Sleepy Skyeball checking in from Jaipur. It's 8-something at night & it feels like 2 a.m.

We had a long day today. Got up at 5:15 a.m. to take the hour-long drive out to Samode. The streets of Jaipur were quiet. (Made me think of how much I love driving through LA at this time of day. As I told one Alabama cinematographer, it's the time when the city shakes off sleep. You see the most interesting things.) I saw old men leaning over fires, trying to warm up. I saw rickshaw drivers asleep in their "cabs." I saw people wrapped in blankets on the sidewalk. Everyone seems to drive with high-beams on. There are random roadblocks -- kind of a slalom-type thing -- for no apparent reason. But I digress.

We arrived at Samode Palace just as it was getting light. There were two balloons & about a dozen staff members of this new company, Sky Waltz. It's the first hot-air balloon company in India (having negotiated the maze of government bureaucracy to get the necessary permits to start up). They just became official in November. Right now they're taking journalists and VIPs out. They hope to start taking up paying customers in the next week or so...at US$350 a pop!

I jumped in with the recorder, getting in everyone's way as they set up the balloon & inflated it. Pictures and recording -- had to alternate between the two. Damn, those flame-throwing machines are loud! JW & I ended up with an American pilot named Steve who's been ballooning since 1978. He's here for six months to help start up the company & get it going. Then he'll split his time between Eastport, Maine & a suburb of Phoenix. He cracked jokes & made us laugh the whole time, while keeping a steady hand. He learned to fly when he was a teenager & says he loves being in anything that's in the air.

It was such a gentle ride. We eased off the ground & just floated up oh-so-slowly. Hugged the ridgelines so close that the treetops scraped against the wicker basket from time to time. Our balloon would "kiss" the other one every once in a while, but they didn't even really bounce off each other. We could see rabbits & monkeys in the brush. The best part by far was the kids, who would run kilometers to keep up with the balloon, hoping it would land in their village. We floated up there for about an hour. Steve would give the balloon a blast of that flame-throwing thing every once in a while (which made for really hard recording, since the Marantz peaked every time he threw flames).

My favorite part of all this was the landing. We were all braced for a bumpy landing, but it was gentle too. We sank down to just above these villages. The cows & goats that were staked in place freaked out every time Steve blasted the flame up. The kids shouted "hello" and "come down" in Hindi, waving & laughing & running. We almost put down in someone's garden, but Steve pulled us back up & out another five minutes. He set us down in the dirt just next to a paved road, on the very very edge of a field that hadn't been planted. Within two minutes there were probably 150 or 200 people crowded around the balloon to check it -- and the journalists -- out. Tata trucks & motorcycles pulled over so people could watch. Kids were laughing, men were making slightly uncomfortable eye contact, a brave few reached out to shake hands with me. Women seemed to hang back for the most part, though two lovely ladies hiding their faces behind their saris laughed with/at me & invited me into their homes for lunch. I wish I could have gone.

We waited for the chase vehicle to find us & all kind of looked at each other with a little disbelief. This is the thing, & JW pegged it just right: we were equally spectacles to each other. The villagers were awed by this rainbow-colored balloon & the odd people inside it. (Especially the one wearing headphones & holding a microphone!) The folks inside the balloon were overwhelmed by the attention & the excitement at our presence there. I think the village was called Namal?? I'll have to go back to my tape to listen again. I spoke a little bit with one man through an interpreter who works for the hotel we took off from. He said he was happy we were there. He wanted to know where we were from. But mostly we smiled at each other & waded through that wonderful awkwardness of two worlds bumping up against each other. I loved it.

We came back to Samode Palace & were treated to a tasty breakfast. Guava juice. Idlis (rice cakes) in some yummy sauce. Aloo curry of some sort. Cheese. Fresh fruit (!!!). Then we walked around the palace a little bit. It's a working hotel, but is one of the few, if not the only, palace that's still owned by the original family. Truly, truly beautiful. I've got to upload these pictures as soon as I can find wireless. (Hopefully tomorrow night in Pushkar.)

Anyway, then it was back to Jaipur. We hit a traffic jam maybe 20 minutes into the ride. A political rally for BJP Congress politicians. Cars & trucks & motorcycles & carts going every which way, both sides of the road. Incessant horn-beeping. Edging up, up, up but not really going anywhere for probably 4o minutes. Finally a policeman diverted us off the main road & through a few alleyways & we came back out on the highway & got back to 60 km/hour instead of 1 km/hour. Took almost two hours to get home!

We rested a little, then walked along SMS and MI Roads up to the Old City. The only foreigners walking on the road, hence lots of curious stares. Jaipur is known as the "Pink City" because so many of its buildings in the old part of town have the same pink paint. It's particularly striking when the sun heads down toward dusk. JW & I wandered through the various bazaars. Storefront after storefront after storefront, all narrow & with these couches lining one of the walls. Cushions for the salesmen, all of whom remove their shoes. EVERY single storefront had a man inside hawking his stuff. They have the same lines: "Ma'am! Ma'am! You like scarf? Pashmina? Or these shoes? Lovely shoes. Just one dollar, 50 rupees! Ma'am! To look is free. Come inside... Come, sit."

There's also a group of guys, very well-dressed, who stand around with mobile phones in their hands & start chatting you up to get you to go see their jewelry. Best prices around. Would I lie to you? Come see, just inside that building over there, just past the paper kites... They always ask you where you're from & then make sure to mention they have friends in this & that American city. They're persistent too. One even had his friend vouch for his authenticity. That friend claimed to have spent time in San Anselmo, CA.

Anyway, it's exhausting just walking around. Dodging cow poop. Eyeing the piles of guavas longingly -- if only fresh fruit washed in bad water didn't cause that lovely "Delhi belly." Twisting and turning around everyone else walking the same paths. A few rupees here & there for some of the beggars. Dodged motorcycles, bicycles & rickshaws. The colors of the saris & purses & bedcovers in these shops are truly amazing. Both JW & I ended up investing in a few tie-dye scarves that are bright & beautiful for our holiday gifts. We bought many of them from an old man who was one of the few who didn't try to press us to buy more, more, more. He didn't really seem to give a crap, actually. But he kept pulling out the cotton lumps from the piles in his storefront & snapping them open, breaking the threads & unfurling these gorgeous vegetable dye designs on the cotton. Sensory overload, like the rest of India...

Sarinder Singh, our driver, picked us up midway through the Johri Bazaar. Gotta say it was nice to sink into the back seat & head back to Diggi for a quiet meal & catching up on email. And that's day five in India. Tomorrow we may head to Amber Fort & then to Pushkar if we get an early enough start. Otherwise we'll head straight south.

I feel so alive. All senses on alert. Soaking in everything around me (except enough Hindi). JW keeps snapping these photos of me smiling wide. I'm happy for the first time in a long while.

S.