Guys,

doesn't leaving a comment freak you out, having to 'choose an identity' first?? Everything is for sale nowadays. And in the blog it's even for free!
Back in Delhi now, just a few hours though. Have to catch a train to Varanasi tonight. The 2 weeks in Rajasthan have been amazing. Every day was better than the previous one. I think I can say the worst is behind us. The worst being almost losing my flight to Delhi in Heathrow. Luckily there was this nice lady waiting for me after arriving from BCN, who took me to the Delhi terminal by car. Wouldn't have made the 45 minutes distance walking (only had 20 minutes to do it, and didn't want to repeat the Brazilian move in London tube by running my lungs out of my body and making myself suspicious by doing so). That lady saved my trip, but not my luggage... only took two days to recover it, so that was ok in the end as well. And then there was the doctor who saved my ass quite litteraly. Guardian angels seem to pop up always.
So, Rajasthan we enjoyed a lot! The noise, the bazaars, the architecture, and the very very weird Rajasthani people... All very lovely indeed. What we didn't enjoy was the absolute lack of privacy, a concept apparently unknown in this part of the world. I think that isn't not that they never learned it, it's more that we 'unlearned' some kind of open social behaviour. The good thing here is that everyone seems to be able to effortlessly relate to any other person. Our driver seemed to know every Rajastani during our trip, had long conversations without a problem. Once I realized how this worked, it became easier not to see every person who wanted to talk to us (aprox 735 a day) as annoying. It doesn't help asking to be left alone anyway. Or as this frustrated boy said: "Alone, alone... what is this 'alone' thing with foreigners? I don't understand!" He isn't alone. And he just wanted to practise spanish... Amazing how many languages the kids speak in touristy places like Taj Mahal.
Honestly sometimes it's still annoying when people follow you, asking where you're from and then wanting to sell something or just beg for money. Sometimes I just say I'm from Nigeria. Makes no difference to them... "do you have Nigeria coins?" That said, it has only been a few days that I look at people with another mindset, and experienced how open people in general are. An openess different than the European or south american one. For example, the time we spent in this desert village. What do you do in a desert village? Spending time. How? Just... sitting... letting time pass by. We were the guests there, and guests are holy. Are better put: treating your guest as your family or more is good for your karma, it's good for you and good for your guest. What happens: they will the take the tea from someone and give it to you. When you protest saying you don't want the other one being left without tea, he'll say: "No problem, he's my brother, you're my guest." But before you know it, he'll call you his family too, and then you can only hope no other guests arrive and run off with your tea...
The desert on the border with Pakistan is a strange but beautiful place. Strange for example to see an almost every house/hut some anti-aids campagne slogan "use condoms while intercourse" while the only readers seem to be camels. But it's a very needed campagne: 5 out of 1000 Indians are HIV infected, that's 5 million of them in total. It's the other face of poverty which seems to hide under the veil women wear covering their faces, or in the truck driver's cabins. Another freightning statistic: at the currect rate of aids spreading in India, it's estimated that there'll be 12 million infected people by 2010... Also condom sales fell from 500 million in 2004 to 375 million in 2005... More: 1.2 billion Indians now, growth rate of 2% per year... that's 24 million people more every year...
Most people we speak are in their twenties, but seem to be in their 40ies. All are married, having children between only one to five (a 26 year old). One more number, but 'light': 5 is the number of people on one motorbike, or the number of Indians doing the work of one.

later guys, off tho Varanasi