Rajasthan. After two weeks in Varanasi I was working towards exhaustion within the bustle,dirt and chaos of the city. Charmed but exhausted. A couple days of coughing, crowned with a near sleepless night of confusion after being served a far too strong bhang lassi. Getting up the next morning with the resolve to avoid cannabis for a while and book a ticket out of The Holy City. Rajasthan being 24 hours out, I decided to break up the trip half way with a stop in Khajaraho, home of the Lakshmana erotic temples. Overnight train. Arriving in Khajaraho around 7:00 am. I was ready to leave by noon. The temples themselves majestic! Albeit saturated with tourists and stone faced military personnel. The closest thing to pornography the Indians have(even with the Internet nearly ubiquitous in India, viewing porn is considered a crime) you gotta give the ancients credit for the depth of fantasy. As for Khajaraho itself, being a small town the sight of any traveler is a high thrill. I literally had atleast 8 Indians get off their motorcycles, out of their houses and from their shops and follow me down the street. Asking my name and nationality. Inviting me to their farms, shops and homes. Endearing as it sounds, every offer clearly motivated by some sort of sale or scheme. I was pulled(so very reluctantly) into three different silk and pashmina shops, served tea and interviewed on my life before being told why I absolutely "needed" a pashmina scarf. My polite firmness is really getting toned in this country. And every traveler I encountered venting about similar treatment. You can't even walk down the street or stop for coffee in this town without being accosted. So I booked a train ticket for the next morning to Jaipur. Another 14 hours on a train. Through the middle of the day. Arriving at 11:00 pm, if I'm lucky and it's on time(I wasn't and it didn't). But I'd found a copy of Miles Davis' autobiography back in Varanasi and that kept me well occupied the first five or six hours. Around Jhansi an older British man boarded my compartment and we struck up a conversation that lasted through the trip. Rail line strikes induced delays and we didn't arrive until 3:30 am. The only thing more hectic and stressful than an Indian train station is an Indian train station in the middle of the night. Especially when you don't know where your going from there. Figuring I'd splurge a bit and follow my British friend (we didn't introduce ourselves until we got off and we're being hurried into an auto rickshaw) to his fancier hotel which he called ahead for and booked me a room. Somehow 900 rupees(about 600 more than I usually spend) offering little more than a rooftop restaurant on top of a dingy room with no hot water. Oh well, a bed and a door. Jaipur itself a beautiful city. Ancient architecture and a high desert vibe. Amongst overcrowded streets and too many motorcycles and the standard Indian patina of garbage everywhere. After a morning walk I quickly decided a day here eoukd be enough before heading to Bundi, three hours south. And so Ben(my new British friend) and I hired two kids with an auto rickshaw to take us around the sites of the city. Ancient forts and palaces, Mughal gardens and a few temples. Ben caught a bus to Jodhpur that night and I packed my things in anticipation of the morning bus ride to Bundi. And my attitudes are revived some after falling under such low energy by the end of my Varanasi time.