if i don't make it, know that i loved you all along

There's a slim chance that I will die in my sleep tonight, after the second night in a row of tempting fate by eating sushi in Delhi. I'm staying in this swanky Japanese hotel, and they have a swanky Japanese restaurant--and so yesterday and today, I had sushi for dinner. It was so good, and so I really hope that it doesn't make me sick tonight. I felt fine this morning, but that isn't necessarily a guarantee. But, since I hadn't had miso soup, or veg tempura, or california rolls, or any other Japanese food in five months, I was willing to risk it. All of the food was amazing--I don't know whether it was actually a good restaurant, or if it was just a welcome respite from curry, but I left very satisfied after both meals. Now I just have to make it one more month before I have all the tempura and crunchy crab rolls that I could ever desire within a ten-minute drive.

Yesterday was the big day for sightseeing--I hired a driver and made a mad daytrip to the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri. A few problems with this plan: 1) I spent about eight hours in the car, 2) because we left at six a.m., I didn't have time for breakfast, 3) because I didn't want to get dysentery I didn't eat until I got back to the hotel, thus repeating my European habit of not eating all day, and 4) it rained while I was at both the Taj Mahal and at Fatehpur Sikri. Despite the rain, the Taj was as gorgeous as it is reputed to be, and Fatehpur Sikri was very haunting and memorable. The latter was a city founded by Emperor Akbar, but it was abandoned when he died due to chronic water shortages; the palace and city were inhabited for less than twenty years before being deserted, and now only ruins remain of a architecturally fascinating city.

However, despite the beauty around me, I had trouble properly appreciating it because there were tour guides all over Fatehpur Sikri trying to force people to use them for tours. If you stopped moving for even a second, one of them would pounce on you and start asking if you wanted a tour, telling you that it was 'only 50 rupees, so little when you have spent so much to come here'. It might have been worth hiring one of the damned men just so the rest of them would leave me alone, but I probably couldn't have gotten the hired tour guide to shut up either, so I just tried my best to ignore them. They would even come up and talk about how peaceful and quiet Fatehpur Sikri is, which I of course found ironic.

Anyway, after the Taj and Fatehpur Sikri, I have no need to see any more World Heritage Monuments for awhile. I've seen quite a few major pieces of human history in the past few months; between my tour of Europe and my excursions in India, I have had an amazing summer. Today, though, I felt absolutely no desire to go out of the hotel, since it looked grey outside and I was too annoyed by the prospect of fending off more tour guides to brave the monuments in Delhi. So, I stayed in my hotel all day, and I pampered myself with a massage and a facial. I also worked part of the afternoon and evening, since I'm leaving India in three weeks and have tons to do before I go home.

The facial was quite interesting--I've never gotten a facial before, but I'm pretty sure that most facials don't include a breast massage. The woman asked me to take my shirt off when she started the facial, which I accepted with few qualms because I figured that she didn't want to get my shirt wet. After half an hour or so of rubbing my face with various creams and unguents, she asked me to sit up. Then, with absolutely no warning, she unsnapped my bra, and within seconds I had oil all over my chest and torso. She also massaged my back, which was nice, and the facial left my skin feeling very soft--but the chest massage sort of weirded me out. Granted, I could have asked her to stop, but in weird situations my first instinct is to just go with it unless I'm in actual physical danger (just ask Jasmine and Michael about my tendency to pretend nothing unusual is happening). As I told Vidya, I'm just glad that I got the silver facial, since if I had requested the gold facial, I probably would have ended up having sex with the woman. I'm willing to get another facial in the future--but I bet that American cosmetologists will look at me v. strangely if I specify in advance that I don't want the breast-massage part of the package.

Tomorrow I've arranged for a driver to take me around Delhi (thus eliminating the other thing I didn't want to deal with today--predatory autorickshaw drivers), so I'm going to see some historical tings and do some shopping. I'm flying back to Hyderabad tomorrow night, and then the mad dash towards the finish line of my trip will begin in earnest. I'll post pictures when I get back and upload them; goodnight, everyone!