Flat Tires

There is an "s"after flat tire because we had 3 of them. 3 flat tires on a 6 hour journey. Crazy! But imagine driving on a road in Indian heat and the friction of the tire against the "road"and it seems to make much more sense. First flat tire and our driver took off with the spare that was also flat. We thought he might've left us for good as he was gone for nearly 2 hours. Let me tell you, 4 white girls standing on the side of the road sure causes some commotion in the middle o'nowhere, India. We stopped counting the number of cars that stalled as they drove so slowly past us. 2 men parked their motos, jumped off, stuck their cameras in our faces and snapped away. No "May I take your photo," No nothing. Why must we practice these rules of respect that Lonely Planet is insistent upon when it doesn't go both ways? Ok sure, different culture, blah blah, we don't need to hear about culture, I think we know all about it now, but it's just plain weird. And not weird in that "Japanese snapping photos of white people" way either. When you can't beat ém, snap their photos too. So we did. A few ladies walked over from the local village, stood a few feet away from us and giggled. Not in a creepy way but showing us that they were interested in making some contact but didn't know how. Finally one of them got the courage to come a few feet closer and ramble on in Hindi. After 2 days in India, our Hindi went as far as "Hello"and "Thank you"so we tried that a few times. Then we made out the word "chai"so we placed our hands together like we were preying to say yes please as is done in Asia. The ladies hurried away and we were ecstaic that A) the first women in India had spoken to us and B) they weren't single creepy men taking our photos. We tried hard to imagine the conversation that must've gone down when they went back to their village to let them know that they had spoken to the white girls AND we're going to drink chai together. Promptly, half the village sneaked out of hiding and was amazed by us standing on the side of the road. It is pretty amazing afterall. Our obnoxious driver returns in the interim and instructs us to get back in the car. We let him know that some lovely ladies were bringing us chai and he brushed it off like it ain't no thang. Since we felt that it was quite a thang, especially after him telling us a woman's place is in the home, we adamantly waited for our new friends to return. A few cups of chai, many smiles, "hellos" and "thank yous"later, we got back in the car. 20 minutes down the road, puncture #2. This went much more smoothly. We munched on some Western snacks (thanks girls!) chit chatted the time away and didn't feel bothered by the delay. Many hours later, we arrived (with a flat tire!) in Jaipur, stepped out into the furnace and played the "find a hotel at 10PM not having eaten dinner game." Naturally, a lot of fun. Finally some Kingfishers and dahl and chapatis later, we headed to bed with the excitement of Jaipur awaiting the next day.