Coming up: A trip to LA to visit A in April, perhaps a longer trip in the summer to the West Coast to do San Fran, wine country, and so on.
We're planning some form of international jump in the late fall when she's back in DC again -- maybe a Europe trip, maybe Argentina.
Managua has some of the best street art / graffiti / murals 
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The first day we got up early, jeeped out an hour, and met our safari. We went with a hippy from Germany. Three Indians were with us, Suban the guide, a camel driver, and "the boy" (who was a guide in training/internship). We each had our own camel, plus one camel which was in training (and not very happy about it)
Riding camels is smoother than horses (as long as they're not running!), it's a weird side-to-side, forward and back sway (camels move both feet on each side simultaneously). Getting up and down is a bit difficult, as they have a multi-step sitting process. As long as you're ready for it and holding on, it's no problem. Up on top, you realize that camels are TALL.
We cameled it from just past dawn until lunchtime, going through a few villages along the way. The desert was mostly scrublands, where some villagers were raising crops (mustard, millet, melon) and/or goats and sheep. They lived in thatch and adobe-style huts mostly, and many of them are Hindu refugees from Pakistan from the Partition.
From noon until almost 5 we just camped in the shade of a tree. We started with chaye and lunch, then chilled out for a while. A hunter came by and we made more chaye to share with him and the guides chatted with him for a while. Suban and Audrey played with their cell phones, though were still unable to download any free Indian ringtones to her phone :(. In a word, it was hot, with very little breeze. We drank lots of water and waited, then got back up and went another hour to camp.
We camped on a set of dunes, free of insect problems (except for lots of dung beetles) and grass burrs. After the sun set, it cooled down until it got a slight bit chilly late at night. I tried to take some star pictures, but my camera doesn't seem to allow for more than a 15 second shutter time.
We arrived just in time to catch sunset 
We had dinner, and I played around with my new Indian jews harp, and taught "the boy" a bit of it, but Suban was more interested (and skilled at) playing midi tunes on his cell phone.
All in all it was very pleasant. Sleeping under the stars (though, BFE Texas locales still win for stargazing) was nice, riding a camel was certainly an interesting experience, and our guides were great (And great cooks)
Also, here's a video of a camel walking. They're odd creatures. In heavy sand, their back feet step in the same place their front feet just left (they walk lopsided, both legs on one side moving in unison).
Camel noises while getting saddled:
The politics of the Planet are very interesting, and you have to take even their comments with a grain of salt; did they talk to someone outside the fort who overplayed the degradation card to get better listings/recommendations for outside the fort? Or are the hoteliers and others inside the fort downplaying it?
Regardless, A and I had the best time wandering the fort in this city. Inside, the shopkeepers were so very friendly, giving reasonable first prices and happy to just chat. No pressures, not even the normal rounds of scams we were used to. It was a breath of fresh desert air and really was needed after so many hassles and scams in the other cities.
We spent a good chunk of one day with bookmakers who made a hardbacked folder to A's exacting specifications (she chose the exact piece of patchwork for the cover, dimensions, folder sizes, etc.), and I bought a nice leather (camel hide, cow hide wouldn't be proper) book that I've yet to decide what to do with.
Clothes shopping is similarly pleasant. You find a shirt that you like, and they tailor it (no additional charge) to your specifications. Don't like the length? pockets? too big? no problem! I picked up two indian-ish shirts for about $10USD
Called a morchang in Rajasthan (other things in different parts of India), it's popular in folk music. I regret not buying a CD with a 'harp track on it. 
Note - Govind is the only Hotel not paying any commission to any autorickshaws or taxis (as mention in the latest lonelyplanet guide book), so when you touch Jodhpur you will hear many stories like Govind Hotel is a bad place or it is closed down. Please don't be carried away by such stories.If you want to come here tell the taxis driver that you want to go to the main GPO or the railway station.
It's sad how... scam-filled all of India is, such that it's so hard to just have an honest, friendly conversation with anyone, or even ask simple directions without getting directed/taken to a commission-paying shop or just misdirected. Govind was a haven from that, thankfully, and I had a wonderful chat with the owner, who like me is a coffee fanatic (a rare find in chaye-drinking India!) who has a good esperesso machine on his wifi-enaled rooftop restaurant/coffee bar. Yeah, you read that right.
We set out the next morning to visit the clock tower and inadvertently ended up at MVSpices, a recommended place to buy spices. We bought, well, a LOT of indian spices and teas, which are shipping back to the US as I type (I hope?).
