My fingertips and the outside edge of my right thumb have been really painful lately, like the nerve-endings are exposed. It took me a few days to figure out why, but I finally realized they were sore because they are burned. My laptop keyboard and touchpad get so hot they are starting to damage my fingers. My laptop has two internal fans, and it is sitting on top of a heat sink with three fans, but the heat still doesn't dissipate. It's just too hot in my room. Consequently, about fifteen minutes after I turn on my laptop, the heat starts leaking out through the keyboard. Not fun, not fun at all.

I think the Hosts worry about me being out here all by myself, because they invited me on two family outings last weekend. On Saturday night, we went to Laxmi Niwas Palace for dinner. You gotta love a dinner with a common denominator of butter: butter chicken, butter paneer, butter naan, butter roti, and a local vegetable. After dinner, we went to the only ice cream parlor in town and had butterscotch ice cream. Aside from the threat of heart disease, it was a wonderful night to be out. We ate outside on the lawn under the full moon. One of the nephews went with us, and he kept us entertained by disobeying every order given to him by Mr. Host.

On Sunday, I dragged myself out of bed at an ungodly hour (okay, 8 a.m.) and joined the family for a trip to a holy lake, Lake Kolayat (my photos). This is a pretty important pilgrimage lake, on par with Pushkar, only not so horrible to visit. It was hot, but really pretty. And all that water! I guess I have never seen lotus before, or I would have known before now how big they grow, right?

On the way back, we stopped at Gajner Palace, just to look around at the luxury. The Hosts are pretty concerned that I see everything there is to see, and this was worth a look. There is probably a lot I could write about these late 19th-early 20th century palaces, but you know what? My fingers are starting to burn. I'll continue this later.