Forward

Oh my God, how many things can go wrong in one vacation? Wait a minute, I take that back -- no need to tempt God with such musings. Frankly, we've had enough.

We arrived in Udaipur at 7 am after taking a night bus, and awoke to pouring ran and freezing temperatures. Both of us had sensed the onset of a cold the night before, and were dismayed to see that our illness had become a full-blown respiratory infection by the time we woke up. With no rain-proof clothing, we hitched a ride from a rickshaw into town and settled into our guesthouse on the lake, falling quickly asleep after a restless night on the bus.

Imagine our surprise when we woke up a few hours later to find our guesthouse was flooded in, with the biggest flood in Udaipur's history since 1972. Cold, sick, and overall miserable, we waded through the waters to find ourselves some food, as our guesthouse's kitchen had also flooded and we were starving. We wandered the streets a bit in the rain (this IS a beautiful town) and then headed in for an early night.

The next morning, K was violently ill and could not leave the hotel room. I had aches, pains, and a fever, and was in no mood to wander through the sewage to find food. I ate some toast and we remained miserable in our hotel room for the entire day. No television, no entertainment other than watching the flood waters rise.

Yesterday, we at least had the energy to change hotels, and we found one with a tv. Besides an occasional foray out into the city for food, we were pretty much stuck inside all day -- both of us hacking like lifelong 80-year-old smokers.

Today is the first day we have had the energy and motivation to actually go outside. Although we're not fully recovered, it feels great to be able to walk a few steps without groaning, or to not get dizzy at the end of a hill. Udaipur is a beautiful and peaceful city, and I suppose of anywhere to get sick, this is the ideal place (minus the flooding, of course). It's a shame that we can't just fall magically in love with the place -- the mules and elephants roam the streets freely, the hilly and curvy roads are incredibly scenic, and the people here are the most friendly and mellow of anywhere in India to date - but we'll squeeze the most out of our last day here while we've got the energy to do so.

We're anxious to feel back to full-speed, however, and hopefully by tomorrow that will be the case. We're heading on to Jodhpur in the morning, and will continue on to Jaiselmer from there. We're both very excited about the camel safari in Jaiselmer (camels!) and are just praying that we won't hit another disaster in our next destination. I have been entirely impressed with India and have enjoyed this country immensely... I just would really, really like it if our string of bad luck could come to an end.

Also - our pictures suck because we bought a really shitty camera at some stand. India is so colorful and so beautiful, and all the pics are washed out and bland. Damn shame.

At any rate, forward we go.