Cowboys and India(ns)

Since my real birthday, spent completely alone wishing for death lying on the bathroom floor of a tiny hotel room with no air conditioning in an obscure town in a third world country, was perhaps a worst case scenario, I decided to have a do-over.

At the beginning of the week I started spreading the word amongst my peers, "Friday night. Be there," I told them. Planning large-scale social outings in a country where organization is rare and no one has their own transportation is a little difficult, so I was just hoping I could inspire a few people to actually come out. I suspected I was not the only student in need of a drink though. It turned out I was right.

As I have a very special place in my heart for strangely-themed dive bars, I declared that a place called Amigos should be the location for "Katie's Birthday Strikes Back." Amigos is a place I found with my friends while traveling in Jaipur as a tourist last year and I have been eager to go back since returning to this city. It sits atop a high-rise hotel overlooking the city and when one emerges from the elevator ride up, one finds oneself in a faux mine-shaft. The entrance to the bar looks something like a big wooden barrel and inside the bar a smiling, stuffed horse greets you. Our tables (pictured above) were glass-topped tables resting on strange sculptures of reclining cowboys. The walls were adorned with cowboy paintings and the bar menu included many "Mexican" favorites. We tried the "nachos" which turned out to be something like Doritos served with warm marinara sauce.The bar was empty when we arrived, but by the end of the evening we had completely filled the space and overwhelmed the waitstaff with about 40 American students. Fun was had by all. I was very glad my birthday do-over was blessed with more good karma than my actual birthday.I was informed by my peers that after a few cocktails my Hindi speaking skills drastically improve. Although, I did make the mistake of telling the rickshaw driver on the way home that we wanted to pay one year rupees instead of one hundred rupees (ek sal instead of ek sau) which was probably confusing for him.

Saturday morning, in spite of the previous evening's success, many of us were still able to pull ourselves out of bed early to make it to the school-organized field trip to Amber Fort, one of Jaipur's major attractions.
The fort is a bit of a drive outside the city and as soon as you step out of your car you are surrounded by aggressive souvenir sellers and other annoying tourists, nonetheless, it is a really beautiful place. The weather was actually somewhat pleasant outside! There was a bit of a breeze! And since the monsoon season has been starting the scenery around the fort is green as opposed to dry and arid.
Once you enter the fort you are swarmed once again, not by souvenir sellers, but by men on elephants trying to get you to pay for a brief elephant ride. I didn't take a ride, but being swarmed by elephants is a unique experience on its own.

We walked around the fort for most of the day enjoying the nice views of the city and the surrounding area. The whole area is surrounded by a hills and along the crest of the hills is a huge, pink, Medieval wall that makes for some cool photos. There are, of course, lots of monkeys around to threaten you with screeches whenever you take out your camera.By the time we got back from the fort trip I found myself to be quite tired and accidentally took a three-hour nap--a true testament to the weekend's many successes.