The Blue City

In this beautiful, beautiful, blue city is probably where I had one of my most scariest experiences in my life. 

When we were in the previous city, Pushkar, we met an older Indian couple, Anil & Naresh, that knew our driver.  Our driver had mentioned that they were headed to Jodphur and needed a ride; we gladly offered them the 2 other spots in the car and off we were with 6 hours ahead of us.  

The day before Landon decided to try the infamous Lassi, a yogurt drink with clotted cream/curd on top, at a hole in the wall restaurant… and when I mean hole in the wall… I mean cockroaches creeping past us on our table and plates.  Anyways, the drink came out warm and didn't taste right, but Landon being Landon, drank it anyways (because he's a real man!)  So that night he wasn't feeling the best, but thankfully nothing more happened. 

On our drive to Jodphur, we got to know our new friends and shared with them that Landon wasn't feeling too well from a bad Lassi he had yesterday. Them being so friendly and generous, insisted that they will find us a better Lassi to drink!  

We both were not in the mood for a Lassi, nor were our stomachs, especially Landon's.  But one of the first things we learned from our driver the first day  was if someone offers you something, do not refuse it, it is very disrespectful to them.  So our driver pulled over at a truck stop, in the middle of no where, just a place with 3 walls and 3 huge pots sitting out in the 85° sun, those 3 pots being full of yogurt, curd, and water.  They bought us a Lassi each and I knew instantly that I didn't even want to chance it.  I was quickly thinking about going to the bathroom and bringing my drink with me and dumping it out, but the bathroom is on the side of the wall! Harder enough, there was only 5 people there total and all eyes were on us because we were the foreigners.  So I took a few sips and then Landon took one for the team and drank it all… something I hugely regretted later that night. 

As we got into Jodphur we parted ways with our new friends…they invited us to stay in their home in Northern India that we later took advantage of and saw them later on in our travels.  

That night Landon had a fever, horrible shakes, and was non-stop puking and diarrhea, for 12 hours straight.  I was crying and felt completely hopeless in a new and ever-so-busy city.  I knew that I needed to go find help for Landon, but I had no clue where to go and was scared to go out in the streets alone.  I finally got ahold of my driver and he went with me to the Chemist, a man behind a stand with plenteous amount of drugs all for dirt cheap.  Our driver didn't speak good English so I tried to talk to the Chemist, who spoke almost no English, telling Landon's symptoms and before I was finished he gathered 12 different packages of tablets for him to take. I felt like he wasn't listening and was only looking at me as pure money.  

Of course after 5 minutes of a white girl talking to a chemist,  at least 30 Indians were surrounding me all curious what was going on.  I tried to tell my driver felt like the chemist could not understand me and I didn't feel comfortable buying it all, but he was a stubborn old man and kept telling me in short English , "Buy it, buy it!"  I felt extremely pressured having 30 Indians watching me, my driver yelling at me (we weren't necessarily fond of him), and having this huge language barrier between everyone and little ole me.  I was on the verge of breaking down and wanted someone to make the decision for me.  The most frustrating thing about India was that you could trust no one, so I walked off.   

To shorten the story a tad bit ( I can't help from writing a lot I'm all about details), I had to go with my gut instinct and intuition.  We were given pills by our doctor from home that didn't exactly fit his symptoms, but that I felt most comfortable about. It took a few more days or of lying in bed.  Although we didn't get to see much of Jodiphur, all I cared about was that Landon didn't have to go to the hospital to get an IV and that he was fine!  I was praying the hardest I ever had and my prayers were answered.  

PS. Photo credit to Landon on the awesome cow portraits... I would no way get that close to that crazy tongue. 
PSS. Blue symbolizes the holiness of their Gods, so a blue city means a holy city :)