The "Bundi Incident"

We have been experiencing the definition of true relaxed lifestyle - although a tad bit of a cold one at night (hot in the day, reaallly cold in the night)

We travelled from Okmareshwar to a town (100,000 pop) of Bundi. Bundi is a town set around a huge palace, and the old part of the city is built within the fort walls. Outside the past Christmas holiday travellers, there are a fewer number of tourists here - but enough that it is comfortable for socializing. There arent any big stores, all food comes from the market, which houses local food/dairy/vegetables and grain shops (rice/dal) with some 'corner store' type places that sell smokes, chewing tobacco, hand rolled cigarettes, chocolate bars, chips (munchie food) and white bread (from the next big town)....

We will have been here for a total of almost 1 month the day of the international kite festival on January 14. We have been staying with of a 4 - family housing unit (called a Haveli, a large, decorated house with a little inner courtyard/garden) whom we have fallen in love with. We play cards all day with the kids (who we were able to have fun with on christmas and new years) and alternate between being out and about with days of complete nothingness.  The house/haveli (as all of the homes here) have a roof top terrace (where our room is situated) and the entire village and surrounding areas come to Bundi to fly kites, thousands over 12 hours. The families practice every day, and we are excited to be here to spend the day with them and 'party' at night. (by party we drink orange pop, listen to really loud Hindi music and dance. and its aweeesome)

We attempted to go to Pushkar last week for a few days to grab some supplies/see the town (larger, more touristy area that is apparently beautiful. we can enjoy the place and we are still looking for coffee options and have been told we can find it here!) but we were blocked due to the Gujarat protests that have blocked traffic and trains in the state we are in (the debate is between the state we are in and theirs). The protest itself is safe/non violent, more a workers strike (which includes busses/toll workers/train stations) so we spent five hours on a bus, and 45 minutes away from our destination we were turned around and had to spent the same 5 hours back. Did you read the post about bus seats and the pain illicited into the bottom region from them? yes. returned on said bus.

So, we are still in Bundi and have just planned to do another attempt to Pushkar this week and return just before the kite festival (we are having to backtrack to go East as planned, so we will return here befoer heading East). We are safe, relatively healthy (Amaris just finished major antiobitoic treatment for the "Aurangabad Episodes", and today is trevor's first day out of the hostel room in 4 days ( now dubbed the "Bundi Incident".

We will report back after our visit to Pushkar! We are collecting great photos (although few and far between) and will post them to appropriate sections when we get them all uploaded together!

lots of love, stay safe in the snow out there.