Jodhpur - Some things in life are free

Sick of peace and tranquility? Need a smoke, but spent your last dollar on your morning martini? Always preferred a pollution tan over a natural one? Jodhpur is your walhalla! And best of it, all that is free of charge! It costs you only the ticket to get there... plus of course all the superfluous money that will kindly be extracted from you by the local retailers. The word on the street is that whenever they see a white person they think ATM. At least in this town they put some effort into it judging by the missing member of the spice girls : Mr. Allspice. "Come into my shop, have a look, no need to buy." "Okay." "Please have a seat." "No thank you." "Please sit." "No." "Sit?" "Thanks, but no." "Sit or I call the dogs." "Okay."
Then Allspice starts his performance. Making us smell all the teas he has; "this is black tea" " oh..exciting." "this is cinnamon tea" "ah...strangely smells like...no don't tell me...eh...is it cinnamon?" "whatisyournamewhereareyoufromwhogivesafuck?" "eh my name is Ar.." "this is tea of cardamom, saffron and something something"
At this point out of nowhere comes his sidekick with yes ... two cups of that same tea! Yeah! What a show! I'd pay money for this...maybe! After we had all the teas he had in his shop he continued with his small assortment of a gazillion spices. "this is curry, please smell" "yuck, smells like my grandfathers socks." "this is cinnamon" "ah...strangely smells like...no don't tell me...eh...is it cinnamon?" "okay now you buy all spices and teas" "Nah, thanks." "you don't like me? Look at my puppy eyes..buy my spices." "thanks for the free tea but no." "here's something I prepared earlier; look at it! Perfectly wrapped in plastic nine spices, and also one with nine teas! And you can use it as a pillow too!" "and I'll wake up smelling to my grandfathers socks." "nine spices nine teas perfect present" "don't think so" "nine spices, nine teas, perfect present." "Give me an N, give me an O, what's that spell? No!" "nine spices, nine teas, perfect present" "booby booby titty bum pussy do you hear anything i say!?"
Needless to say we were quite proud we walked out of that shop with merely a 250 rupee bag of curry. Any local would have to work a lifetime plus sell his kidneys to be able to afford that.

So life in Jodhpur is intense. You find people on the street 24 hours a day. Shops sit behind openings big enough to be your bathroom window. Some aren't nearly big enough for "yo mamma's big fat ass", and coincidentally might have been there so long that quite possibly your big fat great-great-great-great-grandma's big fat ass was actually in there. Find a tuk tuk driver who has two accidents on the short 10 minute way between bus station and guest house and swears it wasn't his fault and looked a bit droopy when in spite of this he received Sandra's much acclaimed worst driver of the holiday reward.

But thank god you also find peaceful rooftops overlooking the city and the ancient fort built out of the rock it stands on. And then when it is sunset prayer time and all the mosques turn their amps up to eleven and start expressing their convictions whether you want to hear them or not, this place really turns magical... Sandra was downstairs in the room sleeping and missed it all.

Rn