Luxuriating in Desert Sun

Greetings from Incredible India where I'm currently in Western Rajastan. Since flying all day Christmas and arriving in India at 2 AM the 26th, I've been nearly all the way east to Kolkata (about 50 km from the Bay of Bengal) and nearly all the way west to Pakistan. I'm blogging from a dial-up connection in Jaisalmer, less than 100 km from the border. The drummer in R's band invited me -- he was going with his family in one rather large SUV so there was extra space -- it was really nice of him. They're going further, but this is as far as I should go; already I'm feeling a bit gun-shy, literally, as we passed several army training grounds and saw & heard the booms from tank shells being fired (directed away from the highway but freaky all the same).

I'm finding myself in a much lower tech situation than expected. R's new flat in Delhi is a bit primitive -- no hot water when I arrived (fixed, fortunately, as it's been getting down to 3°C at night and there's no heating in all of Delhi), no Internet, and the windows are pretty rudimentary which means cold, drafts and DUST DUST DUST. I will unfortunately not be in good contact during January. But I'm having tons of fun and lots of very interesting experiences, including interactions with men who show actual signs of life, well, shall we say a surplus of life! I will be pleasantly surprised if I manage to post this successfully, but no pictures I'm afraid -- that is beyond the technical possibilities here!