Mandawa

Once we got back to the hotel we loaded all our bags into the car Salim had arranged to drive us out into the Rajasthan countryside to a little town named Mandawa. Our new driver was also pretty awesome, and especially fond of Matt. Four incredibly crammed sweaty hours later we reached our hotel out in the middle of basically nowhere. We headed up to the rooftop to enjoy the incredibly beautiful view of the stars before passing out for the night.

After a very quick buffet breakfast we walked over to where our camels were waiting to take us out on a little trek through the desert. An hour and a half or so later we were all back in the hotel room taking turns taking showers and trying not to smell disgusting, which is kind of not possible in India. Our driver had planned to take us out to meet his family in a little village named Tye. When we got there Maggie and I were almost immediately ushered off to the girls bedroom where we sat and where stared at by all the children and women of the village for about an hour. Mostly we just smiled and laughed with the kids teaching them our names and trying to figure out what intentions the nice women had with us. It turned out they just wanted to stare at us. Eventually the young girls got their ink out and gave Maggie and I our very first henna tattoos. Meanwhile the boys where becoming good friends with the family and exploring their home area. When our tattoos were done we went over to the cooking room and watched how chapatis are made. After hanging out for a bit longer our dinner of chapatis and the mutton we had purchased off the street earlier in the day was ready. We ate until we were all completely stuffed and couldn't take the fire in our mouths and longer. So spicy, but oh so freaking good. After the feast we unfortunately had to part ways with the family we had all fallen in love with. They were sad to see us go as well, following our car down the road and waving goodbye until we were out of sight. One of them even called our driver (I wish I could remember his name. Zackar?) and told him to turn around and bring us back! We miss them. I totally want to adopt an Indian baby. Those big brown eyes are easy to fall in love with.  We made it back into Jaipur in time to check into a hotel and sleep for six hours until our 6AM train to Agra.