french yak

quotes of the week about jeff's beard
"you are a french yak" "osama bin laden!! ha ha ha!" "are you from pakistan, sir? no? arizona?"
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so the last day in jaipur was not too bad. i don't want to dis on the whole of rajasthan because of my personal mishaps and inability to deal with the hell that accompanies the heavily touristed areas. i just want to put it behind me and learn from these experiences and put them into practice next time i visit india. (strange i know i will return repeatedly despite the hell) i will only visit the more obscure places. i will always wipe my glass well before drinking from it. i will take my time when being sold tours. i will not travel by train and pretend it's some kind of "fun" adventure. i will embrace deccan airlines. i will only visit one place per week.

we began the day trying to find the cheapest flight possible out of the shackles of jaipur to mumbai. everytime we would call somewhere, we would get this "haaalooo??? haaaloooo???" and than dial tone. and quotes we did get were in the rps 9000 range-200US. we finally settled for the hotel's advice and went with the posh, but not cheap, but convenient indian airlines because we were beat down trying to do it on our own. they sent us to travel care (travel care-that makes me chuckle) where they actually lost our credit card trying to multi-task, dozens of posters on the wall of dennis the menace and charlie brown preaching about making the customer "happy" - of course they pointed their male dominated index fingers at me-"we gave the card to HER (her is obviously a dirty word here) i just barked like a rotweiler and they found the card. amateurs. all of them. period.
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GURUCOOL CLASSES- we kept seeing this sign with a phone number advertised all over jaipur and wondered what it meant.

ok ok ok...so for the final night we took our first peddled rickshaw (quite small and pretty hard on the bum-poor fellows with their boney asses) to an amazing vegetarian south indian restaurant called "surya mahal." there, we feasted on papad stuffed with aloo (potatos), sarsoo (broccoli rabe like spinach but way more bitter), chickpea paratha, malai kofta (veg meatball in rich tasty gravy), and chach (buttermilk). 4 guys stood over us with our american appetites marvelling at our bollywood knowledge. "you should have come a few hours earlier-my brother is in the movies shooting munna bhai mbbs II and we could have hooked you up!" chirped our favorite waiter. i shout out my faves like shah rukh khan, sanjay dutt, and anil kapoor, and he hit me with raj kapoor, so i hit him with dilip kumar, dev anand and guru dutt. it was like cricket! he taught us the bollywood family tree-who is related to whom-the kapoors, the kumars, but he was wrong about om puri and amrish puri being brothers, because we knew they were just cousins, and when i said "i did not know that, obviously insulting him (i do this ALL the time with indian cinema) jeff just poked me and said "YES!" because he had learned not to disrespect, not correct even though they are wrong. f...that. i think they should know the truth! however, that always gets me into trouble. how the hell could a white girl from chicago know more about hindi cinema than a native indian? well, i do my research and i'm absolutely sure. what is wrong with having the facts? indians don't seem to feel wrong about correcting your mistakes.....whatever. i let it go.

we struck up a relationship with the man next to us who was eating many courses of food. he learned our entire history and invited us to his home, but too late! we were leaving at 6am in the morning. darn it. i always seem to miss the good stuff. after he left, our pal said "i think that man was tipsy.

we had a great time, and when we left, he said, "good luck getting into the movies-suppose the director wants you to shave your beard?"
"no problem. it will always grow back."
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off to the famous raj mandir cinema in jaipur-an elaborate castle that had been turned into a film theatre. and a spectacle to the eyes, and surround sound to boot! like a junkie in a candy store i was, panting like a dog. kyon ki was playing with 2 of my least favorite actors-salman khan and kareena kapoor. at least om puri was in it for good measure, and a cast of good small parts. how i marvled at the interior-the chandeliers, the carvings on the wall, the squishy carpets all pink, like real royalty. everyone was taking photos of the interior with their cell phones, so i took some photos with my camera and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! i got accosted by 2 men in brown-grabbing my camera from my arm! "you have to cut off my had to get this camera, mister" "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" they could NOT have my camera. i held onto it like it was my lifeblood. they dug their fingers into my wrists, they pulled my body up the stairs, but i would NOT LET GO. the whole crowd was behind me shaking their heads in that traditional nebulous indian head shake, which meant "what the fu...????" this is out of control!!! i say-no filum, no filum! i delete! i delete! watch!-so i delete every interior photo in front of this crowd and the men in brown. and i proceed to the "diamond" entry box seats to see the film i don't really want to see because i'm there to see the interior of this very famous cinema. regretfully, i have no photos of this place except the outside. whew!!! that was indeed a close one. you could buy tickets in sections ruby,saphire,emerald or diamond. all the whities were in the expensive seats, of course, many obviously bollywood virgins de-flowering before our eyes-and to a bad salman khan movie, nevertheless. so we sat through half of a stupid re-make of cuckoos nest (nice try-salman khan as jack nicholson???) only there was the love twist where we find out why salman is crazy-he throws his wife into a pool and drowns her by mistake. we had to leave at intermission (all indian movies have intermission 90 minutes into the film for smoking and peeing and eating-most of these films are 3-4 hours long) because we had to check out of our hotel, arrange a ride to the airport, and watch a 2 hour special on john lennon on star world cable tv.
i am landing in mumbai as i write this, 2 hours it takes, one healthy south indian brekkie served-vada and oothapam with "jive juice",chai,fruit,yogurt,water,and chutney & sambar. indian airlines rocks. i like flying. and today, well at least at the moment, there seems to be a god.