There was a big article in the paper here about the amount of energy wasted by the server farms powering the Internet, so purely in the interest of being green, we decided to spend all seven days in Goa doing pretty much the exact same thing. Because of our sacrifice, I am able write just one blog post and then tell people to read it seven times, thereby saving countless amounts of CO2 from entering the atmosphere – I know, I’m a giver.

Our routine can be summed up as follows:

8:30am – Wake up, Skype the boys
10:00am – Breakfast on the verandah overlooking to ocean, with the best Mango Lassi ever

11:00am – Pool chair
12:00pm – Walk the beach

1:00pm – Pool

2:30pm – Lime soda in the Club Lounge
3:00pm – Pool chair
5:30pm – Watch the sunset (which are stunning)

6:30pm – Tapas in the Club Lounge

We do manage to tear ourselves away one of these days to take a trip to the nearest town (Panjim) in search of some gifts, and then on to the more well-known of the beach areas (Candolim). The town is a pretty big disappointment, as the choices are poor and the prices much higher than Jaipur. It is also unbearably hot, being far enough inland to not get any of the offshore breeze.

The beach on the other hand is spectacular. It is wide, powdery, and lined with small restaurants where you can enjoy a cold drink and listen to the waves. Unfortunately, it is quite crowded, with this being the start of the busy season, and while there are parts of me that would be tempted to stay in one of the no name guest houses that are common here, I have to admit that to solitude of the Hyatt has grown on me.

Our beach, while nowhere near the same quality as that at Candolim, is virtually empty – save for the occasional fisherman pulling his nets in the morning and the groups of locals playing soccer in the evenings – and it is hands down the best beach for collecting shells we have ever been one. Not a single day goes by that Ang doesn’t say she isn’t picking up any more, but returns with both hands full of new treasures (those of you getting shell wind chimes for Christmas, I tried to talk her out of it). I also managed to find a nice gift for Sammy – pair of shorts to go with the free, size 10 garage sale shoes he is hiding in his closet until he is big enough for them to fit (shhhh, don’t spoil the surprise).

All too soon it is time to go, and it doesn’t feel right having to pack up. We’ve become part of the scenery here. Weddings have come and gone (including an interesting one with a steel cage, which I think they put over the lucky couple to keep the groom from running away), the uber-friendly staff knows us by name, and we’ve admired the 200 year-old banyan trees and 16th century church ruin a thousand times.

A good friend told me before we left that India is a place that, when you’re there, you count the days until you get to leave, and when you’re back, you count the days until you get to go back. I think I get that now. In the moment, the sensory onslaught overwhelms the ability to process it all, and you wonder just what you’ve gotten yourself into. But here, in this quiet slice of paradise, it’s possible to appreciate all the very cool things we’ve been able to see and do. I’m not counting the days (plenty of places yet to see before I need to start repeating), but I think I’ll be back.

This isn’t how India was sold to me. We’re out the door a little earlier than usual because of our flight, but that doesn’t explain the ability to see my breath (granted, I could also see it in Delhi, but that was smog). There’s no thermometer handy, but it can’t be much warmer than the low 40s as we wander off to find breakfast. I’m the only one dressed in shorts, but on principle I refuse to cave and switch to pants.

The flight to Goa is about 4 hours altogether, including a stop in Ahmedabad. By the time we arrive in Goa (shortly after 1:00), it is like opening the door to the oven. While the weather in Rajasthan was always pleasant, we wanted to cook a little before returning to the dreary cold of Seattle, and it looks like we found the place to do it.

We get a slight scare at baggage claim, as the place is complete chaos, and one of our bags is nowhere to be found. Slowly people start to trickle away until we are pretty much the last ones left, dutifully watching the carousel. Just when I’m about to give up hope and try and find an agent, we finally see it come into view. Apparently once you find out a backpack s just full of dirty underwear, you just throw it back. And somewhere I suspect there’s a baggage handler vigorously washing his hands.

We’re staying the week at the Hyatt (who says Ang isn’t adventurous?), which sits on it’s own beach and feels like it spans a couple of time zones. It’s away from the tourist beaches which is a blessing and a curse. I’ll admit to being spoiled by my travel buddy’s accommodation requirements, but I still like to wander down the beach and find a local hut serving food and drinks. No risk of that happening here.

By the time we get all checked in, I can already feel myself slipping into a much lower gear. Given our remote location, it’s quite possible we’ll never leave the hotel, and as sporadic as the blogging has been to this point, odds are good that it will get even worse…

We have one more night in Jaipur, but with the hotel we have been at the past few days full, we made arrangements to stay one day at a resort some 20km from town, figuring we could give try something a little different and make a short trip to the airport in the morning for our flight to Goa. Relocation isn’t a good enough reason to interrupt prime shopping time however, so before anything else, we’re headed back to the old part of the city to try my patience.

