially when I was carrying T’s camera. Apparently, the only thing more riveting than a Slutty Western Woman is a Slutty Western Woman With A Camera! Had I only exposed a little more skin, their heads would surely have EXPLODED. That would have been fun.

The walled city of Jaipur is crammed full of tiny shops, with the names of the stores painted outside, because no neon lights are allowed inside the Pink City. It is called the Pink City because the outer walls are painted a rose color, as are most of the buildings inside. Old Jaipur was another city with slowly decaying architecture that, with a little bit of restoration, could be a glorious sight.

On our first day in the city, we decided to go to the Palace. We walked through the city, where people were popping up out of every nook and cranny wanting to talk to us. One kid came to ask us about the Western world, and then spent about five minutes telling us how in the Western world, people date openly, but in India this isn’t the way. Thanks, kid! We had no idea!

The palace in Jaipur was somewhat disappointing, to be honest. After the Baby Taj and all the forts, it didn’t seem quite as majestic as the others. As soon as we walked in, there was a tiny man in a Rajput uniform who asked me to take his picture. Not wanting to be rude, I did, and then he wanted money, OF COURSE. Duh, when am I going to learn? Perhaps a better question is, when will I just be rude and save ourselves some damn rupees?

Though much of the palace seemed a little bland, parts of it were stunning. There was one building housing the textile exhibit that was as delicate as a wedding cake inside. And there was an arcade, oh God, that was just lovely. There were breathtaking paintings over every door, of peacocks and flowers and all kinds of beauty. After walking through the museum, we decided to have a snack and a drink before walking home. In the courtyard, there was a man and his son, dressed in traditional costume, playing music and dancing. We ordered Limcas and an Indian sweet which was delicious until my last bite, in which I found a hair. A short, black, kinky hair. I do not wish to discuss it further lest I retch in my mouth.

For dinner, we had Pizza Hut. I know, I know, but it had been months since we had Western food and sometimes you JUST NEED SOME PEPPERONI. It was delicious, so get over it.

I awoke for the second time to the sounds of a funeral marching through town. I ran out to our tiny porch and walked the women walking past our hotel. I have never seen such a glorious collection of color in my life. If God created color for India, then Rajasthan is the reason he created it. The women were all clad in brilliant pinks and reds and greens and yellows and purples and golds and I thanked God for letting me see this kind of vibrance, even if it is only in India.

Our second day was spent shopping. Joy had told us that Jaipur had the best shopping, so we decided to check it out. And so, we walked back and forth along the shopfronts, with people running after us, calling PASHMINAS?! BLANKETS?! SHOES?! and occasionally, to me, We have BIG SIZE! BIG SIZE! Um, thanks. You would think I was some kind of giant. Two noteworthy things happened when we were shopping; first, even more people told me I looked Punjabi. I was tremendously excited about this until I read a book that described Punjabis as “bothersome, tasteless, showy, nouveau riche, pushy people.” Oh. Perhaps not such a compliment, then. Now I am both enormous and tacky! Second, the staring continued in a highly obvious manner until I made a realization. If I walked along, not looking at the offenders, I didn’t notice the slack-jawed, bug-eyed starers, and it was like they didn’t even exist! Of course, you can hardly blame them, given that I am such a gargantuan, shameless hussy of a cheesy Punjabi.

We cracked on our third day and decided to hire the hotel’s designated rickshaw driver to take us around. We had a number of errands we had to do, and we had only one day to do it. Abdul, a round-faced, smiley man, came to fetch us and he brought us to the train station. We needed tickets from Ahmedajad to Bombay and we couldn’t get them online. So we waited, in the queue for freedom fighters, journalists and foreign tourists. Sometimes India really does crack me up.

After the train station, we needed to go to the post office (I mean, really, where else would you have the tourist rickshaw take you?). We thought the post office would be a piece of cake—get in, get some boxes for our packages, and get out. We forgot we were in India. In India, one does not buy boxes for packages. One gives one’s package to a man who wraps it in newspaper, rips off a piece of a sheet and SEWS the package inside the sheet. We had four packages (one of which was pretty big), so it took quite a while. However, watching the man sew them up was riveting. I’ve never seen someone sew so effortlessly or quickly, and our trip to the post office ended up being one of our favorite experiences in India.

