And that's why you dont let whities ride rickshaws...

Trying to keep this story updated constantly requires either missing hilarious details or compacting them into less info. I'm going to do the latter as I am just about seven cities behind - very sorry all four of my lovely followers but you can imagine sitting in front of a screen when there is exotic fly-covered street food to taste is near torture.

Jaipur, my most anticipated city (it had a nice pic of a lake palace) turned out to be ugliest mass of buildings and felt like a funnel with pollution from all over India - scratch that - THE WORLD was blown into this cramped state capital. This placed proved to me that good times had next to nothing to do with the place but with the people.

Highlights included: Marc and I learning dirty words from college boys at MacDix who thought one's virginity was a time bomb that would blow them to tiny unworthy pieces if they didn't get it on before the age of 20. Could have been in Vancouver...

Raj Mandir cinema, most revered in India blew us away with DeDanaDan (found out it means Give It To Me Hard after a dirty look from the hotel receptionist, thinking me a pervert). Ate samosas instead of popcorn and laughed along with the rest of the 600 person crowd at the non-subtitled Bollywood comedy.

And the finale! I was given the reins of a fiery cycle rickshaw by its precarious driver with three people in the back. The bronco wouldn't give, however, and I rode that bad boy right into a park car. Crunch! We all fell out, Marc and I laughed, driver cried, Eva slapped me, Big men surrounded us, Left some money, "TAXI!!"

Bharatpur was a short stop before Agra and the Taj Mahal and for one afternoon with ambled through the "bird sanctuary", first half hour counted about 10 birds, most of which were pigeons. And "exotic wildlife", some stray cows that they had chucked in from the streets. Have to say the walk in the wide, green park was bliss away from the traffic and we even thought we could avoid the hassle. But nay! The only way to safely walk around the park was a dirt road infected with lonely rickshaw drivers that told us:

"park is too big to walk! You must ride rickshaw or leave!"

"We'll walk, thanks"

"Oh...ok"

On the way out, a few bucks did dash across the road and a lost heron did accidentally find itself in a pond so the 250rs foreigner rate/versus the 10rs local rate was almost slightly worth it. We bid the racists farewell and promised them to charge Indians 25 times the price of a Snickers back home.