Cheryl and Mike’s Adventure

Well, it’s about 11AM this morning, and we’re about to take off via 6hour train ride to Jodhupor (sp?), so we figured we’d catch everyone up on our day yesterday.

We had decided to go shopping in the Bazaar’s in the Pink City, and we did although it wasn’t as much of a full day activity as we had thought. We headed out around 11AM, and shopped for about an hour-hour and a half. It really takes it out of you, because you are constantly attacked by shop owners badgering you to enter their store/markets (it’s like that scene in the movie “Airplane!” where he walks through the terminal and karate-fights off all the Hare Krishna’s), it’s not a simple, casual, pleasant stroll through peaceful markets and shops, to say the least. But, hey, that’s India, nothings very calm really. We picked up a few items, and then headed off to a place called “Baristas” , which is a full blown Starbucks-style coffee house…eureka! But this was just the start, as we were sipping our drinks, discussing our lunch options, we looked across the street and couldn’t believe our eyes. There, in plain sight, was America’s great gift to the world…the Golden Arches, staring right back us. We decided that it was settled, McDonald’s was the only option. We couldn’t wait to get our hands on some Vitamin M, and it didn’t disappoint. We both got McVeggie Burgers (really good, actually), remember, no beef over here, Cows are sacred (they actually just roam up and down the streets, amongst all the pedestrians.), and fries (phenomenal, full-blown McDonalds fries, perhaps even saltier/greasier than they are nowadays in the States). And we even enjoyed the restrooms…only in India do you have the following exchange in a McDonalds:

Cheryl: How are the restrooms, should I go?
Mike: Pretty good…really nice, actually. You should go.

(Both of us sitting for a moment wondering if we really just said that about a McDonalds bathroom)

After lunch, we strolled down the street to a very nice city park (actually called Central Park), after a long and harrowing process trying to cross the street in one of those European-style roundabouts (it seriously was like a half hour/45 min process), and sat and enjoyed the calm/nice weather for a bit. After that, we decided to head to a place called Geoffrey’s Pub, for a couple beers on the slow afternoon. We came to the conclusion that the day would be “pretend it’s America day!”, and pretty much decided to indulge ourselves. After a couple of adult beverages, we headed BACK to Baristas, for round two on coffee/desserts. Final tally for the afternoon:

2 Cafe Americanos
1 Strawberry Smoothie
1 Double Hazelnut Cappuchino
1 Dark Temptation ( a coffee house Chocolate Cake/Ice Cream/Whipped Cream/Dessert-Thing)
2 McVeggie Burgers
2 Orders of fries
2 Cokes
2 Pints (apiece) of Fosters Lager

After we finally arrived back in our hotel room, dazed, in the early evening, needless to say it was a short night…we collapsed pretty quickly.

Well, that’s it for now…going to catch our train. We’ll give an update as soon as we can from our next stop…until then!

Cheryl & Mike

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 1:46 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.