a weekend of sight seeing, good food, and a great movie

September 26, 2016

We had a great weekend. On Saturday we went sight seeing in town. First we visited a 500 year old step well and mosque in old town, across the river about 40 minutes away from our house. The stepwell was built in 1400 by the supervisor of Sultan Mahmud Begada’s harem. 




It is made of carved sandstone and descends through five levels of carved stone columns. Since it is Islamic there are no representative carvings, such as elephants or people, only geometric shapes as is their custom.

Step wells are interesting structures and apparently were gathering places. The wells we have seen are large structures and usually can be approached from more than one side and you can easily descend the multiple levels to where the water is or once was. This one is not very well maintained but UNESCO is scheduled to come to Ahmedabad soon to look at potential World Heritage sites and it appeared that this site is being upgraded for the occasion.

We went out for lunch sharing a delicious biryani. Then, went back to our side of town to Sarkhej Roza, a once elegant and unique architectural complex. It is an example of early Islamic architectural culture of the region which fused Islamic influences from Persia with indigenous Hindu and Jain features. There was a mosque, a tomb and palace centered around a 17 acre tank, what we call a man made lake or reservoir. Work was started on the complex in 1445. The remaining jalis were beautifully carved.

We walked around the entire complex in the heat of the afternoon (in the 90’s) and it also lacked good maintenance. Ron took photos throughout and at one place two men asked Ron what he thought of Trump. Ron told them Trump was an idiot. 











The grounds and lake had liter just about everywhere except on the mosque grounds. The mosque is still functioning. 

As we came around a blind corner we happened upon an event where everyone was dressed quite nicely and we suspect it may have been a wedding celebration. 

We were greeted with lots of smiles and warm greetings. We were asked to remove our shoes once on the mosque grounds although we did not go inside the mosque. We visited the small museum which has various copies of the Koran in different languages. One copy was hand written in a beautiful Arabic(?) script.

Somewhere along the trek around the lake a young Muslim boy started walking with us but not saying anything. At one point we were confused which way to go and he showed Rahul and then led us to the mosque and the little museum. Ron gave him a tip and he was thrilled as he had not asked for any money.  He let Ron take his photo. As we were passing through the mosque grounds a group of men asked to have their photo taken with us.

We came home and got out of the heat and relaxed before heading out a restaurant where we hadn’t been before. It is in a five star hotel and was on the 9^th floor, outside in a covered area. The food was quite good but we have yet to experience what I call fine dining here. We are fortunate that our city is large enough to have restaurants that serve other cuisines as one can grow weary of the rich Indian food quickly. I think we have tried Caesar salad in many countries and we tried one here: Iceberg lettuce drowned in mayonnaise that had sugar in it, as does all mayo here. There were olives, red bell peppers, tomatoes and soft bread cubes pretending to be croutons. .

On Sunday we relaxed. Kamla and I walk at 8:00 each morning and at 6:00 in the evening for 45 minutes each time. It is part of her physical therapy for her back surgery recovery. In the afternoon Ron and I watched Eye in the Sky on a DVD I found this week at our bookstore. Geez we were on the edge of our seats almost the entire time. It was a good film and thought provoking, showing how complex the issues of drones/war are.

It was a good weekend and it is a good life.

Neighbors trimming trees, a walking tour of old Ahmedabad and a lazy Sunday

September 12, 2016

Yesterday, Kamla had her trees trimmed for winter. It took two men working for hours to trim, and stack the trimmings. One man was paid 500 rupees, about $7.50. The other man is her gardener so I doubt there was extra pay outside of his monthly pay for him. The tool was a manual curved saw blade on a long bamboo pole. Perhaps they used other tools but I didn’t see them. I didn’t actually watch the process but saw the results.

This morning a beautiful woman showed up with two small children. The
girl is probably two years old and the boy five. As the woman cut the branches off the limbs and cut the limbs to size, the children would carry the wood to a stack and the woman moved the leafy small branches to another stack. She used a curved blade on a wood handle. She worked smoothly and efficiently. According to Rahul they will take the wood home and let it dry for a month then use it for cooking. I asked permission to take photos.

After about ten minutes a tri shaw lorry driven by her older son who was 13 or 14 came up to the work site with her husband and older daughter. The entire family is quite attractive. They loaded the wood into the rear compartment and took the useable wood home. I promised to give them prints of the photos and arranged a time for her return.

