SNAFU

Namaste everybody.

So, right now I'm using a computer at an internet cafe in Pahar Ganj, can't really post pictures. I was supposed to leave to Jodhpur today, though that isn't happening: there's been a railway strike that side, so my plans to travel via rail in Rajasthan are khallas (low brow Mumbai slang for "finished, dead")....not sure what I'm going to do now...no matter what I've already lost a day on a scheduled that was already pretty tight (not to mention a total loss of rs. 750 for my ticket today).

More or less, what that means is that right now I'm writing from travel limbo: I've still got a number of choices, of course. I can still get out to Rajasthan via bus (probably to Jaipur, and then can push further west from there), or I can head out in a different direction via rail, which is something I would like to do, though the problem is that I left my Lonely Planet back in the Himalayas, so I don't have the kind of information I would want on the places I would be going. Also, it sounds slightly lame, but I could just stay in Delhi, visit with friends, study Hindi, go to the history museum, go to Baba Karak Singh Gurudwara (next to Sacred Heart Cathedral, about a mile from the New Delhi YWCA) find the fabled Karim's restaurant (where the food is made by the descendants of Shah Jahan's royal chefs..or so I'm told) ... kind of a letdown from fearlessly penetrating Rajashthani terra incognita, but probably much cheaper than travelling about...but we'll see....the problem is that about rs. 1300 has gone completely down the drain and this year my budget is damn tight......

But as Tom Petty says:

The Future was wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open

(in the song, "Into the Great Wide Open)

I'm not really that bent out of shape over it, though, if only for no other reason than it wouldn't help. My friend today showed me this really great Korean restaurant deep in the seedy of entrails of the Pahar Ganj back county. The way too the place is through a series of weird narrow lanes, and then up three flights of stairs, passed a multitude of garbage piles and strange haphazard arrangements, to the upper stories of a dilapidated, shady old building. I think anyone who didn't have a local guide wouldn't have a chance in hell of finding it. Frankly, I wonder how the place can even operate, given that it's the last place anyone would expect a restaurant (and when we were there, there were no other customers except for two Korean backpackers.) And, evidently, nobody just finds this place. Everyone is led there by a friend, who was led there by a friend, who was lead there by a friend, all the way back to the beginning of time. But, despite being hemmed in by only choicest Old Delhi seediness, the food was great, and the place was nice....it makes one wonder how many other gems Old Delhi's shady alleys contain....

Well, all for now...have to figure out something to do..and my train booking website is down.....it's SNAFU going on FUBAR....

Patrick Rogers

P.S.: I was told today, in no uncertain terms, that I am a dirty Agra Fort man, and Jen is my Queen. Make of that what you will, which probably won't be much...

P.P.S.: And I miss everybody, even Brian (though only a little bit)