I didn't realize how quickly I'd tire of an uber touristy hippie haven. Aside from the fact that there's really nothing to do here other than buy crap and eat falafel, It's a real bummer to see an entire town dependent on a bunch of tourists to survive; pushing cheap and slave-made crap on the foreigners instead of pursuing trades and vocations of substance, like shoe making or HVAC repair or whatever people do when they don't have football and beer to distract them. It seems like 85% of the people here are oriented towards selling something to tourists. It robs them of what I perceive as their dignity, forced to beg, cajole, pressure, and invite ignoring (ignorance?) of the privileged Israeli, German, British, Australian, and American fools who wander into this town. It's like reverse imperialism, where the invading hordes are welcomed and fleeced, instead of the hordes fleecing the indigenous. I realize the irony of someone who makes a living off of tourism himself pointing all this out, but I don't think I've ever annoyed the hell out of someone until they rented a bike from me just to get me off their case. Not yet anyway.
On the street you'll see silver jewelry, bracelets, those MC Hammer pants (which I learned reading Lonely Planet that dressing Indian is a good way to deflect the stares of menfolk. However wearing a tank top in conjunction them pantaloons sorta defeats that purpose, eh?), black tapestries with the face of Bob Marley, mushrooms, and other hippie oriented logos painted on only semi convincingly in neon colors, occasionally with the "trippy" sounds of hippie techno pumping out of the darkened store. In the bookshops which sell lots of English books, I found the same books over and over in every shop (malcolm gladwell, irvine Welsh, Bill Bryson, etc,) which I theorize means that tourists read the same books and trade them in and pick up another book that fits into the hippie India tourist canon.
I actually bought a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes that is possibly the poorest made hat ever but it's the same pattern as the bike hat I lost, but with a giant bill a la the main character's original hat in the Sandlot. Hopefully I don't lose it and can bring to Portland the newest hippest hat fashion. "This hat is so fucking obscure that you will never own one," I'll say. It also has a Porsche logo on it, like many things in India that have brand names and logos of western brands that are in no way affiliated with said products.
All the British accents I've heard here have been that upper crust Queen's English that makes me cringe. Where are the bootblacks and chimneysweeps??? Maybe they go to Thailand.
I ordered Porridge of Heaven that sounded really great this morning at a hippie tourist/vegan centered place and upon receiving it found that it was laced with soymilk and gave it to a nice german guy and told him it was on me. I am very generous. The owner was all, "If you had told me you don't drink soymilk I wouldn't have put it in there" and I was all "I had no Idea you could even GET soymilk in India!" I thought I was safe from the dreaded soy in this country! From now on I'll specify that I want no soya milk in my porridges.
All packaged foods available contain "edible vegetable oil" which I think means rapeseed oil as there were nothing but yellow flowered fields on the drive from Delhi to Jaipur. Pretty sure it's all heavily pesticided, chemicaled, and GMO'd. Just how I like it.
It's near fucking impossible to buy a train ticket on your own here. I tried for several hours to set up an account and book a ticket through one website that seemed quite promising and when I finally got everything sorted, my purchase wasn't accepted via the site I was using, So I went over the the India Government Rail site to book the ticket and found that it's so fucking busy that you can't get through to book your ticket anyway! So I overpaid in one of the two thousand "book your train, bus, airplane ticket" shops here in town and the dude made the purchase through some mysterious "Indians only" website in a matter of seconds. Holy shit, this is India.
Walking down the street is an odorous assault of urine, spices, and cow shit. And moto horn blasts. I don't think the concept of an "occupational safety hazard" exists here as I know for a fact that the dude who sits at his desk in his storefront right on the street will be completely deaf from the moto horn blasts that pierce my skull and send a wave of doom through my aching cochlea. There are no street signs, addresses, health code regulations, helpful/watchful government suggestions. This is a land lacking regulation that we 'Mericans take for granted as obvious. You can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want as long as you're not kissing your girlfriend/boyfriend in public.
I have been wondering, do Indians ever get food poisoning?
I saw a 30 something guy wearing a Che shirt that said Spirit of Cuba on it.
I have read the India Times newspaper which is probably the most unabashed propaganda laden national publication I've ever seen, which is pretty amusing. Additionally, in today's Sunday Times there's a wife/husband wanted section that goes by religion, caste, profession, and other classifications that I don't recognize. Lots of fair skinned h'some and b'ful younguns ready for the marrying. I'm bringing it back with me for chuckles.
I am listening to oker.bandcamp.com which you should too.
Tomorrow I go to Udaipur!!!
Put that in your cheaply-made knockoff-skullbong and smoke it.
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