I had lunch with my friend Kamaldeep, a textile designer. She took me to a great restaurant in a historic hotel that has been restored. In addition to a delicious meal we visited their fabulous gift shop loaded with scarves of every description. I couldn’t resist a silk shawl in a rainbow of teal, lime and a deep fuchsia. Oh my, so lovely and at a fraction of the cost at home. You have to love that about India. I bought it as a gift to no one in particular but when I got home and showed it to Ron he commented that it would go well with a silk evening outfit I had made in Thailand. Ok I’ll keep it for me. Kamaldeep sells her shawls at this shop as well. Then she took me upstairs and showed me a terrific textile museum and shop which if I understood her correctly is a branch of Honeycomb International where Ron and I went Saturday afternoon.

September 15, 2016

Today it is 98 degrees and with the humidity factor if feels like 114 according to Accuweather.com. I stayed inside other than my morning walk with Kamla. It was already hot at 8:15. This evening at 6:00 will be worse but I am feeling fit with the extra exercise. Ron and I managed to sleep right through our walk this morning. I think the shorter days are affecting us. It is very dark at 6:00 now.

September 19, 2016

On Friday, Ron had a meeting with a CEPT professor who has been asked to put together a training program for sanitary inspectors and Ron was asked to help by doing the soft skills section of the training. We have our fingers crossed that this will come to fruition. Supposedly thee are 500 Sanitary Inspectors that work for Ahmedabad Municipal Council.  Ton said that if that was true, then 450 of them aren't doing their job.

After work, Ron and I went to three art exhibits on campus. Often art exhibits here are for one day only or maybe two days. We don’t know why that is but if we see one that looks interesting we go the day it is announced. Our favorite was an exhibit of photos from India taken with a mobile phone by a young man who was present. He spoke no English but an employee came over and translated for us. We had visited some of the sites he had photographed. Afterwards we went out for an Italian dinner that was yummy.

On Saturday we got up at 5:45 after waking up every hour during the night. Rahul came at 6:45 and by 7:00 we were on our way to a heritage walk through old town. Our guide was Nirav whom we had hired shortly after we had arrived. We hired him to show us where to shop for groceries, books, etc. He said he had never been hired for that kind of service as he is a tour guide. There were about ten of us on the tour and counting the Europeans who were there we have now seen 13 whites since our arrival in Ahmedabad. We did see Europeans when we were in the tourist town of Udaipur.

The walking tour was terrific as it was in the old quarter and concentrated on architecture and pols (self contained neighborhoods sheltering large numbers of people). We learned that the neighborhoods were homogeneous. For example one neighborhood might have Jains living there because they have a strict diet. The only animal product they consume is milk but they also do not eat anything grown underground such as root veggies. But neighborhoods abutted each other and the guide reported that people got along and that the segregation was due to having similar religious or cultural values. Some pols were virtually small villages, traversed by narrow streets and usually terminating in squares with community wells and chabutaras for feeding birds.

Because all the trees had been cut down to build the city, the birds had left.  In order to attract the

birds back, these elaborate bird feeders were constructed in the inner city. The feed was kept in a chamber at the base of the high rise feeders and they were designed and constructed so cats could not get to them. The pols were protected by gates, cul de sacs and secret passages. So we saw very fine Indian Islamic monuments and beautiful Hindu and Jain temples.

The carved wooded houses were amazingly preserved; some over 400 years old. There were some havelis in the pols, large mansions with 45 bedrooms. We were allowed to pass through one of them and see their private chapel complete with holy men in attendance. We learned that the idols’ (three were displayed) elaborate clothes are changed daily.

Ahmedabad is being considered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and will be paid a visit later this year by the committee to see if it will be placed on the list of World Heritage Sites.

charcoal iron that must weigh close to 10 lbs

Very narrow streets in old town

This cow joined our tour

lazy dogs napping where they can

The local tailor

Typical old town "major street" scene

We came home to rest and to get out of the heat for a couple of hours. We had lunch and went back out to visit a small textile museum housed in a heritage hotel that was once the home of a wealthy textile magnate, Sheth Mangaldas Girhardas. The textiles are from a private collection and beautifully displayed in a well lit venue. There were photos of men and women who make the textiles and good signage explaining the techniques and tribes/villages where they had been made. It was a real thrill to see such fine and beautiful work. In addition they had a super shop of new and antique textiles, an outlet of where we bought our kanjari. Lastly they had a good collection of books on textiles for sale. I was too tired to spend much time in the shops but would love to go again and spend some time perusing them.

We came home and I took a brief nap after having not slept well. Ron read beside me in bed.

