Okay, let's try that again...

Man, that was so annoying. I spent like half an hour writing that birthday post, and it didn't go up! It said it had published successfully, too >.< Oh well, I will try to write the abridged version.

It seems I mis-calculated: I wasn't on the camel on my birthday. I was in Jaipur, and that evening was an overnight train to Bikaner where the camels live. It was a good day though, despite the lack of wine etc. I was woken up by txts at 4am, 5am and 6am from dad, Col and Kali respectively (I think that was the order - I was asleep), then a call from dad at 6.30. When I finally got it through my sleeping head that I could probably talk to people despite the cost seeing as it was my birthday, it was great, if a bit tear-inducing.

I then took a couple of my cohorts and went to see the Hawa Mahal ("Palace of the Winds") and the rest of the City Palace, and had some (fairly sloppy) mendhi (henna-hand-decoration-paint-thing) done. It was a cool expreience though.

After that, a lot of us had decided to go to Pizza Hut (!) in town for my birthday. It was so nice to eat western food again, which actually tasted like it does at home! Hehe. While I have enjoyed the Indian food, the novelty was beginning to wear off after eaing it twice a day for so long now.

After lunch we went shopping and I bought some earrings, which are forever to be known as my birthday earrings, according to one of the girls. We then made our way back to the hotel because a palmist was supposed to be there and I thought it sounded like fun. By the time we arrived, however, some people had had theirs done and said he sucked, especially for the price, so we decided against it. I am now on a mission to find a proper Toothless Crone to do it. Hopefully there is one who speaks English...

Thanks for all your comments everyone, it was nice to get birthday wishes from you all. Will try to look in on Santharia soon Art, though I'd like to catch everyone up on the tour so far so I will try to write that first. Internet here is few and far between so I'm trying to use it when I find it. Hope everyone is well and having fun - I am!