So, that was a pretty fucking awesome Hindi day.

I had a hard time getting out of the room today because suddenly they were all about making sure my bathroom was clean, my floor was clean, my bedsheet was clean... So, the sun was high in the sky before I made it out into the wide world of Jaipur this a.m.

I spent a lot of money (INR 180) to get into the City Palace w/ my camera. I suppose I didn't really need to go there, but I wanted to wander around for awhile and take pictures. Not sure what I'll use them for, but now I have them. Then I spent a long, long time in the Museum craft hall. This is where Maharaja-approved artists sell their workshop produced art. I sat and talked a long time to one artist named Harish. I paid a little too much money for the painting I bought, but I took up a lot of his time, and he was really patient with my Hindi. I think we both had fun.

When I went out, the same rickshaw wallah that had driven me from outside the wall of the old city to the palace was still outside. We had a funny conversation about how I wasn't to let any other rickshaw wallah drive me home. It's the slow season, and it pays for taxi and rickshaw wallahs to waste their time waiting around for a sure fare, because otherwise they might not get one all day. Anyway, he made me laugh, and I told him I'd look for him, but it would be a long time because I was going to the jantar mantar, and that might take me hours.

This was my first trip to the Jaipur jantar mantar this year, and jesusfuckingchrist. It was totally awesome--the entire complex is under renovation. They've pulled up the grass, they've surrounded everything with scaffolding, and they've torn the plaster off some of the masonry instruments. There was a group of men plastering the instrument just inside the gates, and they managed to explain the resurfacing process to me (basically a mixture of lime and marble dust, "for sparkle"). I really and truly didn't understand most of what they said, but they were all very excited to talk about their work. Then I wandered over to watch them work on the Samrat Yantra--you've got to see it to believe it, no fucking way I'd go up on that scaffolding--and had a conversation with two of the boys working toward the bottom. One of them almost clobbered himself with a chunk of plaster he'd just pried off, and I said "Careful!" in Hindi automatically. They thought that was completely funny.

Anyway, it was all very awesome. All of the workers seemed really knowledgeable about plastering, etc., but none of them really seemed to have much of an idea of what they were really working on. This might be my final project subject for class this summer.

And, yes, my rickshaw wallah was waiting for me when I left the jantar mantar. I stopped to buy a useless Hindi guidebook to the site outside the gate (useful for the correct spellings of the instruments' names only), and then let the guy take me back to Rajapark. Again, we had a very funny conversation about how I should really let him take me to the best markets, but he didn't really try very hard to convince me.

It's amazing how far such very, very bad Hindi takes you. I think no fewer than five people complimented me on my Hindi today. It's sad in a way, because it means very few visitors actually make the effort to speak the local language. On the other hand, it makes even my 5th grade vocabulary seem quite impressive, so I guess I should be grateful that most tourists don't try very hard.