Still Hot

So in the past week or so we have covered Udaipur, Pushkar, Jaipur and Agra! Tonight we leave Agra and have finally left our grumpy grandpa driver. Of all of those places Pushkar was by far my favorite. It was nice and small, and there was lots of good food and shopping and the hasseling wasn't too bad. My least favorite was Jaipur. I disliked Jaipur for the number one thing that I hate about India: constant sexual harassment. Its a huge bummer and I hate to generalize because we have met many very nice Indian men but overall our experiences have been pretty negative. It ranges from the minor (constant rude staring that is clearly not just out of curiosity) to the totally upsetting (being felt up in a temple). Mostly young men will follow us, take pictures without permission and my favorite is to follow us and film us! My tolerance for this kind of treatment is pretty fucking low. Its clear that they don't see us as people that deserve their respect and coming from a country where gender equality is about as good as it gets it is very hard to take. In Jaipur it was so constant that we didn't even want to leave our hotel rooms. Now let me be clear, neither of us is dressing like western whores, we are both tending more toward the mormon look despite the raging heat and we aren't going out drinking late into the night. There doesn't really seem to be anything to do about it but it is frustrating that I have such a negative impression of such a large portion of the population. I wish we were able to interact with women more but they seem super shy and are never working in restaurants or shops. I knew this was the reputation of India when I came but I didn't realize that it would be so constant and overwhelming. I think it would be really awesome to travel here as a guy, you would be able to interact with people with so much more confidence and trust.
In other less depressing news, we saw the Taj Mahal today!!! We went at sunrise because we hate other people and it was just as pretty as it looks in pictures (huge relief). It was nice and quiet when we were there and there wasn't anyone bugging us for money (yay!). As we were leaving lots of tour groups began to arrive so I am glad we got out before it got too crowded. Another highlight was all the monkeys and monkey babies we saw on the walk there. I may have taken more pictures of the monkeys than the Taj but we all know what the Taj looks like and not everyone knows how cute it is when a baby monkey clings to its parents tummy.
Next up is the Karma Sutra temples so that should be weird.