Finally, Abdul could take us to do some real tourist stuff. First, he took us to see the royal cenotaphs. The tombs were made of Indian and Italian marble, and though the Italian marble structures were under construction, they were still beautiful, with local kids crawling all over and following us around, asking ten rupees? In the end, we bought them some chips and called it a day.

On the way to Amber Fort, Abdul took us for a quick stop at a palace surrounded by water. We also passed elephants with their faces painted in bright yellows and greens and pinks, returning from their days work at the Fort. They were beautiful, but there seemed something humiliating about having their faces painted that way, and it hurt my heart to think of such magnificent animals being reduced to carrying lazy tourists up a hill all day long.

The fort was lovely. We got there in late afternoon, when the sun was starting to sink beneath the nearby hills, and everything was bathed in golden light.

Perhaps because we were there so late, there weren’t too many tourists and we had the place nearly to ourselves. All to ourselves and a big gang of kids who were crazy for pictures and who would approach us shyly, asking to have their pictures taken, before running away, shrieking like banshees once the deed was done.

After the fort, Abdul took us shopping, much to T’s chagrin. First, we went to a textile factory where I bought a pashmina and some blankets. The factory, which billed itself as not being tourist-oriented despite the string of Westerners walking through, made lovely rugs as well as blankets and pashminas, and if we were rich, we would have left with a lot more.

Then he took us to a jeweler. We stopped on a side street, walked through a pitch-black courtyard and down a darkened alley to get there, with T whispering to me, We would never do this with a driver we found on the street. The jeweler was all charm, telling us his name was Chili Chocolate, and desperately trying to get me to buy more! I should buy from him, because everything in Udaipur is fake! In the end, I got some earrings and bracelets and ole Chili Chocolate made out quite well (as did Abdul, who would have got a fat commission from both places).

To ease T’s pain about our rapidly dwindling wallet, I distracted him with food. Because Abdul had to leave us at the train station and the textile factory to pray, we had him for a few extra hours, and at 8, he dropped us at Handi for dinner. Oh my GOD. It was so super delicious, I wondered why we had eaten anywhere else ever in our lives. We had our favorites, dal makhani and kadhai paneer, and we tried not to drool on the table. After dinner, we happily returned to the train station, where we boarded a second-class train with two very nice men, and I fell into a deep, deep sleep, full of dal and color and happiness.

Initially, T and I had planned to go from Rishikesh to Varanasi, but we soon realized that A: we didn’t want to spend 19 hours on another godforsaken sleeper train, and B: all the trains were waitlisted. Instead, we redesigned our itinerary and headed back to Delhi on yet another bumpy local bus and our second Shatabdi Express.

After a meal in Rishikesh that left me grateful for the Western toilet on the Shatabdi, we arrived in Delhi an hour late, at 11.30pm. The train was instantly flooded with tiny children searching for empty water bottles, and we were swept up in the wave of people exiting our train. T had checked out the location of our hotel, the Hotel Ajanta, recommended by a very loud but ultimately helpful American in Rishikesh. It’s walkable, he said. Maybe 500 meters away—no problem!

T has an unfortunate habit of underestimating distance or misunderstanding maps at the most inopportune times. This time was the perfect example. We made our way out of the train station, fought our way past the dozens of auto-rickshaw drivers calling Sir! Ten rupees! and down the darkened Delhi streets. This way, T said, and we turned left. Having walked for about twenty minutes, he still had no idea where we were, and I was wondering how long a quickie divorce takes in India.

Suddenly, as we were standing on the side of the road, looking at our book, a highly intoxicated Indian guy in his early 20s staggered over. MY NAME IS RAJ! he yelled at T. T, glancing up from his book, said, Hi, Raj. Raj stumbled over to me. MY NAME IS RAJ! he screamed at me. My-name-is-Allie, I responded, in much the same manner that one would speak to a three year old or the mentally disabled. As T tried to negotiate with a rickshaw driver, Raj attempted to assist, before T sent him away. Raj came back over to me. I AM INDIAN MAN! he yelled. Yes, Raj, that is apparent. I looked at him quizzically as he yelled it again. I AM INDIAN MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! I am American, I whispered back, hoping it was the right answer. It appeared to be, because he took a few steps back, just before his two friends, previously standing by the sidelines, grabbed him by the arms and dragged him away. Bye-bye Raj, Indian man.

