Didn't like it|
| - on bus at 6am didn't manage to stop at any round farmhouses for tea.
- Arrived 8am in rickshaw fighting mode 1 Km around the fort wall to the backpacker favorite guesthouse Deepak by 8.30am ... But everyone was asleep cos they were in the middle of a huge 10 day wedding. Unfortunately this was the pattern for the next 3 days when I was awake they were sleeping .. When I got back exhausted and went to bed a big party would start. - Kind sister living in the Netherlands gave me a cool castle room for 20% of the normal price. 
- For some reason I didn't enjoy the town :
stayed 3 nights at a hotel overrun by the owners son's huge 10 day wedding.. but still didn't like it so I left of a nightbus to Bikaneer.
| Fri - Explore |
- evening after siesta ... Haveli (Merchants palace from when these towns were all prosperous caravan ports), paid money, but nothing to see inside
.. Sunset lake - no sunset ... for some reason the bloke started the Folk museum then quit to make the Desert culture museum so neither has enough stuff each took 10 minutes .. Felt ripped off
- Bumped into a happy group of 10 travelers Half were on bhang lassi, but I hadn't thought about it. They'd all signed up for a camel safari. But it will be crap 1: hour on a camel is enough, the Indian guides seemed sleazy, it's far too hot.
- Wedding dance .. Crap overloud music, no conversation only dragging me up. They had a CD with 120 tracks on, they didn't like most so they kept skipping tracks. Their idea of a dance beat is different to mine ; the ones they wanted us to dance to were undanceable.
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Sat - Hired bicycle went to 6 Km Bash Bagh|
- a monument area ard situated among a windfarm. Not much to see not worth the 50Rp entry. They wouldn't let me in the secret valley garden.
- Good to see the camels roming .. Their necks are long like giraffes
Then to another disappointing Government museum
- Bizarre : sculpture of man screwing a donkey whilst a naked woman leant on it
- walk outside havelis even the guidebook says there's not much inside... Lots of pestering
- Wedding feast - didn't like food no-one talked to me except the sarcastic US brother - so decide to leave even though tomorrow will be the big wedding ... It'll be crap as well and I hate marriage and it's immoral false dream.
| Sun - internet work day|
- walk south side ... pestering .. Tried to be sociable but restaurants had no food.
- More crap at the place I bought the bus ticket locals tried to get me to take an auto 2Km saying the bus wouldn't stop there. I walked the 2Km and then the bus did stop at that place anyway.
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Pestering every 50m
- many people were kind say 20% of shop owners. But I like to walk and the constant calling get grinding :
- 1. auto rickshaw guys trailing me
- 2. People sticking out their hand to shake "just fuck-off ! I don't like being touched, don't make presumption about my culture that you have a right to touch me"
- 3. shopkeepers "you need water" - my rule "if they call out, never buy"
- 4. sleazy guys - calling "what's your country"
- 5. kids pestering me - this is the worst ! "give me pen", "give me rupee", "money from your country" , "give me toffee",
- Fuck off as well ! Your mum and dad buy you things it's not my business. If they do a good job I don't mind putting money into their pocket by employing them. I hate this racist simplification : "foreigners are rich, they'll give you stuff" Anyway it's often the Indians who are the richer most of us foreigner can't afford a wedding with more than 100 guests whereas Indians typically have 500.- It seems obvious to me that the parents have trained them to behave like this "when you see a foreigner , ask for ..". Not only is it bad education it puts the kids at risk : twice bored by 10 "No"s from me kids have turned it into a game and started to test my limits starting to pull at my bags. Look if your kid starts to put their hands on a foreigners body or bag then things can get out of hand and your kid will come home crying with bruises Cos they got pushed away by an adult reacting to being attacked. ..... and that we'll be your fault cos you trained then to be disrespectful.
- Not evil, but it's a big negative Certainly this pestering is not thievery, but it is a minor form of terrorism ..it intimidates me and disrupts me going about my business.
| Best town in India, but I still didn't like it
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- Yes Jaiselmer's fort is the nicest area in India, but the pestering, the heat, closed season atmosphere and my lack of the connection with the wedding etc made me want to leave... I can understand why some people like it, but I don't.
- A big reason for not liking Rajastan could have been time disappearing through diarrhea, lack of sleep and my Pocket PC shutting down due to the heat.
- Diarrhea - In Udaipur the guy sold me 3 large mangos for 20Rp, so I ate them all within 24 hours then from that day for about a week I had no solid poo ... But then due to heat etc. I wasn't eating much solids and the cooling milk I had been drinking probably wasn't pasteurised. In Mount Abu I had to take rehydration salts cos my energy was low. And maybe for this week my energy was low and therefore not happy.
- Sleep problems - Cos it stays hot at night my technique for dealing with heat didn't work I have a technique for dealing with heat : SIESTA - get up early and do stuff - sleep from 12-5 and then do more stuff. But what I found was that despite siesta I was still tired at night and my nights sleep would get disrupted by the heat ... I had to get up and shower in the night etc. .. So it woud be 9am before I could get up i.e. Time disappeared instead of 9 hours sleep and 15 hour days I only had 3 hours in the morning for activity and 5 hours in the evening and I still had routine washing and eating to do so
- Siesta time was unproductive : PC phone kept shutting down cos of the heat so I couldn't work or listening to podcasts.
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