The now-just-a-(very very rich)-citizen Raj of Jodhpur put a lot of effort into restoring the city's fort, Mehrangarh (garh means fort, btw). It's a bit of an ego-trip for him, and the (otherwise really good) audio guide makes sure you know he's behind it all. This was overall the most impressive fort of the trip, tho the Jaisalmer fort was interesting for different reasons.
The fort is huge, which I hope the photos do justice to. It took around 3 hours to wander through it, admittedly with some breaks and using the audio tour to slow us down as well. It offered stunning views on only of itself but also of the aptly-named Blue City below.
You can see why it was never successfully breached in the number of walls and gates and cannons/artillery of various vintages.
At one end of the fort there was a small Hindi shrine with a statue in the valley beside it. Tho you couldn't take photos inside the shrine, I used my fancy rotating camera screen to grab a shot from above the walled path to the shrine.
At another part of the fort, there seemed to be some people living there, where I took this photo of the door and some stacks of rocks, no doubt the free equivalent of blocks for the kids.
You can watch a video of me walking out the fort, accompanied by competing musicians:
The hotel, Pearl Palace, was wonderful. Cheap, but with luxury services and service, and a beautiful rooftop restaurant.
The next day we went to the train station to book our final ticket, and a rickshaw driver bugged us to let him take us there for free ("good luck"). We finally caved after a few blocks, and got to the station, bought our last ticket, and discussed (argued) the rest of the day with the driver. We (finally) convinced him of our plans with some of his input, and got on our way to the old city inside the walls, mostly painted pink. A was feeling a bit ill, so went back to the hotel and I wandered alone for a bit, and bought a shirt for the upcoming safari. I took a photo of walking around the back streets of the Pink City, which you can catch at YouTube:
Re-connected with A, and we went off to the City Palace, which was quite a let down, but it did have a pair of Guiness-book winning largest silver urns.
After that, we walked over to Jantar Mantar, a huge stone astronomy/astrology calculator, which had a sundial of sorts that could be measured to 2 second accuracy, various instruments to find/predict stars and planets, calendars, and so forth. Again, A has the photos on her camera, so soon come. Wikipedia has a pretty uninteresting entry, but Flickr already has some good shots to satisfy your burning curiosity. No really, check it out, it's an amazing architectural place.
Then as per an unspoken agreement with our driver, we made a stop at a commission shop in the Moghul quarter, one that specialized in fabrics/textiles. We bargained hard and got an almost reasonable price for a few pieces. We also visited their "factory" where we got the story that they employed people regardless of caste to work on fabrics (I'd be more impressed, except that this is a common story for all commission shops, and you learn to not believe it; I'm sure it's just a catch for unwary tourists, like, well, 90% of India.
The photo with all the spots is what happens if yhou take a flash photo in a closed, poorly ventilated room where they're heat-embossing fabric with gold and silver dust. My lungs are now plated with precious metals!!
We pushed hard next to make our driver take us to the fort for sunset, and eventually we prevailed, thouh we had to transfer to a "power" rickshaw with a stronger motor to take us up the hill.
We had another rickshaw driver try that on us the next day and immediately got out, after which he repented and took us straight to our destination.
So we finally book our ticket and walk, dodging rickshaw touts, to the bus station to bus out to Fatepuhr Sikri, some ruins outside of town. The buses are all running late (it turns out that there's a big pile-up on the road), and as it's already 2 and the buses stop at 6, and it takes 1.5 hours to get there, my pessimistic optimism (hope for the best, plan as if you're mitigating the worst) opts us to ditch our plans. We're close to an alternate train station, so we head there to see if we can get ahead on the train ticket situation so we don't lose every morning to the same hassle. We're able to book two more tickets in 30 minutes there (less crowded, no one going on break). We need an ATM to book a third ticket, and go off on a wild goose chase into the Agra Fort market (We never made it to the Agra Fort, either; it looked from the outside just like the Lal Qila of Delhi).
This market transformed us. After too many days in Delhi, the delayed train ride, the horrible rickshaw/commission scam when we were weary and ready for our hotel, the lost morning to the train station and afternoon at the bus station, all had us pretty India'd out. This market, though, was wonderful. No one bugging us, following us, tugging at us, begging from us, touting, leering... just a street market, bustling about its daily business in that uniquely, machine-like bazaar peacefulness. We blissfully wandered through the various districts of the market -- in these more organic city layouts catering to people with limited transit options, the economies of agglomeration are so visible -- here's the machine-working section, the sari section, the spices/nuts section....