On Sunday we relaxed. In the morning I managed to drop one of our glass water bottles and when it hit the tile floor broke into a million pieces and the pieces of glass flew clear across the room. I had on sandals and a small sliver of glass slipped into the sandal and when I took a step I managed to drive the sliver into my foot. Fortunately, I easily removed it and Ron helped me put on a band aid. We spent 15-20 minutes trying to make sure we got all the glass up, particularly since Sankar does not wear shoes. We walked to the nearby mall to get a few things including replacing the two glass water bottles we have managed to drop and found some good stainless bottles. As we were taking the escalator down to the exit a man came running after us and handed Ron a bill for the plastic bag containing our items. I needed to go on down the escalator so I then could take the up escalator to pay the five rupees for the bag. The cashier had forgotten to charge me. Ah Incredible India! Then in the afternoon watched the DVD ’RACE’ about Jesse Owens. It was a good story but not a great film. However it is rare to find anything to see here so we have lowered our standards. Life is good.

The heat and an Aniversary Present

September 9, 2016

Today our temperature will be 91 but humidity will be 89% making it feel like 105 degrees according to Accuweather. Let me say it beats 120 degrees!

Most mornings Ron and I walk for 30 minutes between 6:00 and 7:00 depending when we wake up. We don’t use an alarm clock. I now am walking with Kamla, my neighbor who is recovering from back surgery. She is supposed to walk for two hrs a day so she and I walk in the morning and the evening for 45 minutes each time. I sweat a lot because we walk later, usually around 8:30 or 9:00 so the sun is up and we walk around 6:00 or 6:30 in the evening when it is still quite warm. But it feels good to be getting more exercise and I am enjoying our chats as we walk. She and I walk on the ‘green’, a little park like area in front of our houses.

Ron and I are planning a week long trip during Diwali, a week long Hindu holiday at the end of Oct and early Nov. On the previous trips to Myanmar (Burma) we bought some Naga tribal pieces at a shop that specialized in ethnic textiles and tribal items. The Naga tribes live on the Myanmar/India border. There are 16 tribes in this small state of Nagaland. We have a warrior’s belt and a helmet. The belt has a wooden scabbard but no knife. So we will be on a treasure hunt for a dao, the knife worn by tribesmen that was traditionally used for head hunting. I think it was the British Raj or Baptist missionaries who put a stop to head hunting in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. If possible I would like to pick up one of the tribal shawls worn by the men. Nagaland is in the extreme NE of India and is a mountainous state. We are really looking forward to this trip. Ron even traced the scabbard before coming here so if he can find a knife he will know if it will fit. We will be based in Kohima which gets 72 inches of rain a year.  I think that is about twice what we get in Portland.  We will visit three other villages during our stay. On the way home we will spend a few days in Calcutta, now known as Kolkata.

September 11, 2016

Friday night we walked up to the mall and ate at a restaurant there that we like. We thought they were open all day but when we walked in we were told they didn’t open until 7:00. It was 6:30 ish. But they said we could wait inside and showed us a table. We are in the midst of a 10 day Hindu celebration called Ganesh Chaturhi, which celebrates Lord Ganesh’s birthday. He is the elephant headed god in the Hindu pantheon. Families celebrate in their homes, work and in public. They buy a Ganesh statue some times made of clay and highly painted and worship it throughout the celebration. At the end or sometimes on the fifth day Ganesh is immersed in a large body of water such as the river or sea. Those made of clay eventually disintegrates. Those made of plaster or other materials pollute I would guess. Those who are environmentally conscientious put him in  a barrel of water.  After serving us or drinks, the manager came over to say they would be doing a ritual for Lord Ganesh and he hoped they wouldn’t disturb us and that we were welcome to join them. We jumped at the chance. We went to the foyer of the where a table was set up with a highly colored statue of Ganesh, who had a saffron robe and garlands of marigold flowers around his neck. There were food offerings such as dried fruits and nuts and a coconut still in the shell. A brass plate with seven ghee (clarified butter) candles were lit along with a few sticks of incense. The staff drew in close in a semi circle and the man with the platter waved it in a circle while recorded music played a song about Lord Ganesh’s life. All of us clapped in time with the music. When it was over we waved our hands over the smoke as the platter was brought in front of us and rubbed our hands over our faces and hair. Being Americans we find it so foreign to have religious symbols/rituals in public places. Thailand and Sri Lanka are Buddhist countries and government offices with have shrines to Buddha in the offices. We are sensitive to the fact not everyone shares the same religion but it doesn’t matter here. The predominant religion prevails.