Our rickshaw driver drove us exactly one street over to our hotel as I shot T hateful glances out the corner of my eye. The hotel, which I was sure would claim to be full despite our reservation, ended up being very helpful and polite. They took us to a side room to check in, gave us tiny water bottles, and even gave us porters to carry us to our room. Our room was decent-sized, with clean sheets and towels, but no windows, which I didn’t notice until T pointed it out.

We had planned to get up early and get things done, but after the bus, the train, Raj and watching too much late-night TV in our room (we had to make up for the lack of TV in Rishikesh), we decided to let ourselves sleep. The windowless room definitely assisted us in this endeavor, and we woke up at 11am.

We got a rickshaw outside our hotel to take us to the Red Fort. Our rickshaw driver had a very attractive friend who spoke great English and joined us for the journey, asking us all kinds of questions about whether we wanted to go shopping, and how we would get to our next destination. When it became obvious that their services would no longer be needed after the ride, the rickshaw conveniently broke down. Could we wait 25 minutes for them to fix it? Uh, no, we could not. And so we were passed off to a wrinkly old man who looked as old as Delhi itself, spoke no English, and took us to the Red Fort, veering back and forth between lanes and dodging pedestrians, other rickshaws and cows.

I realized as I was waiting for T to get tickets that all kinds of men were staring at me. I’m talking open-mouthed, stunned-looking staring. Is that a WOMAN? In PUBLIC? UNATTENDED?! T finally emerged from the ticket booth just as I was thinking of going to get him, because the gang of Muslim men was inching closer and starting to freak me out.

Despite the obvious and somewhat creepy attention outside, the Red Fort was yet another lovely and relaxing destination. It is an enormous complex, with thick red walls along the perimeter of the fort and various halls inside. Inside, there were thick green fields with only a handful of people sitting on them. The fort was also full of Indian tourists, which was nice to see after being surrounded by so many other white people for so long.

After walking around the fort, T and I sat on one of the lawns for a little while, when we made a friend. An Indian family was sitting about 50 feet away, with three adults and a tiny boy. They waved to us, and we waved back, and then the show began. The boy, who had to be about three years old, started doing somersaults for us. He would roll over, and then clap for himself until we clapped as well, at which point he would dissolve into laughter. Eventually, he started coming over with gifts. First, he brought us a package of cookies and ran away. We each took one, and when he came back, we gave them back to him. Then, he returned with his mothers perfume, which he tried to spray on me. When it didn’t work, he came back a few minutes later to try again. He finally got a little bit out, and then he let me take his picture.

After making friends with the boy, we decided to venture out into Old Delhi. It was at this point that we discovered where all the hordes of people we had been expecting had gone. They were all in Old Delhi, which was teeming with people. We were jostled and shoved down one street, until we found our destination: the jalebi stand. Jalebis are kind of a pretzel-shaped fried dough covered in honey, and we heard this place was the best place to get them.

We were in line to get them when an American woman started talking to us.She warned us to only get one between us, because they were so sweet. It was wise advice. We kept on talking to her, and learned she was from New York. Thus commenced the typical I lived in NYC conversation. We told her we lived in New York too, and she said Oh? In Manhattan? No, we said. In Brooklyn. Suddenly she warmed right up. I live in Brooklyn, she cried. Conversations with New Yorkers can be tricky: you’re either a Manhattanite or you’re not. If you are, you generally look down on the other boroughs, and vice versa. This time, we had the right answer.

After the jalebi, we walked across Old Delhi so we could see a mosque. The streets were full of the stench of urine and cow dung and people kept jumping out of doors, crying Madam, come look at my shop! Delhi is a fascinating city; it has millions of people, yet still is full of cows and goats wandering the streets. There are piles of rubbish framing all the streets, and people of all types playing cricket: Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. We saw kids playing in a square and grown men wandering around with cricket bats, in the middle of the day. We also saw the schoolbus-rickshaws coming home from school.

We had a quiet dinner in a restaurant removed from the clamor of the streets, and then found a modern, clean supermarket like the ones we saw in Vientiane and Phnom Penh. We bought some more water and some Oreos and headed back to the hotel for some more TV in the comfort of our windowless room before our early morning train.

