I'm a cheap bastard now :(

when I originally started planning this trip, I figured I would budget about $15 (around 650R) a day for hotel, food, and incidentals. that's a good chunk of change in India, but I thought I would use it to make sure that I was always relatively comfortable. however, now that I'm here, I've started judging things by indian standards and it's hard to justify a lot of expenses. for example, I can usually get a meal for 70-80R ($2), and that's in a sit-down restaurant that is decently clean. a meal that costs more than 250R ($6) is really splurging for me, even if it's well within my western budget. and today, a rickshaw driver was charging me 25R to get to my hotel, but I knew he was ripping me off so I bargained him down to 15R. all that trouble to save 20 cents, probably one of my lower moments here.

during my final day at port blair, my friend Alex had a mild freakout to the hostel we chose to stay at -- justifiably so, considering our other friend, Cyrille, and I were killing mosquitos left and right in the bathroom, and while I was brushing my teeth, something was trying to crawl out of the sink. so Alex got a nice room at a nearby hotel for about $30, and later when he came to pick us up for dinner, he told us stories of his hot shower, a bathtub, a full-length mirror, a tv, sheets on his bed, a pillow that doesn't smell like mold, no need for a mosquito net, etc. all these things I used to take for granted! but things I won't have for a while because I can't bring myself to spend more than $3 a night for a room.