Celebrities

 

The boys are back in town! I love this photo... my favorite of the trip so far, I think

 

Jaipur

 

At risk of sounding idealistic and impressionable (more about this in blog entry # 13), it is often the small things about travel that you appreciate most. For me that’s true anyway. Much of the headline ‘tourist’ things are amazing and fun, and you do want to see them. But, like everyday life, I suppose, it is often the small, everyday snippets that really stand out. The unplanned, the unprepared, the unknown – these things have just as much value as the planned venture to the Taj, the scouting missions to popular nightclubs, and those rooftop meals with new friends and old. I am allowed to be idealistic, if I want.

After our trip to the movies, we had yet more time to kill, so we cruised on up to a field to play some cricket. Now, cricket is everything in India, and every bit of spare space there is, kids are playing cricket. The field we turned out to was more akin to a trash yard and animal farm than it was a cricket pitch, but like most things in India, it somehow managed to work. Cows, dogs, chickens and pigs spectated from the side-lines, some sitting around in packs (fighting sometimes), others nibbling through trash between overs.

 

The outfield was mainly dust with sporadic patches of dried-up grass and trash piles, and the ‘pitches’ were dirty, horribly uneven landing strips. Two pitches and two games about twenty yards about played as we turned up. We soon found ourselves, batting, bowling and fielding with a bunch of –teen something kids. Having not bowled for c. 10 years, I bowled a series of half-trackers, ground grubbers, head high full tosses and dead balls – the type where the ball goes straight down vertically from where you bowled it, everyone laughs, and you walk back to your bowling mark horribly embarrassed.  I was better at batting though, and smacked some straight drives to the boundary, with choruses of ‘nice shot’ from behind the wicket.

 

At one stage the ball had just about broken in two. That didn’t matter. Everyone kept on playing until the fall finally split into two parts with a backyard smash from Yobin. When the next ball got delivered from a speeding motorcycle, we played until the light disappeared and the hymns and chants from the nearby mosque filled the air. We shook hands, said goodbye to our fans, and left for the sunset.
 

 

Next day, or somewhere round then, after a week or more without shaving, we found ourselves crowing around a small makeshift hut sprung from the dirt on the side of the road, sporting an asbestos roof, and getting ready for a cutthroat shave. For 30 Rupees each (that’s NZD $0.60) we cleaned and spruced up, finally starting to look like the pups we were, commenting on how smooth he shave was. It must have been an uncommon site – three white boys standing around a small shack watching the fourth one getting a shave. At any one time there were six or seven India guys standing around watching, and at one point a motorcycle drove past and let out a great big laugh. It felt good to get a shave, especially at a cost cheaper than what it would be to buy razors and crème, but we gave him more for guilt of getting such a good shave for the price of half a pack of chewing gum.

 

The next day Andrew and Rishi left us for their drive to Delhi, and as our white safety vehicle drove away, we started a new chapter, and exciting one, no doubt, and perhaps nostalgic for our previous seven days.

We knew we’d done Jaipur to death, and we didn’t have much to do until our 6:45am train the next day. So we did what any self-respecting person would do: we went and bought beers. Thanks to Rishi, we knew we could get Kingfisher Strongs (8% alcohol, 650ml bottle) for 90 Rupees (NZD $1.80), and we bought a bunch of these and went to the roof of our hotel to play chess and watch the sunset. The hotel manager soon put a dampener on that, so we went to our room for an hour or so, drunk there, waited till dark, and hit the streets once more. Turns out, you can’t drink Kingfisher Strongs the way you can normal beer; it wasn’t long before the streets become our playground. As we searched the ever-frantic, dusty, and now dark streets for a side-cart meal, people looked us strangely, perhaps wondering why we were walking their streets in such freedom, with such authority, and no doubt, in such a ridiculous manner. We finally found dinner, walked the night-time streets once more, and retreated to our hotel later in the evening.

We collapsed immediately. Who knew being a celebrity could be so tiring.  

 



Peckerheads 2: Don't f*ck with us.