I'm conspicuous

People always talk about how chaotic and seemingly hazardous the traffic is in India. As it turns out, it's not Indian drivers you need to worry about,but oblivious foreign tourists on bicycles. I put a pretty good chunk of my handle bar into the back of some poor lady walking down the street and sent her sprawling to the pavement. That was right up at the top of the list for situations I didn't want to deal with in a foreign country. Luckily after I apologised profusely for my complete douchebaggery and obliviousness, which may have been lost on her since she didn't understand english, she sent me on my way before to large of a crowd gathered around and things got anymore interesting.

The rest of the ride to Sikar was pretty low key, no accidents, no bike problems, and we hammered out 110km in pretty good time. By pulling out the handy Hindi phrase book in Sikar a nice young man at the Hindi temple was able to direct us to a nearby hotel and at his insistence act as our guide for the night. We didn't see much of Sikar, but we did meet his family, catch part of wedding procession at the temple, and get to watch Adam manhandle a couple of kids in arm wrestling matches. All of the kids were looking longingly at Adam by the end of the night, I think a few had developed man-crushes on Adam's biceps.

Although we didn't see any tourist sites in Sikar, our guide Ashok did give us a tour of his school the following morning. I continue to be amazed at the status and attention we are given simply as a function of our skin color. We met the principle and then were taken to every class room to stand up in front of a room full of kids for a few moments before moving on. A little awkward, it brought back a flood of memories from middle school and high school. Amidst all of this we also got our first motorcycle lessons, and I can safely say I am much better off riding a bicycle than a motorcycle, and we'll leave it at that.