As we were finishing our meal a teenager walked up to our table and started asking questions about where we were from and telling us about her dream to go to New York. It was apparent after a while that she was developmentally disabled. At one point she asked what our caste was and I told her we didn’t have castes in the US. After dinner we went to see Sully, our first film in months. Seats are reserved here so I picked seats that were more expensive that I was told would be the quietest area. You may remember our previous experiences where conversations ensue and continue throughout a movie here and cell phones ring, are answered and more conversations occur. It kind of makes us a wee bit annoyed/distracted. Well, these seats were perfect with fewer folks and no one was chatting or using their cell phones. Hurray. The movie was engaging, good entertainment but not art. We were desperate for a film and were happy with this one.

I got a bit queasy after breakfast his morning so I canceled my walk with Kamla and rested until my stomach settled down. I’m fine now. Yesterday was a difficult day for Ron. He had several battles with his computer in the morning. We use Quicken for our financial records/banking reconciliation and it isn’t working. He just got it repaired when we were in the US last month and now it is locked up again. He tried calling and got disconnected. The end result is we are both locked out of our bank accounts. Fortunately we keep a small stash of cash in the house so no worries. A Skype call Monday night our time should take care of the bank lock out but not sure what we can do about Quicken at this point. He was kind of grumpy as a result and it set our day’s plan behind schedule. No big deal.

We ran some errands with Rahul after lunch then at 3:30 left for a shop that specializes in hand crafted textiles from western regions of India and a neighboring region of Pakistan. I had visited the shop a few weeks ago but didn’t have much time to really explore it and I wanted Ron to see what they had. They have been in business since 1960. Mazharkhan has worked in his father’s shop for 35 years and was a wonderful host, showing us new and antique items. Ron has been looking for wood block hand printed shirts for months and we haven’t seen any in the style he likes. He had purchased two on a previous trip to India and those are faded. However the shop had scads of fabrics that were what we wanted and Ron order two shirts to be made. Yippee! Then Mazharkhan showed us many varieties of older fabrics in a variety of items such as blouses, shawls, kurtas, etc. Some were unbelievably exquisite.  We found a kanjari, a backless blouse covered in fine embroidery. We looked at quite a few of these but we kept coming back to one he had shown us as the embroidery stitches were quite fine. Each year we pick out an anniversary present together. Initially in our marriage we gave each other practical items such as a shirt or sweater. Ron’s mom, Sonia, said to us one year ‘You two are so boring’. HA! We agreed and started buying artwork each year instead. Now we can’t fit all those paintings and photographs, etc. on the walls. We will be celebrating our 31^st anniversary in November. We started collected textiles in our travels and now have a good number of them, some new and some old. Each one reminds us of the place we were visiting when we bought it. Thanks Sonia, wherever you are.

Not sure if I have mentioned this before but I find that many people who know us do not knock before entering the house. Kamla sends over food often and one of her servants just walks in and the other one rings the bell. Even Kamla just walks in. I think this must be standard practice here. It isn’t a problem but it is another cultural difference.

To Udaipur and back

September 7, 2016

On Saturday we left at 8:45: Ron, Sankar, Rahul and me. Sankar showered after cleaning the Badlani’s car and wore his new clothes we had given him for Diwali which is next month. It was supposed to be a 4.5 hr trip to Udaipur in Rajasthan. We arrived at 3:00. We stopped for tea and I wanted Sankar to get something to eat as all of us except him had had breakfast. Alas this shop didn’t serve food so we had tea then drove until we found a hotel and he and Rahul ate a lunch as it was now almost noon. Neither Ron nor I were hungry at this point after having a great French toast breakfast at home.

Along the way I observed groups of men walking on the road with red sashes tied around their waists. Rahul said these are pilgrims who will walk for 12-15 days to a particular temple (Hindu) and locals will feed them along the way as most are poor with no jobs. We also saw women who were carrying large bunches of greenery that they feed to their cows, but don't have grazing land for them, so they have to collect it daily for them.

We drove a bit more then let Sankar off at a town where he could take a bus to his village…near to a town as you have to walk in a km or two to get there. This is the reason we didn’t go with him to see his village. We could only assume the road there would be rough at best. This part of Rajasthan is beautiful with rolling hills, mountains in the distance and lush vegetation and trees. Near the peak of the pass there were granite and marble mining operations. 

Along the way I read the Times of India that a sick cow had been taken to a vet who operated on the cow and found 100 kilos (220 pounds) of GARBAGE in her stomach: nails, screws, plastic bags, wire and clothes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is a crime and so sad.

