Bikaner

From Jaisalmer we headed towards Bikaner. In order to get off the tourist path for a while, we stopped in Kolayat. When we first got off the bus we thought we might have made a mistake coming here. Everyone stared at us like we were from a different world (which we kind of are!). Soon we found a Dharamasala near the lake to stay in for 30 Rps ($0.75) and a warm welcome from the locals. We met some teenage boys who showed us around, and a wonderful family from Bikaner who we later met up with. It was nice to see small town Rajasthan and we loved the warmth of the people.

After almost two months in Rajastan, we were getting pretty tired of seeing forts, dealing with touts and the hot weather. When we arrived in Bikaner we found it the most uninspiring town that we had been to so far. Unfortunately, Joe had the good ol stomach bug when we got there and didn't get better for a week. And Sejal got the flu with fevers and chills for a few days. The heat was bugging us, and we started getting really bothered by people in India. All the things that we found fascinating, or interesting, were now just annoying us. All the people who blatantly stared at us with their mouths wide open angered us. And Sejal found herself getting annoyed at the 50th person that would come up to her in a day and ask "You Indian Madame?????" (that's the first thing that they would say...not hello, how are you...or anything. Just that first line).

It got to the point where she just wanted to write down all the answers to the questions that they were going to ask (because i knew exactly what they were going to ask)...No I am from America; My mother and father are Gujarati; Yes, I was born in America; I only speak a little Hindi; No, he is not my friend...he is my husband; We have been married for seven months; Yes, it was a love marraige; No, we don't have kids. Everyone asks the same questions, and I only wish I had a bunch of cards to pass out to people with these answers. Plus with all the forts we have seen, we were getting pretty forted and palaced out. Every fort was starting to look the same to us. The noise, the hassles, the touts, the pollution...it was a combo of these that put us in a bitter mood when we were in Bikaner. There were still a few more things we planned to see in Rajastan, but after 5 months we were finished. So we waited in Bikaner until Joe felt well enough to endure a 20 hour train trip to Haridwar.