First of all, I hope everyone enjoys this picture of an Indian sweet.  Called Pistapakita (as sounded out to me by the shop owner) this brightly-colored dough-based sweet caught my eye in a candy store in Jaisalmar.  Of course, Jaisalmar isn’t famous for its candies, but rather the camels.  Still, this candy was pretty good!  Although I have to admit I thought the dough was my much-loved sweet sticky rice at first, so the crumbly sweetness was a slight disappointment.  The dough is covered by an edible silver foil and a maroon red icing made of condensed milk.  I believe it’s Bengali in origin, as is much of the candies in Indian.

 And, of course - my update! I surprisingly successfully made it most of the way to Chiang Mai entirely by bicycle.  I split up my trip into Laos with a few boat rides (and the long and painful two-day trip along the Mekong is far overrated, if any prospective travelers are wondering) and am sitting in a reasonably fast internet cafe in Luang Prabang at the moment.  I’m looking forward to continuing into Southern Laos tomorrow - biking has actually been a lot more fun that I thought it would be!  Or maybe I’m misremembering it after the 17 hours on a hot, crowded, sweaty riverboat.  A riverboat that for some reason only sold beer - no water was available, even on the ten-hour leg!  Ouch.