3:00 brings a reprieve, as thankfully we need to clear out our gear and find a ride to our new place. In pulling out the map to explain where we want to go, one fundamental mistake comes to light, in that the airport is on the opposite side of town from where we are headed. 30 miles in India can take a lifetime, and our plans for a leisurely morning quickly crumble.

The hotel is very nice, and while it will sadly be for just one night, we get upgraded to a suite. I’m thrown for a bit of a loop, as the check in person refers to it as a “suite room”, which I hear as “sweet room”. It seems a little informal, but has to be better than a room that isn’t sweet, so sign me up.

Our last piece of business is to figure out transportation for the morning. Being out in the middle of nowhere, and a long way from the airport, I get the sweats thinking about how much a hotel taxi is going to charge. We passed a town 5km or so back, and figure we can book a driver there much cheaper, and there a few tuk-tuks waiting on the street that will take us the short distance. When we get there, the tuk-tuk driver just calls someone on his cell phone (not sure why he couldn’t do that from in front of the hotel, but then I guess he wouldn’t have gotten paid), and in broken English, we manage to make the arrangements.

It’s dark now, and we’re on our way back, driving down a two-lane divided highway in a glorified golf cart with no lights. I take some solace in the fact that, despite horrendous congestion and the lack of any traffic rules, I have yet to see even the slightest of fender benders, but it still a nerve wracking 10 minutes.

Sweet room or no sweet room, the bed is rock hard, so combined with an early morning flight, the forecast tomorrow is for two very grumpy travelers.

It was a day I knew was coming, no matter how much I tried to put it off with other plans. With only a few days left in Jaipur, and a reputation for great shopping, I can avoid the inevitable no longer.

Our vacation would seem incomplete if we didn’t spend some time carpet shopping, as over the years, that has become a tradition. Aside from that, we could use a couple of additional souvenirs for the boys, and apparently some more of the item Ang has most recently been torturing me with – pillow covers (at just a few dollars each, is it really necessary to look at each individual one of the hundreds the typical store has stacked up?), but those will have to wait.

Having done this several times now, we figure we can outsmart the tuk-tuk drivers that route you to particular shops in order to get the biggest commission on whatever you buy. So instead of telling them we want to go to a rug store, we pick a random place (a Holiday Inn) and have them drop us off at the front gate. Giddy with our cleverness, it takes a few minutes to dawn on us that we are on a random road out of town and that nothing around us looks remotely like a rug store. Undaunted, we head off on foot, using the Force to guide us.

We soon come across a few shops selling pottery and handicrafts, and against all odds, one of the people standing around on the sidewalk not only sells carpets, but has 5 brothers that also sell carpets. And so begins a sordid journey through back alleys, dark stairways, dilapidated “factories”, and residential neighborhoods, as our extra helpful guide takes us from shop to shop, looking at raggedy, industrial rugs that the salespeople assure us are “top quality” (of course you would clean part of a hand-knotted silk rug with bleach, “the color will come back when it dries – it’s no problem”).

Broken after a wasted afternoon, we fumble our way back to the Holiday Inn, which is the only landmark we know in the area. They give us a few pointers regarding some places nearby, and having come all this way, we rally for one more try.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog with an important announcement….Angela has purchased a rug. I repeat, Angela has purchased a rug. After four years, seven countries, and countless hours of his life that her husband will never get back, the quest for the perfect rug has ended. We now return you to the blog already in progress.

Unbelievably, after torturing the poor workers that have to fetch the dozens of carpets and carry them to the viewing room, we are able to settle on a winner. But, like Forrest Gump, having run all the way across the country and not knowing what to do next, we just turn around and run some more. By the time we leave the building (well after closing time, and with the sun long gone), we have not one, but two rugs on their way to Redmond.

In a victorious mood, we take a tuk-tuk to a restaurant that we have seen recommended a few different places, and toast our success over an extremely tasty meal (that it is the first real dinner we have eaten in a few days makes it even better).

Sorry, no pictures.

It’s hard to appreciate our day today without a bit of background about the preceding night. Not long after lights out, Ang starts finding her chest tightening up and it becoming harder to breathe. For the next 5 hours, she’s either up wandering around the room, going in and out of the patio doors, making tea, and or banging away on the computer. I’m battling my own demons, and as a broken down pair, we are getting very little sleep. By the time the sun comes up and it’s time to video chat with the boys, I look as bad as my stomach feels.

This makes our first destination today back to bed, followed by a tuk-tuk ride to the pharmacy, finishing up with a return trip to the hotel.

