The gorgeous gold town of Jaisalmer isn't quite as "Arabian Nights" as I expected, but it's still a spectacular place unlike any other I've seen. The entire town is made of slowly-eroding, beautifully hand-carved sandstone including the centerpiece; a huge fort that looks like a giant sandcastle. Over 5000 people live and work on the maze of small slippery sandstone walkways within its walls, making it the only 'living' fort of its kind still in India. Concern about the sinking foundation has led officials to consider closing all guesthouses inside the walls, as every flush of a toilet brings the place a bit closer to falling into a giant sinkhole. Jaisalmer is a mere 70 kilometers from the Pakistani border and the drone of patrolling airforce jets overhead draws my eyes skyward.

After a night-bus ride that was way-too-long considering the distance covered, Kirti and I met up at Giriraj Palace Guesthouse. Kirti's friend Daryl, whom I met in Udaipur, works with his lover Gomen at the guesthouse and extended the invitation to me to stay with them when I made it to Jaisalmer. Daryl is from Alice Springs and for 8 years now he has lived half the year here with Gomen running the guesthouse and the other half in Australia, running a profitable export business selling stuff he's bought in India. Because Gomen is gay in a country that hasn't quite figured out how homosexuality fits into its social structure, he has been married for two years and has a son, but his wife lives 300 kilometers away with Gomen's family. He sees them infrequently, his wife doesn't know about Gomen's relationship with Daryl and has never questioned it, even though Daryl paid for the wedding. Yikes.

Yesterday a big group of us piled into an air-conditioned room at Daryl's friend's guesthouse down the road to watch the final cricket match between Pakistan and India. A Superbowl party it was not and I still think cricket is the most boring sport on earth (I read my book, Holy Cow!, most of the time), but at least the commercials were entertaining.

My favorite was for a cosmetic cream called "Fair and Lovely." A girl dreams of being a sportcaster and practices along with the TV with a rolled-up magazine as a microphone. She dreams and practices and dreams some more until one day her disapproving sister grabs the magazine out of her hand and with a knowing look, replaces it with a tube of "Fair and Lovely" fairness cream! Clearly the path to success has been blocked only by her unsightly dark Indian skin! She uses the cream, sends in her audition tape, wows them with her new desirable "wheatish" complexion, gets called in for a personal audition and lands the job. At the end her mother cries, watching proudly as her now-white daughter becomes famous on TV! Hoorah! Ugh.

India won. The MVP of the match won a whopping $1500. The MVP of the series won a Hyundai Accent. We ate a celebratory dinner of dahl (lentils), chappatis (the basic foodstuff of North India; little wheat pancakes) and paneer butter masala. While I've been loving the food in the north compared to the south (most Indian restaurants in the States thankfully serve North Indian food rather than the bland carb-load from the south), my digestive system has other ideas. I am hoping it's just an adjustment period while my stomach-lining adjusts to a new diet, but really. It would be nice to feel human again.

Sam and Jenn: "Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm" by The Crash Test Dummies is playing at the internet cafe. Made me think of you both.