Rajasthan

It's 10:02 p.m. here in the Rajasthani desert, two and a half hours north of Jaipur by mostly dirt/sand track, but after lots of bumps and camel-cart dodging, we've settled into a little oasis called Amanbagh. D went to school with a fellow who now manages this place, so we've got a couple of exquisite adjoining rooms. One of the amenities our room comes with is a stick, visible by the door, below, which I am told is for the purpose of fending off monkeys during walks.



We've spent the last three nights in Jaipur, which was the most beautiful and comparatively well-planned city in India to which we've been. That said, we've still experienced multiple examples of Indian-on-Indian exploitation and corruption. This led me to ask A today whether he thought India had any real shot at global superpower status. He said "no", and in fact suggested that many companies like his were looking at moving more of their outsourcing out of India. I know from my own reading that some companies are even moving some of their call centers back to places like Mississipi, where I understand they have made great strides in teaching the local population English.

That's not to say that call centers are necessary or sufficient to acquire superpower status, but India's strengths (from a global superpower perspective) could be summarized as essentially a large population, densely packed, many of whom speak English. As A put it, this set of circumstances "can only take you so far."



Jaipur has lots of forts, which are vestiges of the days when they would commonly get invaded from the north. Some of them are quite beautiful.



Jah Mahal appears to float in the lake. It is completely surrounded by water.



Today, we played elephant polo, which is a whole subject in itself. I have hundreds of pictures and video of other highlights and much more to tell of our trip, but since we are quite remote and I am finishing this up between the ubiquitous Indian power outages (two in the last forty minutes), on an iPad, I won't try any more detail than I have. Just know that we are ok and out here somewhere, feeling hyper-stimulated, well fed and, now, a bit tired.

Namaste, oh my readers.