जयपुर

So really, there were no strings attached with our free stay at Sonu's.  She really just likes the vibe of helping international travelers.  When we got chatty about our travels, they suggested using nextdoor's  "Wahoe India Travel", run by Mehar, a young friend of Sonu's.  They had similarly offered to sell us A/C rides around Delhi to see the monuments, which we declined.  But we really wanted to see Jaipur, the Taj Mahal, and Rishikesh without much hassle, so availed ourselves of their travel services.  We paid in advance for four days of travel, which was in total ४x५०००= २०००० rupees. This covered everything, including hotel, travel, and  "hidden expenses".

A few minutes after I made my "Wahoe Cottage" video, we carried our stuff a few blocks to meet our stolid driver.   I asked Mehar whether he knew English.  Not too much, but Mehar didn't seem worried about it.  The five of us took off.  The language barrier was perplexing at first.  Early on, we had asked him to stop at a certain store to get a box of water; he wagged his head in response, but I don't think he understood.  Driving out of Delhi involved going around some cloverleaves; we passed by a huge statue of Hanuman three times.

This pic is off the internet.

We visited a rest stop for breakfast on the highway, the first of many "Cafe Coffee Day"s.  While waiting around I asked the driver, "Apka nam kya hai?", which means "What is your name?".  His name was Hari.  This broke the ice, and the girls jumped in and introduced themselves as well.  It was the beginning of an awesome trip

Getting there was half the fun.  People rode all manner of vehicles and animals.  Autorickshaws drove past us, precariously overflowing with passengers, some small children.  It looked like Hari was constantly playing chicken with oncoming traffic, which doesn't always stay on its side of the street.   My companions were constantly chugging from water bottles many times the size of their bladders, resigned to the fact that we'd need to make lots of rest stops to accommodate this.

We then arrived in Jaipur, the capital of the desert state of Rajasthan.  Two of its inhabitants confronted us as Hari snailed us through the busy streets.
First, a cop pulled us over because Stacy wasn't wearing her seatbelt, fining us  Rs. 100.  By the way, seatbelt regulations are weird here: in the back of a car, the seats always just have half a seatbelt.  Which I guess is for show?...
Our second greeter was a painted elephant's trunk, that came into my window when I wasn't looking.  A calmer Steven would have petted it I guess, but instead I rolled my window up in a panic.

It's still after me.

Hari didn't know exactly where our destination, the "Moonlight Hotel" was, so he started to ask for directions.  He would do this many times over the course of our travels.  It was very straightforward; he would pull the car up to a group of locals and bark out the name of our destination.  Someone would come up to the car and give him directions, and then he would drive off.  No "thank you"s required.

The hotel itself was very nice, with a great view and western-style lodgings.  Hari stayed elsewhere; we arranged to meet in the morning. The next day we saw the Amber Fort, another tourist hotspot, and I took this video:

Courtney wasn't up for paying the "Foreigner Price", so she sat for awhile.  This led to dozens of Indian tourists taking pictures with her.  We've gotten into the habit of getting shots for ourselves.  Here is one of many examples.

Shall we call this an antic?

Jennifer and Stacy really wanted to ride a camel, so Hari stopped to hook us up.

That's Hari in the striped shirt.

Here's a little documentary of the ride.  Would you trust a small boy to lead you on a camel through Indian traffic?

Elsewhere we encountered a snake-handler, and tested our courage.  Would you sit next to this scary-looking snake?

We also visited Jantar Mantar, which had astrological monuments, including one for each sign.  The Spatilloman Leos posed in front of theirs:

Pics like this are why you're a DAI fan.

What fun!

Next:  Taj Mahal