On a positive note, Ang feels better once we are out of our room, so when breathing gets difficult again on our return, it seems like something might be amiss there, so we ask at the front desk if they can move us. They are able to find us something in the refurbished wing of the hotel, and happily, the breathing problems don’t return, so it seems my travel buddy has an allergy to non-refurbished rooms. This is good to know for the future, and at least now we have some Benadryl in case our next hotel sticks us in something old school. She may try and tell you about the paint fumes from the work they were doing in the lobby, so it’s safest just to nod your head and agree.

That’s really it – a boring day even by Redmond standards. Hitting the markets is on tap for tomorrow, so we’ll try and pick up our game a little.

Momma said “street carts are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get”.

Botulism is on the menu today, and where I usually get to discretely giggle as Ang’s stomach turns on her, karma, as they say, is a bitch. I’m not sure how she managed to get pictures, but at least she captured my good side.

A handful of meds, and a VERY light breakfast, we’re back with our driver to pick up on our sightseeing. We start with the royal cemetery. This one is better kept than Udaipur, and the cenotaphs are grander, but it feels like we’ve already done it before (I guess because we have).

From here, it is back up into the hills to Jaigarh Fort. This complex overlooks Amber Fort (in case one fort just doesn’t feel secure enough), and was clearly designed to be a little more military in function, as it lacks most of the fine details and comfortable courtyards of others we have seen. It is also home to the world’s biggest cannon on wheels (which I can now cross off my bucket list), a 20 foot monster capable of hurling a 100 pound ball 22 miles.

Sticking to the top of the ridge, our next stop is Narhargarh Fort. By now, we’re forted out, so I’ll summarize: cool building; great view; being maharaja is good.

For something a little different, we head to a place our driver keeps calling the Monkey Temple. I’m not sure what it’s actually story is, but it clearly takes it’s name from the hundreds of monkeys that have taken up residence (waiting patiently for a visit from the Monkey Whisperer).

Getting there requires a drive through some very poor parts of town, and a hike up the hill past groups of half-dressed kids begging for rupees, or trying to earn some money selling monkey snacks. As was the case in Delhi, it is difficult to be so close to the poverty, and to not be affected by a child that is happy just to get the empty bottle I was looking to throw away so that she could use it to carry her own water (of the garbage that is seemingly everywhere here, one thing you don’t see lying around is plastic containers).

On the brighter side, we do see Glitzy (who’s going to be the first to admit they watch Honey Boo Boo?), which we know will make Sam smile.

Last on the list is the Hawa Mahal, yet another palace back in the Old City. It’s smaller than most, but famous for its architectural design and so a popular stop on the day tour circuit. It is literally crammed with people, so we take a quick lap and head back to the car, much to the delight of our driver, who clearly wants to be done with us before the evening traffic.

One of the amazing things that I’ve come to learn about India, is that pretty much everyone has a brother/cousin/good friend in every city and in whatever line of work may be relevant at the time. Need a taxi? Your tuk-tuk driver will have a brother with a car. Looking for carpets (as you know we are)? Your car driver’s cousin just happens to have a shop “not far away – good prices”. It’s six degrees of Kevin Bacon family style, and manifests itself today in a cabbie sent to us by his brother (who is also a driver, but busy this morning), who was referred by his “very good friend” – the driver in Udaipur – that we were introduced to by his brother the travel agent.

We’ve hired the car for the day to take us around the city and see the sights. Jaipur is a much bigger city than Udaipur, with traffic and noise much closer to what we experienced in Delhi. It’s a much more pleasant city though, and while we have absolutely no idea where we are going from one stop to the next, we do get to see some pretty interesting things. The catch however, is that even though Diwali is over, school is still out for another week, so combined with the start of tourist season, many places are packed to the rafters.

As with Udaipur, there is a large City Palace here for the former royal family, and another small Lake Palace. Both are very nice, but we’re hitting our palace limit, so take a few pictures, but mostly power tour through.

Next to the City Palace is a huge compound housing the Jantar Mantar, an collection of odd constructions designed to track stars, measure time, predict eclipses, and so on. For astronomy geeks this is probably over the top cool, but we’re simple folk, so a lot of it sails over top of our heads. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty impressive to see something built in the early 1700s that still functions today, accurate to within 2 seconds.

As we tour these sights, we also get a chance to see the streets of the Old City, and the buildings that line them all painted with a uniform pink color (apparently, painting your wall any other color within the walls of the Old City incurs a significant fine). This is a holdover from the late 1800s, when the city was painted to welcome the Prince of Wales. There are a number of markets in this area that we may hit over the next few days, but from the comfort of our car, the place looks beyond chaotic.

Our last stop is Amber Fort, which a few miles out of the main city, up on one of the surrounding hills. It is a massive fort that was started in the 1500s, and expanded several times over the ensuing generations. Unlike most of the palaces which only have small portions open to the public, once inside the gate, access to different areas of the fort is pretty much unrestricted, and I spend the next hour or so wandering down narrow passageways, exploring dark staircases, and peering over the landscape from defensive turrets, all with my cheerful traveling companion close behind. It’s the kind of place that 8 to 12 year old boys (and grown ups that behave like 8 to 12 year old boys) would love, so while I have a great time exploring, I can’t help but wish our little people were with us.

