Well I celebrated my 22nd birthday in India. I woke up on the morning of the 4th at 5am cos we were on the sleeper train going from Dharamsala to Jaipur (15hrs) and we had to change carriages in Delhi. Happy birthday to me! Anyway my first presents were from 2 guys working in our hotel in Dharmasala who gave me a card and some chocolate (lindt to statisfy our chocolate cravings!). I thought it was quite nice of them until I saw how they spelt my name - Quince!
Anyway after that we got to hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan where Claire gave me a really nice card and earrings (which made up for the other cards from people who cant spell my name!). Next surprise... that night as we were getting ready to go our for dinner, the driver rang us in our hotel room and told us to hurry up as we were already 10min late. I was about to get annoyed with him and tell him 10min was no big deal but when we got downstairs he had a big cake waiting for me and all the hotel staff were there! True to Indian tradition, the driver took a piece of cake and stuffed it in my mouth. Claire was laughing at me for having cake all over my face when the driver ran up to her and did the same! So we both had pink and green icing dripping eveywhere, but nevertheless I went round and offered the rest of the cake to the hotel staff..
The next part of my birthday celebrations were 2 days later in Pushkar where some friends from Dharamsala had agreed to meet us to celebrate and go out. Well the night was nearly 'wrecked' cos of the incident with the argument over ID cards (see other article). It was only 'wrecked' cos we were upset that we had no idea what was going on cos no one was translating the heated argument in hindi that was taking place. All we wanted was to do something fun for my birthday... but then it all got sorted out and we went out for dinner and drinks.
Little was I to know that I was about to recieve another birthday surprise.. one of the guys got a little bit drunk and later when we went back to the hotel he took me aside as I tried to go back to my room. Claire had already left to go to our room so I couldnt tell her to wait. Anyway to my surprise he said that he liked me and wanted to marry me. When I told him I had a boyfriend in Australia - he said in his hilarious Kashmiri accent: 'You know, you can just 'forget' about Australia - just forget!' I told him that I wasnt just going to 'forget' my boyfriend and walked off to my room, thinking to myself that when Claire wished for my birthday in India to be memorable we hadnt accounted for random drunken marriage proposals! I think that was something that I rather just 'forget!'
