can't get any news pages to load on this ridiculous computer, but from the new names of my msn friends ["obey our republican overl0rds"] it seems i know what's happening. some things baffle me.

the world is hanging in the hands of a ten thousand people in rural southwestern US. Many of whom have little exposure to the rest of the world.

how does this happen?

*

the desert was so beautiful, and jaisalmer really is like a fairy tale: it looks like a sandcastle rising out of the haze. We stayed right in the fort in an old haveli with secret staircases emerging out in parapets and terraces that kept moving... R said it was like the harry potter castle with moving staircases and doors, and it was.

then we took our camels: Gassy, Chewbacca (mine.. and he sounded just like chewy from Star Wars), and Bowlegs out safari-ing. The stars were breathtaking, and then a full moon rose so we could see sand dunes all around us white in the moonlight. It was beautiful. We met up with a bunch of Israelis and French people who were also on a safari, and sat around a campfire with them and our guides. It was really something... i hope to do it again one day. But maybe skip the country liquor made from sugarcane. And the pot. The guides cooked us roti and curry on the campfire at every stop.

At one village they sold us a kilo of goatmeat (showing us the head to prove it was freshly slaughtered...thanks, we believed you), and they made us a mutton curry out of the toughest old goat ever to walk this earth.

None of us had the stomach to supervise the cut.... It was probably a kilo of entrails. you can imagine my face when S found a big chunk of liver. egh. That was 100 rupees that could have been better spent.

Despite my precautions, i am SO sunburnt. It's nice to be back in a city... I imagine I will be finding sand in all my things for months to come.

8:25 p.m. - 2004-11-03