By the time we finish up, the sun is on it’s way down, so the other sights will have to wait until tomorrow.

It’s a new day, and another 7:30am wake up drum call. Fortunately, Diwali seems to have finally run its course, so even with the early start, we’re not feeling too sluggish. We’ll be taking our last train of the trip today, from Ajmer to Jaipur, and with nothing really left to see here, we spend the morning just relaxing in the room and catching up on a little reading. Around noon, after one last check to ensure that, under no circumstances, will we get stuck the train bathroom, we load up our gear and head for the station.

Of all the trains we have taken in India, this one works out the best, as we end up with a private cabin all to ourselves. By the time we arrive and arrange for a tuk-tuk to where we are staying, it is quickly closing in on dinner. Although the day has been very low key, we still don’t have the energy to leave the solitude of the hotel, opting instead for a drink by the pool and some mindless time in front of the TV (I must be getting old).

With fireworks going off most of the night, it’s quite possible that we might have slept in a bit to make up for the restless night. Fortunately, there is a temple not far from our hotel where, at 7:30am, they broadcast someone playing the drums over a set of speakers mounted to the roof. This let’s us know it is time to get up and enjoy a refreshing cool shower, before heading down to the all-vegetarian restaurant (ironically called “Sizzles”) for breakfast.

We have one full day here, and plan to spend it in Pushkar, a small town about 10 miles from Ajmer that is fairly well-known on the hippie circuit. Aside from the $10 hotel rooms and non-medicinal marijuana, there is a fairly large market, is a mostly car-free part of town that has drawn our attention, and we also want to see the lake the town is built on, which is very holy to Hindus for its connection to Shiva.

While relatively close by, Pushkar lies on the other side of a steep ridge from Ajmer, and tuks-tuks just don’t have enough oomph to haul us both up and over. There is local bus service however, and at 20 cents, the price can’t be beat.

Our first stop when we arrive is the lake, which is mostly surrounded by ghats, where all kinds of people have aggregated to partake of the holy waters. As a non-Hindu, it looks to me like just a dirty lake, but it never hurts to hedge your bets, so after doing a quick check for open cuts, we take a turn wading down the slimy steps.

The market is pretty much as advertised, lining both sides of a narrow street suitable for little more than pedestrians, bicycle rickshaws, and the occasional camel. We manage to find a few gifts for the boys here, even though it means waiting for my trusty travel buddy to look at every single item in the shop before settling on just the right one. We also buy the kids a collection of the best XBOX games and because they’ll want them soon, find a place where we can send them international courier. I’m sure they’ll arrive just fine.

Pushkar is also in the process of gearing up for its annual camel fair, where people from all over Rajasthan come once a year to buy and sell camels in a giant tent city that suddenly appears in the desert on the outskirts of town. We’re about a week early for that, but even now there is plenty of activity and ample opportunity for camel rides (which, as a courtesy to two very important friends, I shall pass on this year).

With a bit of time left to kill, we decide to try out a Shirodhara massage, which is basically an hour of warm oil being poured over your forehead to help restore balance to one’s chakra. It is definitely different, and with the greasy hair that comes out of it I certainly fit in better with the hordes of backpackers, but I have to admit it was extremely relaxing (or at least the parts when I wasn’t asleep were).

As night falls, we head back to the bus stop for our return trip to Ajmer. The day has been pretty uneventful this far, so we see no bad omen in a helpful group of people having to rock our bus back and forth to get it rolling down the hill so the driver can start the motor. It’s clearly not healthy though, and no more than a mile out of town, it calls it quits.

We’re all able to pile into the next scheduled service (which is standing room only), and while it powers up the hill without breaking a sweat, the twists and turns have the lady sitting directly in front of Ang painting the side of the bus with half digested chunks of paneer. Packed in like sardines, there’s not much you can do but go to your happy place, which I’m guessing for Ang right now might be a giant bottle of Purell.

We’re on the move today to a city called Ajmer, which is the nearest train stop to Pushkar. It’s a five-hour ride, so aside from the gloriousness that is the Indian rail service, there isn’t a whole lot to report.

Our hotel is a former palace on a hill overlooking the city, but as this is not a regular stop on the tourist circuit, there isn’t enough cash flow to keep it in top condition. It has a quaint charm though, with its high ceilings and open courtyards, so even though it lacks a giant “S” on the side, it will do for a few days.

Diwali is still in full swing here (we’ve been told it is a four day event), so wander around, hitting a few street carts before enduring another long, fireworks-filled night.