India and Singapore

After 4 days in Jaisalmer, we began our long, looooong trek to Goa, half way across the sub-continent. We broke it up into 3 legs. Our first stop, Jodhpur, is known as the blue city for obvious reasons: it's blue. I'm not sure how or why this came about, but it's an aesthetically pleasing place to be and made for a good side trip. I hired a tuk-tuk to show me the sights and somehow got taken under the wing of a happy, little, old Indian man who couldn't speak a lick of English. This didn't stop him from excitedly showing me around and presumably telling me all about it...in rapid fire Hindi.

We boarded our train for Mumbai that night and had what was a most eventful trip. Upon boarding, a flashy twenty-something in skin tight jeans up to his nipples, thrust his phone at me. A woman speaking Hindi was on the other end. Confused, I handed him back his phone. A little while later, after he'd killed 45 minutes of travel time by relentlessly staring at me, he sat down 5 feet away from me and VERY unconvertly tried to covertly take a picture of me. I nearly took his head off. Sensing (or more likely hearing) my displeasure, the kind man beside me blocked the creepy creeper from engaging in any further photo ops. While much appreciated, my new-found friendship opened the floodgate for a never-ending offering of food. My willingness to overstuff myself with dodgy food came to a halt with the grapes I saw washed in train water, which is roughly the same colour as dirty dish water. My digestive system would've likely been destroyed upon contact, so I politely declined. He politely insisted. One thing led to another and the grapes slyly made their way to the only possible hiding space I could think of: my bra. They were then transported to the bathroom and dropped down the toilet. Stealth :)

Many hours and many loud snorers later, we made our way to Goa, aka the hottest place on the planet. Goa was moderately relaxing, but the staring, constant sweating and constant hassle made it much less than the tropical paradise we had in mind. The heat forced us out after only a few days and we bid India farewell. It was undoubtedly an amazing experience, but we both felt relieved to leave hassle behind.

Our next stop, Singapore, contrasts India probably more than any other area in the world. It's more orderly than any Western city, as beautiful as any European city, and as lush as any tropical city. The overall effect was almost euphoric after having been in India. A great place to recover!