Due to the time changes and our afternoon nap, Joe and I woke up at 2am and could not fall back asleep. We 
ended up watching movies on TV and the laptop and playing cards to keep us occupied. It appears that the hotel staff work through the night (sleeping in shifts in a room), but would not sell me internet time despite the fact that I would be using it in my room, so the last posting came to you later than I would have liked! Dusk finally arrived and Joe and I left for a morning walk at 6:30am. The front desk guys are always giving me looks as I guess they’re not used to women running the show!
Outside, people are sweeping up the garbage from last night’s party and burning it in little piles. Delhi is just al
l around dirty and we are not sad to be leaving! The front desk man told me I looked like a school girl as I was checking out (apparently in face and body); he imitated me as I laughed uncomfortably. Awkward is really the only word to describe the moment, I couldn't have checked out faster :).
Interestingly, women do not appear to work in any way shape or form with the public. Every hotel, restaurant, museum or place where someone would have the opportunity to interact with foreigners is entirely male dominated. We do see women on the streets walking and talking to each other, but there is never an opportunity to interact with them. This is not unlike Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Morocco when I visited them. It is somewhat frustrating since there is so much unwanted male attention everywhere we go no matter what I am wearing. Jeans and a shirt and jacket still attract stares and smiles and not so discreet ca
mera phones flashing.
Our drive to Mandawa was crowded and traffic was crazy weaving in and out, although we only spotted one accident, hundreds barely averted. We left at 8am and didn’t arrive until 4pm (with a one hour lunch in another tourist trap buffet, which we acquiesced to). Nanu promised that we will eat somewhere better tomorrow. Unfortunately, if you want to eat like the locals, you have to LIVE like the locals and I am partial to a proper bathroom with a sink and not a hole in the floor!
Mandaw
a is a really small town with unusual architecture. We are spending the night in a haveli, similar to a Moroccan riad with the rooms being inside the walls and there being no roof at the top of the building. Beautiful fresco artwork adorns the buildings, painting many different stories of religion and tradition. We were provided a guide to tour us around the city for an hour. He was very sweet, but really odd. Wearing pin stripped pants and a pin stripped dress shirt; 
he couldn’t have weighed even 120 pounds and was close to 6 feet tall. His English was not fabulous, but he really was so earnest in his time with us, you could tell he really enjoyed guiding people around. The tour got a bit old, when he continued to re-hash the point that in a typical haveli, there is a room for men and another room inside it for women to cook meals. The women have a grated window to look into where the men are spending their leisure time as they are not permitted to join them. Who would want to?!
Our tour lasted about an hour half of which was spent parading us through souvenir shops with desperate shop owners urging us to just “take a look”. The remainder of our evening was spent at leisure sans TV or internet as there was no Wi-Fi or TV available (how did we survive?!) Typical dal Indian dinner, which was light, but enjoyable.
Friday
Nanu picked us up at 8:30 sharp. He is so great, always rushing around to make sure we are happy. He safely manoeuvred us through the three hour drive to Bikaner dropping us
off at our next haveli for the night. Our hotel today is beautiful, bigger and in nicer condition than the one yesterday and I was able to plug my laptop into their internet, so things are looking good. We met up with Nanu one hour later for lunch. As promised he takes us for delicious Indian food at a reasonable price (picture posted on right)! We are definitely not losing any weight with the amount of nan and buttered curries we are consuming every day.
After lunch we took a tour of the Bikaner fort, built by Raja Rai Singh who was one of Mughal emperor Akbar'
s trusted generals. The fort was magnificent and is protected by up to 37 citadels and has never been conquered. Inside the fort is a museum holding a collection of ancient manuscripts, beautiful jewelery, carpets, treaties, guns and royal weaponry.
