Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Luck finally runs out, cowboy...

Today was our second day in Udaipur, a fairly quiet city, by Indian standards in Rajasthan. The city is best known for large parts of the Bond film Octopussy being set here.

For today's activity we set up a 4 hour horseback ride at a ranch on the outskirts of town, leaving the hotel at 8:00. All well and good except that last night my luck with GI issues finally runs out, and by the time I am going to bed I am running a little bit of a fever and feeling pretty bad. To compound this I am in one of those half dream states where you know you should get up and try to improve your situation, but you continue to try to go to sleep. So, I don't do anything until 5AM, when I finally drink some water and make myself more comfortable and get to sleep.

The funny thing about this is that I have been pushing the envelope lately with what I eat (getting ice cream and frozen drinks at reputable places), but yesterday I did not even eat anything risky at all.

So, we head out there will me feeling like crap at 8:00. The unfortunate thing is that the horse ride was actually the best one I have ever been on. We basically head out into Rajasthani farm country, riding across a lot of open plains and being greeted by many friendly locals. We saw tones of sheep being headed as well as a lot of cows and water buffalo, which we determined must be the laziest creatures on earth. Also, things are made even more photogenic because the local women here, even working in fields, etc., wear these intricate bight colored saris.

We ended up shortening the ride to 3 hours, because my sickness was making me feel very beat up, and I almost fell asleep on the horse. But it was totally worth it anyway. When we got back I ended up laid up for the rest of the day, but now I think I am on the up and up. Which I better be since we scheduled a car out to some far villages tomorrow, and I have no idea what the bathroom situation will be.

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