Not the best day for Natacha, but it ultimately worked out ok.
The previous night was a sleepless one, in a very cheap guesthouse (which our driver recommended), where the heat was sweltering, and the screens on the windows were busted. meaning we slept drenched in DEET with the fan on--and 'Tach was so concerned by skeeters that she slept fully clothed. I don't know if you've ever done this yourself, but your first time out just traumatizes your body. She ate nothing for breakfast & spent the morning sleepingin the car on the way to our next destination, the Rajastani city of Jaipur.
Ramesh our driver told us from the beginning that he was from Jaipur, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him to suggest a guesthouse that had, for Natacha's sake, had AC, and fit our budget. So.
He took us to a place that seemed servicable at first, so we dropped off our stuff and hung out in the room to relax. Until I realzed the bed was dirty. and had human hair in it.
And there was a docrot's office two floors down, directly above the restaurant. which is one of those tourist grifts they tell you about--the restaurant gives you food poisoning, and you're immediately taken to the doctor. oH but there's more.
Because the hotel was in the middle ofr what seemed to be a parking lot for tour busses. And for some reason, these (parked) tour busses seened to need to test their horns. Constantly. How much are we hating our driver right now?
So, despite the fact that Tash needed to rest in an A/C room, I took us out of there and made Ramesh take us to another hotel. Which turned out to be too expensive, but he got to collect his commission anyway, just for taking us there. And then another. Which turned out to be more than we wanted to pay, but less than the other one, and was clean, comfortable, and all around fantastic. The Pearl Palace Hotel in Jaipur, if you're wondering.
I got Tash settled in to rest, left her to sleep and went to visit Jaipur's charming-but-after-the-Taj-unimpressive City Palace.
Then back to the Pearl, where I had a lovely dinner convo with an 80 yr old British lady named Una, a retired child psychologist who was in the middle of a sort of "These are all the sights I want to see before I die" trip: Petra, Jodphur, Angkor Wat, etc. Natch slept that whole day and night, and after that we knew better than to put our trust in ol' Ramesh.