I had tried to book a room at the High Bank Peasant’s Cottage in Rishikesh before we left McLeod Ganj, but was told they were full. Thus, I decided to look online for a room, and found a very nice website advertising colorful rooms at cheap rates. I booked it. So, when we got to Rishikesh, our rickshaw driver dropped us on one side of the Ganges, and pointed vaguely to the other side. There, he said.

T and I crossed the suspension bridge, dodging cows and locals and tourists taking pictures and found the Lucky Hotel. Would that its name was true. We waited about ten minutes for a staffperson to even show up, and that was only after T went searching for him. The guy opened a river view room for us, and walked in first, smoothing over the covers of the bed and sweeping under it. Then he went into the bathroom where he hosed everything down, before telling us okay and opening the door for us. I stood there, frozen. When he had been smoothing the covers and sweeping, he had taken a bag and thrown it into the hallway. As I was standing in the hallway and I am a woman, I recognized it immediately. It was a bag of USED MAXI PADS. I was horrified and couldn’t bring myself to enter the room. It was obvious that the room had not been cleaned after the last tenants left (hence the smoothing and hosing down and sweeping) and who knows where those had been sitting? In my mind, they had been sitting on the pillow that still lay there, unwashed.

Then came the breakdown. When the man left, T went into the room and made his best attempt to pretend the room was fine. Look at the nice colors! We have a river view! I, on the other hand, sat down on the bed and sobbed. I had eaten about 13 potato chips in the past 24 hours, had about 48 minutes of sleep and now I was supposed to sleep in a dirty, used-maxi-pad-filled room with no sheets. Could life get any worse? I think not.

Confused my my meltdown and probably in fear for his life, T got me out of the room and back across the bridge for some breakfast. After some chai and chocolate cake (shut up, I was having a breakdown), I agreed to go look for another place to stay–we would go to the High Bank Peasant’s Cottage and ask whether they had a room. They did.

So we trekked back down the hill, across the bridge and back to the Unlucky Hotel. Were leaving, we told them. As with the woman in the Phoenix hotel where my sister, T and I found a crack pipe in the room, he did not bat an eye. T paid him marginally less than a day’s rate (why he did not argue is beyond me, but I suspect it may have had something to do with having a wife who was about 13 seconds away from being institutionalized) and we left. Goodbye forever, Unlucky Hotel, you den of filth and misery. Just so you know, when we went back two hours later to check out, the bag of gross was STILL SITTING IN THE HALLWAY. Ew. I feel dirty just writing about it.

So, Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a holy city on the Ganges, best known for being the place where the Beatles wrote the White Album and for being the ‘yoga capital of the world.’ It’s a city built on hills, the aqua Ganges river weaving in between, with two delicate suspension bridges crossing it. Despite the gangs of monkeys crawling all over the Unlucky Hotel bridge, pooing on people, Rishikesh is quite a pretty city, and after I got over my initial horror, I liked it.

It must be said, however, that Rishikesh is full of hippies. Not the trust-fund hippies that we found in McLeod Ganj–kids in North Face fleeces who came to India to find themselves. The hippies in Rishikesh had found themselves, and it was not in a shower. The city was full of dreadlocked people in what T calls MC Hammer pants, wearing bindis, often walking around looking dazed. In Rishikesh, I discovered that T has a particular loathing for dirty hippies (though mostly of the Trust Fund variety), and he would see them and hiss to me, WASH YOUR HAIR AND GET A JOB! In turn, I would choke on my laughter and try to explain to him that if he didn’t like hippies, he was in the wrong goddamn country.

Fortunately, the High Bank Peasants Cottage was not full of hippies, which pleased us both. I found the hotel online, on a website that prominently featured the fact that Kate Winslet had stayed there. There she sat, serene in a scarf, sitting on their porch. Now, if you know me at all, you know I have a deep love for Kate Winslet and, were she to come knocking, I would be Mrs Winslet instead of Mrs Hill. Also, I thought it was an excellent chance to stay in the same place as a celebrity for one of the few times in our lives (celebrities don’t generally frequent filthy Indian hotels that charge less than $10 a night).

The High Bank sat on a hill above the city, bathed in sunlight all day long. We had a room with an enormous porch that we shared with a Spanish girl, who spent much of her day sitting in the sun, talking on her cell phone. The High Bank also had a giant Great Dane named Dolly, who soon became my best friend; a small cat with whom I bonded until she ungratefully scratched (and potentially bit) me after I massaged her for an hour, leaving me convinced I would die of rabies; and a really cute little Indian girl who lived on the ground floor and wore an English newsboy-style cap all the time.

