Dog Eats Cow

Hello, so another few days go by and and oh so little to report. My two new friends and I have both been feeling pretty rough the last few days so activity levels have been low... that said today I began to feel better as did Duncan so decided to rent a motorbike and venture outside Udaipur's ancient city walls and into the badlands of the Rajasthan hills...


To be fair the hills are nowhere near as bad as the attached photos suggest but I thought I'd add it for effect (this was seen quite early on into the journey though). It was quite stunning really, beautiful sun-scorched mountains, run-down vollages, women toiling in the heat of the midday sun in glorious colours while their dutiful husbands sat round doing f-all, beautiful kids running and laughing oblivious... (I have to say the kids out here are literally melting my heart... but that's another story). As Duncan kept saying, around every bend was a scene from National Geographic, it was pretty darned cool. We rode for an hour or so and stopped on the crest of a hill looking out towards Pakistan... it was stunning, as much for the beauty in the mountainscape as for the beauty in the silence. Silence is a concept I had forgotten existed in this country and for the first time in 3 weeks I found it again and it was amazing... I don't know when I'm going to have the chance to find it again!!!


Changing the subject slightly, I had an epiphany last night. As I lay in bed at two in the morning, I tried to block out the ridiculous horns of the buses and the shouting and the dogs and the hammering by controlling my breathing to help me relax... I realised that must be the reason why Yoga and Meditation find their homes here in India... because if they didn't exist here then everyone would literally go insane. Well, I know that's not true but I was going mad enough to think that it was an epiphany at the time! I did have another thought, why in god's name do so many westerners come over here to find their inner calm... I couldn't even have imagined, made-up, dreamt of a more stress-inducing country... lovely it most definitely is... relaxing it most definitely is not.


And with that I fare thee well as I try for the 21st straight night to get an unbroken night's sleep... bon nuit.