My armpits smell like curry.

 My armpits smell like curry, our black heels are peeling off and cracking, Corey is congested and coughing, our dusty, flooded, filthy-walled room is surrounded by drugged/drunken men in an explosive inaudible aggression that fills our veins with fear in the dark...very cold...night.  Vulnerability strikes a nerve and causes reactions.  When out on the streets, testosterone and dust are in heavy competition to see which shall suffocate the foreign couple first, and the night (usually a safe haven from drilling eyes and aggressive men) offers no comfort....one may just have the tendency to feel kind of...miserable...momentarily of course.  

 Morning after morning, we woke to catch early trains.  Shivering and chilled to the bone.  Once even arriving an accidental two hours early for a 5:00AM departure!! The only relief then was to hide under our $2 blanket avoiding the shivers and the stares.  Not to mention an earlier time when a tuk-tuk driver abandoned us in his vehicle while some 30 school boys surrounded and pounced on us mob-style as if we were disrespected animals in a zoo.  Surrounded by a culture we are leaps and bounds from understanding a limit to our exposure was finally reached.  Coping time *enters the scene.*     
 

 To hide from the penetrating, hungry eyes...I began to cover my head as many women do here.  As simple as it may seem, I felt as if a new sort of weight (although a protective kind) was upon my shoulders.  The stares lessened...but my usual absorption in my surroundings was suppressed as well.  On the streets, women are against all odds to the sheer number of roaming men..its no wonder they submit in this manner.  The usual expressive, smiling, shining interest I put towards a culture and country is just taken from me...from these men who lack mothers.  Although in these towns, seemingly off the general path of tourists, we realize it is no individual that causes the spine-pinching..but simply the cumulative effects of being hassled by, made-a-mockery-of, stared at, winked or whistled at with disrespectful eyes, persistently followed by, and being consistently shouted at by these men in such a viscous repetitious cycle every time our filthy feet hit the road a-wandering, we were left with few options to cope.  To act against all prior history of physical stability in ourselves (no matter the circumstance it ever was) either allowing the stranger of compulsive physical retaliation in to control our fumes or an un-optional arrogance.  Seriously what?  Arrogance or brutality?  Extreme as they are, the circumstances themselves are extreme, not to mention the way we absorb and observe our surroundings is perhaps also more extreme than most. 

Maybe puffing up your chest against some uncivilized men isn't proper, or very Christian, but it sure made a difference in our walks through alleyways and nerve-twisting street sides.  To use humor as the main opponent against the absurdities of some kinds of human nature, with a dash of self-glorification...and you get some relief.  The steam has to come out somewhere...and I'd rather not push people's infinitely-horn-blowing-motorbikes over, thank you very much.    

 After one of the first day-time train rides we felt fully renewed.  The warm fresh breezes blew in as we flew across the country side.  It reminded us of the days on good ole Zephyrus and we arrived at the next place with a whole new air.   It just so happened too that the "next place" was a city that is on a list of popular places for tourists!  It seemed as if in a few hours, our world turned around and we had returned to a place of civilization with some decency and respect for white men who tread upon the lands. No, not completely, but way more than we'd had.  So in Jaipur we decided to tread the beaten path again and act like a real newlywed couple on their respectable honeymoon. 

 

Soon as that decision was made, we weren't dodge-the-obstacles-walking but taking the rukshaws (small carriage pulled by a bicycle), we weren't afraid to take our shoes off in the bathroom of our room and we weren't dining in flithy-hole-in-the-wall $1 meal places, but in a revolving 14 story restaurant for $9 meals instead.  ha.ha.ha.  Sometimes you let backpack life get the best of you and you must realize that for mere numbers of petty cash you can feel human, clean and civilized again.  For literally $2 more, we can sit out on a smooth granite terrace and enjoy a private breakfast...and can realize that a $1 bottle of lotion is a worthwhile purchase. I can now laugh at the fact that Corey has a temporary mustache and that my armpits still smell like curry.

Some traveling is best left as a memory and a cherished story for the grandchildren.

M    

PS...Currently, Corey has gone out on one of his many errands of the day (he's great at letting me hide from street walking) and we have our last train-tickets booked and final.  Next stop Agra, the tourist of all tourist destinations with the Taj Mahal, then Ujjain for the extremely-looked-forward-to family wedding and one stop back to Delhi->Bangkok->HOME!