typhoid or a flu

I've been sick the last couple days.

I had a fever and a cough. I looked it up in our guide book and narrowed it down to either a bit of a flu or typhoid. Probably just the flu. The lonely planet also said that 25% of visitors to India get some sort of respitory illness from their visit - so I am just that lucky.

Anyway I'm feeling much better now, though my body gave me a couple cold sores as souveniers. So thanks to that I am temporarily less good looking :)

I don't know why, but the touts in Jaipur were super aggressive. After a couple were getting a bit -lacivious- I had to become a bit -vociferous-. But it didn't count as a melt down.

But today we took a bus to Delhi and so far it has been pretty good. Broad sidewalks, grassy medians, tuktuks with meters and the tout possee here so far has been pretty laid back.

We are both pretty much "done" with India. After travelling for the last 2 and a half months, the heat and the layer of tout harrassment we get - we are out of energy to really engage or sightsee much for the last few days here. Plus it's raining.

We have met alot of great and interesting Indians while here though.

The first guy we met was Raj, an NRI (non resident indian) living out of london who gave us a free cab ride and shared with us his thoughts on India and the (communist) west bengal govt of Kolkata.

We met a few boys on our first train trip to Veranasi. There was a group of 4 of them sitting on our bunk area. One boy was moving across the country, closer to Kashmir, as his father was in the military and was being transferred. The three other boys were just hanging out to say goodbye. After they left we talked a couple times to the boy who was moving up north.

In our bunk appeared 3 coworkers who worked for the railways. One guy was a real talker and he kept talking and talking to us - you could see his co-workers feeling a bit uncomfortable. One of the co-workers also worked as a spiritual advisor to people designing their homes to maximize the energy flows by, among other things, keeping rooms aligned to magnetic north in one direction and the rotation of the earth in the other direction. The real talker didn't really buy his friends consultancy business so it ended up being a heated discussion.

Just before arriving to Veranasi the train was filled by boys on their way to school in Veranasi. There we were surrounded by about 10 boys in our area. It was cramped at first but we had some good conversations, especially with one charmer named VeeJay who said he was dating about 50% of the girls in his class.

On a trip to Abu Rd Station we met three business people (one man who owns a cotton seed oil refinery) and talked to them about indian culture (drinking vs non drinking) and religion (jainism vs hinduism) and feminism (indian vs western families).

On a bus trip to Udaipur we met the son of a brigadier doctor and had some good conversations about India vs China, nuclear power and religion (Hinduism vs Sikkism).

On the train trip to Jaipur we met a retired man, his wife and the mother in law of his son who were also travelling around India. They were from the south and they had one daughter and one son working in IT in Canada. I tried to make a joke to ask who was making the father in law's dosas while they were travelling. The answer: "the cook". Doh.

So travelling on public transit has been quite rewarding. You get time to spend with people that have at least a little in common with you (they are going the same way).