Interesting list, but where is Freiburg?
I ended up spending 2 extra days in Udaipur while Zach was in the hospital and it was a beautiful place. After dealing with the insane touts in both Agra and Varanasi, Udaipur seemed like a relaxing change of pace (it was a LOT cooler), and I have never met such genuinely nice people in my life. I mentioned it earlier in this blog, but while Zach was in the hospital, one rickshaw driver took me to the hospital twice a day to visit him, and waited with me on the first night to make sure Zach was ok. One time he couldn't use his rickshaw in town due to a festival and took me on his own motorbike to ensure I made it there safely. He never accepted any money from me until the end, when he told me I could give him whatever I thought was appropriate. I gave him a really big tip.
Then there was the doctor who gave me a ride home from the hospital at 11:00 one night, after all the rickshaws had stopped running. He wouldn't let me give him any money for the ride home, even though he had driven out of his way to bring me to my hotel.
There was also the young Internet Cafe owner who gave me free cups of chai whenever I came in because he felt sorry that Zach was in the hospital and I was all alone. Of course I can't forget the wonderful people who owned our hotel would ask me every day how Zach was doing and when he was coming back.
When we weren't spending long hours at the new American Hospital on the outskirts of town, we relaxed in outdoor rooftop restaurants and took the views of the beautiful lake that surrounds the city.
One day we rented a motorbike and took it to the top of a mountain to visit a place called Monsoon Palace, where the rainwater used to be collected to be used by the city. We ran into these kids carrying clay up to the palace and Zach immediately grabbed one bowl off a girl's head and carried it up for her. The kids were all giggling madly and you could tell that he totally made her day, if not her life. Afterward he told me that it was extremely heavy, and he didn't know how those little kids were taking multiple trips up and down with these heavy bowls.
Finally, we made a video from Udaipur about the mysterious Indian Head Wobble, which had been puzzling us for weeks:
Post Script:
I know I said I was going to wrap up this blog, but I can't get the idea of India and what a beautiful country it was out of my brain. So I hope you don't mind if I continue to update this with some stories and experiences I had while I was there, because I'm not ready to let go yet!
Oh and I almost forgot! The James Bond film Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur, and we watched an extremely bootlegged version at our hotel
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