Days 3 and 4.

For those of you who watch the Amazing Race, our first few days here has seemed like a slow day for them. OMG, even trying to remember which cities we have been in, let alone what we did in them, is ridiculously difficult. As this blog is mostly for me as a travelogue to refresh my memories and record this trip, I can't believe how little has really registered yet regarding the first week. First of all we spent it at warp speed with our Indian travelling companions, Paul and Bobby and Bobby’s driver Sohan. We eventually left Dehli after the world’s longest days. We were reluctant to leave the luxury of Vinay’s oasis in the city and Carolyn especially hated to leave their private masseur! After a crazy few hours trying to find the bus, we took a 6 hour trip, south to Jaipur. The bus seemed to take forever because the highways are so congested with scary mile high stuffed trucks, overfilled buses, camel carts, motorcycles with 5 people squished on them, moving at warp speed passing on the right and left and threading the needle, then all of a sudden coming to a stop from a bottleneck caused by speedbumps or cows wandering around on the highway or laying between lanes. I had a concept about the cow thing – thinking it would be a few cows in towns but OMG they are everywhere and they are hazardous! Imagine calm cows cruising down the Deerfoot Trail in rush hour or sauntering down the middle of the Pacific Coast Highway….yeah – then add a zillion trucks and buses with five times the appropriate loads then place ten or twenty more humans on the tops of those vehicles and you can only just start to get the idea of highway driving. Most memorable is the speed and the passing – three abreast with oncoming vehicles. Games of chicken every pass!!!

Anyway we got there and was met by Bobby and his driver Sohan. Bobby and Paul went to University together and were from the same village.   Bobby comes from a very wealthy family…VERY wealthy and that has been interesting. His family – wife and two kids live north of Delhi in his hometown and he lives there seven days a month. The rest of the time he lives in and around Jailpur. He describes himself in playboy terms – not having to work, just being able to live off the family businesses which include private universities, online education, liquor stores and farming and poultry. His father was a minister in the government and it seems that here in India, that is a very big deal.

We stayed with Bobby and his staff at his apartment and have been basically going everywhere we have been taken. Without question there are some obvious cultural differences here and we have been just going when and where we are summoned. We are not privy to any plan and that lack of communication has been quite bizarre. Nonetheless we haven’t stopped and have been grateful for the opportunity to see the inside life of lifestyles of the rich and Playboyous. We have been taken to forts, palaces, fed incredible food, drank a lot and basically it has been a continuation of the cruising life from a couple of weeks ago. The only stress has been what to wear and trying to figure out when the van is going to leave again. All the educated people speak perfect English here as their schooling is in English. Most converstions seem to have a lot of what I call Hinglish – Hindi with English words so, even when they are speaking Hindi, it is pretty easy to follow along. The 'staff’ are from a different caste and do not speak any English and do not go to school. Some of the house girls are as young as 8 or so and have no access to school as they must work.

One fun thing we did was go to a gigantic movie theatre – holds maybe two thousand or more – fantastic art deco style from the 20’s and see India’s biggest most successful Hindi movie ever – The Three Idiots. This is not a Bollywood style movie – it is about three guys in engineering school whose parents all have pushed them to be something they don’t want to be. Bobby and Paul had already seen it and it was obvious how much it affected them. It seems it is a movie that really speaks to the pressures of the masses of kids who are not living the lives they would have chosen for themselves, rather they are trying to please their parents,. I look forward to seeing it again with subtitiles as it is a great story.