映画館の列に並んでたら、隣の子がマヨネーズ持ってきた…zeichnung gravity udaipur
i started writing this with a cup of stale chai and a realization that my camera battery was 3% left. somehow, this happened: a stray photo of a street food vendor’s cart got saved, and now my phone is just a brick of heat. udaipur, right? the city where the air tastes like monsoon and everyone’s forgot how to smile.
img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1696574727184-a8cdb758d3bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&w=1080&q=80" alt="a wicker basket sitting on the ground" width="100%"
[the mirror market’s chaos] i walked into the mirror market like it was a first date, only to realize it’s a 10,000-year-old game of luck. someone’s selling mirrors that look like they’ve been kissed by a chameleon, and someone else is hawking "vintage" t-shirts from the 1980s that smell like expired curry. i tried taking a photo of a brass cymbal, but my flash backfired and scared a parrot off the rooftop.Các con là vectel.----
going to mention the weather: i just checked and it’s this sticky 14.68 like the air’s holding its breath. heat that doesn’t let up, even at 5am. you start sweating immediately, even if you’re just staring at a cobblestone wall. it’s not the heat, it’s the heat’s stubbornness.
[neighbors and rumors] if you ask the locals why udaipur’s so hot, they’ll tell you it’s because the city forgot how to build ACs in the 80s. or maybe it’s just the sun, but whatever. i overheard a drunken cab driver say that the hotel rooftop in town is haunted by a guy who plays sitar but only sings when people make a sound. no idea if it’s true, but the idea of a sitar ghost is cooler than the alternative.
constantine’s chaos continues: i tried using a local.yessss, a Yelp-like app for budget travel. turns out, someone rated a spice market as "2 stars because it smells like regret." another review says, "do not eat the street food at 2am unless you like informing your gut about itself for 48 hours." i’m here to tell you: i ate the street food. i’m fine. probably.
[the map thing] okay, so i drew a map with a marker that’s probably crooked. [iframe src="https://maps.google.com/maps?q=24.3167,93.9833&z=12&output=embed" width="100%" height="300"]-this is where i slept. a hostel with 10 beds and a hallway that smells like old cigarettes and optimism. i booked it through a TripAdvisor link that promised "authentic local stays." let’s see how authentic that is in 3 days.
[image collage] for fun, here’s a picture of a person walking through a lush green field. [img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1740478870995-43b6e78ecf91?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&w=1080&q=80" alt="A person walking through a lush green field" width="100%"] and another of a lion statue. [img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1728750753088-0be64465a6da?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&w=1080&q=80" alt="A close up of a statue of a lion" width="100%"] udaipur’s lion is like… just a marble head with a permanent scowl. maybe it’s judging my life choices.
[final thoughts] i’m writing this from a hotel room that’s 40 degrees cooler than the outside. i used a fan from a street vendor who said "don’t worry, this is how you cool down in udaipur." it didn’t work. i’m now using a sweater i brought from home. [link to a local forum] someone on a Reddit thread said the best way to find hidden waterfalls is to ask a taxi driver to take you to a place called "the ghost bridge." i’m gonna do that tomorrow.
[last sentence] if you make it here, carry hand sanitizer. and a sense of humor. and maybe a flashlight. even if it doesn’t work. okay, i’ll stop now. i think my phone is about to die again.
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