Carrom Madness

It was a long, hot night last night, and we made several trips to the bathroom to drench ourselves in cold water (PJs and all) before lying back down and trying to sleep. After having breakfast at the hotel, we changed rooms (our new one actually has windows for some air circulation) and then spent the morning walking around Jodhpur. We wandered around the market stalls at Sadar Bazaar and the clocktower in the centre of the old city within the city walls. I (Kel) bought some bracelets from one of the vendors. Since I can't wear metal of any kind (except gold), I bought glass ones. We spent about 20 minutes there while the guy loaded my arms up with different bracelets, all the way up to my elbows. He said because I'm a married woman, I need 24 bracelets on each arm! Some Rajasthani women wear bracelets all the way up to their shoulders, getting larger and larger from the wrist to the shoulder. 48 bracelets a bit much for me, I settled on a few each of several colours. As we walked away, I noticed a bit of blood on my hand. Of course I freaked out, having just spent 20 minutes with this guy touching my hands and arms. But it turns out that one of the glass bracelits nicked my hand as he was taking it off, so I was much relieved. Then I realised it was a stupid purchase as I'd have to carry these delicate glass bracelets around until we get to a post office to send them home. My original purchase was about 50 bracelets, and by the next day I was already down to 46. Oh well, they're cheap, and it was fun buying them.

We headed back to our hotel for a bit in the heat of the afternoon, and caught an episode of one of our favourite shows, The Amazing Race. Ironically enough, this episode of Series 7 showed the teams in Jodhpur, India, climbing the clocktower we'd been to not 20 minutes before, and going up to the Fort and Jaswant Thada, where we're heading tomorrow! It was very exciting to watch.

For the rest of the afternoon, we walked all around Jodhpur, and found it to be a nice little town with friendly people. We headed to the Umaid Gardens & Zoo while trying to find a pub on the way. But we never found a pub, and the gardens were so dry and boring that we weren't exactly sure they even were the gardens until we looked at our map. So, we walked back through town, wandered around a street market selling fresh produce & many different colourful spices and back to our hotel.

We asked at our hotel if they had beer, & they sent out a guy to get us a few cold ones. He brought them back 'hidden' in a men's hanging suit bag. We enjoyed these on the rooftop restaurant while playing Carrom. We've been sucked into the carrom hysteria, and have purchased our pieces and super fast powder so we can make ourselves a board as soon as we get home. And we've thought of quite a few ways to incorporate beer into the rules.