“Namaste Gi, how do you paint your skin so white?” began the dialog entering Delhi before traveling to Indore, the largest metropolitan city in Madhya Pradesh. We sought escape from routines and western comforts, longing to live the mantra: “It’s not bad, just different.” Our escort and host, Jesse, adeptly guided his SUV homeward along dusty streets. Holy cows - both sanctified among local religions and sanctifying for unacculturated foreigners - rickshaws, overloaded motorbikes and automobile handlers played chicken guided by elusive road rules through oncoming traffic. Drivers, equal parts careless and inherently anticipating the habits of other vehicles, assumed invincibility in their daily dance along overcrowded thoroughfares. Jetlag begat deep sleep. Day two brought stomach-turning abandonment by our guide. A guide is contracted to curate your adventure with a planned, purposeful itinerary. Efficient schedules, the best locales, skipped lines to enter uncrowded alcoves in top-rated tourist traps and authentic local eats. A local guru, he provides assurance that there will be nothing lost in translation under the guise he has done this before. Jesse’s strategy was less conventional. Dawn shifted into morning as he left us city center after doling out rapid fire instructions and a handwritten scavenger hunt list before tail lights vanished in a dusty plume. Armed with only our instincts and wanderlust, we were unguided and stunted by our inability to communicate using spoken language. Limited rupees, rising heat and hunger compelled us to create a strategy from our wayward escort’s list of adventures waiting to be defined. Pungent smells and the bustling of brilliantly bangled women in saris swaying colorful wares through the marketplace and hustling men negotiating business deals enraptured us. We rallied our stomachs for Jesse’s first challenge to order streetside chai. The sanitation grade tallied negative digits evidenced by wash water, dark as the discarded chai grounds of earlier customers. In short order, at Jesse’s behest, we choreographed a disco dance drawing multiple frequenters into a mini flash mob. While thrusting his hips and shooting his disco finger heavenward, a police officer inquired in rickety English about American cops. He boasted not carrying a gun but instead negotiated peaceful streets, helped control prison populations and boosted his base salary through rhishvat (bribes). Perusing Jesse’s scrawled list, our patron friends pointed toward a Sikh temple. We left our shoes and I mimicked other women, covering my head with the sir dupatta (scarf) gifted by an Indian coworker in the states. Inside a worshipper guided us on an impromptu tour of the temple, animatedly personifying his religion before we donned our shoes and returned to the boisterous streets. Next on the hunt would have been an impossibility anywhere in the western world. But, we were in India where elephants abound. Turning a corner, our eyes landed on a lurching gray hulk and his handler. Our hands did the talking to negotiate a ride for me atop the exotic beast. The elephant kindly bent one of his hind legs for me to climb and I somersaulted into the basket on his leathery back. I led the entourage with my companions trailing and a crowd forming around the pasty spectacle of a wannabe princess, tossed about as he lurched back and forth, swaying his body onward to the rhythm of his handler’s commands and the prodding of a mahaavat. The elephant and his handler learned of an opportunity to earn additional rupees and left us. We studied Jesse’s wrinkled city map discovering that we were only six blocks from the pre-arranged lunch destination. Jesse, all smiles greeted us with a confident achha head wobble. Together we broke naan and recounted our adventures. His confidence in our capacity to navigate foreign circumstances didn’t allow the opportunity to get lost in his translations but instead to become the gurus of our experience. Enabled to move to our own pulse in his beloved city, our pictures were better than anything rupees could have purchased. Sometimes the fears and pre-conceived itineraries we pack for the journey are better left at home. We didn’t bother to imagine what the following days of our trip would bring but soaked up all the Tikka Paneer our frames could hold.