We finally found the ATM and wandered back through, stopping to eat a small lunch at a street vendor's spot where lots of Indians were gathered. One of them translated a but for us and we got some yummy dish with a fried dough ball of probably garbanzo flour and spices in the middle, crushed, with dal and aloo on top, sprinkled with a spice mix and a sauce, served in a dried, pressed leaf bowl -- one of the best meals we had in India.
After the market, we hiked along a dilapidated nature walk trail that was being reconstructed. We talked to the contractor a bit and watched the sun set over the Taj Mahal view.
I figure you've all seen a few bazillion photos of the Taj Mahal itself, so I'm focusing mainly on the surroundings and the details in the flickr photo set.
After the Taj Mahal, we wandered around Taj Ganj, the market and residential neighborhood to the south. After we made it through the touristy parts of it, it was very nice and just wandering through a neighborhood. The kids were an endless stream of "Hallo!"s as we got lost and then wandered our way back out. We headed up to a rooftop restaurant for snacks, and discovered the secret of beer in restaurants -- it's never on the menu, as alcohol licenses are hard to get, but it's almost always available if you ask for it.
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We stored our luggage in the back of Amogh's rickshaw and off we went to Qutb Minar (wikipedia), a complex centered around a 240 foot tall "victory tower" - the tallest brick minaret in the world. Unfortunately the super-bright sky didn't work well with the camera settings I was using, so the photos in this set are a bit off-tint, but I'm too sleepy right now to fix 'em all, so I used Picasa to muck with them but it turned the sky a bit pinkish. Meh.
We tried to get to Humayun's Tomb, but through poor understanding, we somehow ended up at Safdarjang's tomb, partway across town, but in a reasonable location given our path for the day. We explored around this tomb for a bit, finding that it seemed to be the top makeout spot for young Indian couples.
We then walked to the Lodi gardens and saw a few more trysters and more tombs (lots of tombs!), and went to the Tibet House, which is a tomb of itself in a way.
Then we risk-shawed, er, rickshawed, successfully (yay!) to H. Tomb which was huge and nice and Audrey got her ass grabbed by a young Moslem guy who wanted his picture with her. We won't fall for that one again (Unless it's me doing the grabbing). This tomb is like a miniature Taj Mahal, and rumored to be by the same architect even. The first few photos are from other tombs in the same grounds.
Then we got a prepaid autorickshaw (the first time we've avoided full whitey tax tourist fare!) (downside: the prepaid stand is where dying rickshaws go to rust and putter there way, waiting for the great junkyard in the sky - new riddle: How many lever-a-la-lawnmower-tugs does it take to restart an autorickshaw in Delhi traffic? Answer's still "One More")
As seems to be par for the course, between failed communications and drivers not having the faintest clue where they're going, we had immense trouble finding our next destination, a dance theater. After ~5 wrong directions, we finally got one that was almost right and then a kind elderly gent saw us looking lost, spoke immaculate Queen's English, and knew, finally, what the F we were trying to find and pointed us on our (down a long poorly lit forrested street) way. But, he was right and we got there and it was a nice little dance show. We sat in the second row, by the fan...
The dances were fascinating, and I found an excellent setting on my camera that let me take crisp shots without using the flash.
We then negotiated our way home with a surprisingly competent driver who not only knew of our hotel but also gave us a fair price to drive us around tomorrow before our train. This driver turned out to be AWESOME. He came to Delhi many years back to study philosophy, but his parents couldn't support his studies so he started driving rickshaws and has been since. His name's Amogh, and if you ever need transport in Delhi during the day, he is an awesome driver, knows lots about Delhi, politics, and history, is well-spoken (he has a bachelor's in philosophy!) and all in all saved Delhi from being a poor taste in our mouths. He has a mobile, 9911709140, and just tell him that Jon and Audrey recommended him :)
We still hadn't gotten cash for our hotel bill, so rickshawed back down to Connaught Place/Circle and withdrew that, and then (drumroll) took the metro back. Wow. No photos, but it beats the DC metro; huge, clean, cool coin-like smartcard tokens and a full smartcard system as well. Why didn't we start out with this? Who knows. It was pretty crowded, tho, even latish at night, and there's no waiting for the exiting passengers before boarding silliness
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