India has definitely done a good job of maintaining its heritage sites and restoring them to original condition. We followed the audio guide through 3
0 or so exhibits before returning to the car. We then ventured on to a camel milking farm (no joke). They went into detail about the four types of camels and we saw them roaming the property. We decided against a camel ride which we had both had previously and went back to our hotel for an early night in.
ended up watching movies on TV and the laptop and playing cards to keep us occupied. It appears that the hotel staff work through the night (sleeping in shifts in a room), but would not sell me internet time despite the fact that I would be using it in my room, so the last posting came to you later than I would have liked! Dusk finally arrived and Joe and I left for a morning walk at 6:30am. The front desk guys are always giving me looks as I guess they’re not used to women running the show!Outside, people are sweeping up the garbage from last night’s party and burning it in little piles. Delhi is just al
l around dirty and we are not sad to be leaving! The front desk man told me I looked like a school girl as I was checking out (apparently in face and body); he imitated me as I laughed uncomfortably. Awkward is really the only word to describe the moment, I couldn't have checked out faster :).Interestingly, women do not appear to work in any way shape or form with the public. Every hotel, restaurant, museum or place where someone would have the opportunity to interact with foreigners is entirely male dominated. We do see women on the streets walking and talking to each other, but there is never an opportunity to interact with them. This is not unlike Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Morocco when I visited them. It is somewhat frustrating since there is so much unwanted male attention everywhere we go no matter what I am wearing. Jeans and a shirt and jacket still attract stares and smiles and not so discreet ca
mera phones flashing.Our drive to Mandawa was crowded and traffic was crazy weaving in and out, although we only spotted one accident, hundreds barely averted. We left at 8am and didn’t arrive until 4pm (with a one hour lunch in another tourist trap buffet, which we acquiesced to). Nanu promised that we will eat somewhere better tomorrow. Unfortunately, if you want to eat like the locals, you have to LIVE like the locals and I am partial to a proper bathroom with a sink and not a hole in the floor!
Mandaw
a is a really small town with unusual architecture. We are spending the night in a haveli, similar to a Moroccan riad with the rooms being inside the walls and there being no roof at the top of the building. Beautiful fresco artwork adorns the buildings, painting many different stories of religion and tradition. We were provided a guide to tour us around the city for an hour. He was very sweet, but really odd. Wearing pin stripped pants and a pin stripped dress shirt; 
he couldn’t have weighed even 120 pounds and was close to 6 feet tall. His English was not fabulous, but he really was so earnest in his time with us, you could tell he really enjoyed guiding people around. The tour got a bit old, when he continued to re-hash the point that in a typical haveli, there is a room for men and another room inside it for women to cook meals. The women have a grated window to look into where the men are spending their leisure time as they are not permitted to join them. Who would want to?!
Our tour lasted about an hour half of which was spent parading us through souvenir shops with desperate shop owners urging us to just “take a look”. The remainder of our evening was spent at leisure sans TV or internet as there was no Wi-Fi or TV available (how did we survive?!) Typical dal Indian dinner, which was light, but enjoyable.
Friday
Nanu picked us up at 8:30 sharp. He is so great, always rushing around to make sure we are happy. He safely manoeuvred us through the three hour drive to Bikaner dropping us
off at our next haveli for the night. Our hotel today is beautiful, bigger and in nicer condition than the one yesterday and I was able to plug my laptop into their internet, so things are looking good. We met up with Nanu one hour later for lunch. As promised he takes us for delicious Indian food at a reasonable price (picture posted on right)! We are definitely not losing any weight with the amount of nan and buttered curries we are consuming every day.After lunch we took a tour of the Bikaner fort, built by Raja Rai Singh who was one of Mughal emperor Akbar'
s trusted generals. The fort was magnificent and is protected by up to 37 citadels and has never been conquered. Inside the fort is a museum holding a collection of ancient manuscripts, beautiful jewelery, carpets, treaties, guns and royal weaponry.India has definitely done a good job of maintaining its heritage sites and restoring them to original condition. We followed the audio guide through 3
0 or so exhibits before returning to the car. We then ventured on to a camel milking farm (no joke). They went into detail about the four types of camels and we saw them roaming the property. We decided against a camel ride which we had both had previously and went back to our hotel for an early night in.
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