Unfortunately, the High Bank also had blankets that had been soaking up dust for the past century. T was immediately allergic to the room, and I soon became very coughy as well. Much of our time there was spent with T glaring at me through bleary, allergic eyes, rasping, KATE WINSLET MAKES ME SICK. Unfortunately, the sun and view and general loveliness of the hotel and my fear of moving back to a hellhole caused us to stay right where we were.

Recently, my father asked me, What do you DO all day? And instead of giving him the answer he expected, which of course was: wake up at 5, sacrifice an infant and drink its blood before going to Satan-worshipping school, then shave our heads and walk naked around town prior to tattooing ourselves with strange Hindu symbols, then smoke all kinds of opium and have a giant orgy, I told him the truth: we sleep, walk and eat. He seemed somewhat disappointed by my response.

Life was no different in Rishikesh. T would sleep late; I would get up slightly earlier and try to blog in the sunshine, and then we would walk into town. We would walk down the hill, past the leper colony and the hospital for the dying; down the stairs filled with sadhus (holy men who leave their families to travel to sacred sites and beg for money), where we would either give money to all of none of them; down to the German bakery by the terrifying monkey bridge, or down a different hill to Ram Jhula. Ram Jhula was on the other side of the river, past the Unlucky Hotel area, and was much more relaxed. It was there that we met a beautiful Indian guy who lives in an ashram in Rishikesh who photocopied some of our Lonely Planet book for his upcoming trip to Goa with a French girl he met at the ashram.

We would walk, eat, and then walk back, or take a rickshaw. One rickshaw journey was especially memorable: we ended up in a tuktuk full of locals, including one old man with very bad breath who kept speaking to me in Hindi despite the fact that I clearly didn’t understand him, before they would all explode into laughter at my confusion. I could have done without that ride.

Part of the reason we came to Rishikesh was to do yoga, since it is meant to be the yoga capital of the world. And so, I signed up to do a yoga class at the hotel (the other options were somewhat overwhelming). So T and I ended up doing a class with two English girls in a tiny, frigid room on the first floor of the main building. It was, bar none, the worst yoga class I have ever had and I have been doing yoga for 12 years. This wasn’t his fault, but the guy sounded just like Apu, which made it enormously difficult to take him seriously. Also, he had no idea what he was doing. He would make us do random poses, then stand with our heads leaning off to one side, and breathe for about a minute. Then, another totally unrelated pose. The class was so bad that the girls, who had come to Rishikesh on a yoga package, told the hotel they wanted their money back. It was our only yoga class in Rishikesh.

Because we weren’t doing yoga, it seemed only fair that I spend our yoga money on an auyrvedic massage, also offered at the hotel. Off I went, to a tiny room with a dirty mattress on the floor and a plump woman with sparkly eyes waiting to massage me. I lay on the dirty mattress for an hour as she vigorously rubbed me down with about five gallons of what smelled like vegetable oil, rolling me over so that I picked up all the dirt on the mattress and ended it up with it sticking to my body. Ayurvedic massage (or this one, anyway) apparently includes quite a lot of breast massage, to which I am not accustomed. But I lay there, with a strange woman rubbing my chest, covered in oil and grit, wishing I was back on the frigid floor with Apu yelling yoga poses at me.

As if that wasn’t enough fun, I also agreed to have some sirodhara, which I thought was included in the price. Sirodhara is the dripping of warm oil on your forehead. The guy who offered it to me told me it was very relaxing. I lay on the table, completely covered with more dirty towels by the masseuse (I assume because the sirodhara guy was a man and I am not and I was all nekkid underneath), as the man drizzled more vegetable oil back and forth across my hairline. It was a strange sensation: calming and at the same time very distracting as I thought, my skin is already breaking out from all this travel. What the hell is this going to do to me? At the end, I was completely soaked in oil from my head to my toes and I felt as if I had a close encounter with the Exxon Valdez: all for the bargain price of $15. It took three rounds of shampoo to get it all out, and I had to wash the clothes I wore to and from the massage twice because they were soaked through. I am every man’s dream, I tell you.