We arrived in Udaipur and started asking for directions. OY! The streets are so narrow and oh so congested. We stopped frequently but ended up getting on one way streets, getting to blocked streets as they were filming a movie ,etc. We finally hired a rickshaw driver to lead us to a landmark near our hotel. From there a young man on a motorcycle led us the rest of the way. This town is more like a rabbit warren than a city with parallel/perpendicular streets. 

This all took over an hour and I thought Ron was going to jump out of his skin with
frustration with the traffic and driving. But we made it to a lovely small older hotel which we really liked. There was some confusion at check in but it all got worked out. By then we are starving and the manager offered to make us lunch…10 minutes he said… so we looked at a menu and ordered…then a staff member went to buy the ingredients. At a bit after 4:00 we got our lunch.

The hotel has been decorated with textiles and crafts from Rajasthan. All the walls and table tops had patchwork textiles tastefully done. In addition our room had some metalwork pieces. This town sells miniature paintings and these patchwork textiles and every other shop has the same items in different sizes and colors having the effect of making them common place and no longer very special.

We walked around town. The town is built around a large artificial lake and it is a lovely setting. I was amazed at how little litter there is here and the lake was clean except in coves where trash get trapped but even that was not bad for India. We were delighted to discover that we were quite close to the center of old town where all the sights were. We walked 10-15 minutes and were right in the center of things. 

Ahmedabad is not a tourist town. Udaipur is a tourist town and what a difference. For starters Udaipur is much cleaner and the bad news is about every third person on the street was a tout wanting us to ‘to come see my shop’ ‘no pressure to buy’. So every third step someone was talking you up or pulling your arm leading the way to his shop. After three days of this I was ready to scream and it had the effect of not wanting to buy anything. Because the town is old the streets are quite narrow and there are no sidewalks so you walk in the street along with scads of tourists and locals, many motorcycles, bikes, cows, cars and mini trucks as large trucks can’t fit on these streets. Frankly it was a zoo.

For dinner we walked about three minutes from our hotel to an upscale 350 year old heritage hotel that has been fully restored and ate at their outside restaurant that is surrounded by the lake and gives a view of the old town across the water. Ron had forgotten his camera and I told him we could order then he could get his camera since we were so close. The ambiance couldn’t have been better, very romantic and the food was okay but nothing special. Gujarat is a dry state but not Rajasthan so Ron had a beer, his first since he left the US in late March. Rahul told us later he had two beers with his meal.

After our meal we walked to the end of the walk over the water where locals were enjoying their evening. It is cooler here and there was a constant breeze coming off the lake. There were about 12-15 young men singing Bollywood songs and one of them was playing a guitar. We stopped and listened to them for 15-20 minutes and enjoyed watching them and seeing how much fun they were having.

Sunday

Today was sight seeing day. We woke up at 6:00 and took off around 7:00. It was very quiet that time of day with very little happening. We were snagged by a tout so visited his miniature painting gallery and spent a long time there but were not sure of his prices. There was pressure to buy but Ron refused…thank goodness.  We enjoyed walking around waiting for our café to open at 8:30.  We walked across the foot bridge to old town in search of Café Edelweiss. Doesn’t that conger up a quaint café with blue and white curtains and fresh baked goods? This is India not Germany or Austria so it looked like India…in need of paint for starters and a good cleaning with some bleach perhaps. We choose this place because they have espresso and cinnamon rolls. There were two left, yesterday’s rolls and weak espresso and fried eggs. The best part was the dining area had seven small tables. We sat one row back from the street so we could observe daily life but not be right next to the street. We were inside the building but the exterior wall was a metal door that retracted and lefts the café completely open to the street.

A vegetable vendor pulled his cart up to the house across from us and started selling his goods. Then a motorcycle drove up on our side of the street and honked his horn loudly. He had two large milk cans strapped on each side of his bike. I looked over and he had filled a small stainless bucket with fresh milk and someone from the second story was hauling the bucket upstairs and off he drove. Talk about home delivery! Next we saw a public works guy with a low wheel barrow coming down the lane. He was collecting garbage. He wasn’t driving a big truck as it wouldn’t fit on the lane but he emptied garbage cans into the wheel barrow and headed off to the next house or shop.

We met Rahul at the ticket counter of the City Palace Museum at 9:30 and stayed until 11:20. What a treat. The façade is 244 m long and 30 meters high. Construction was started in 1599 by Maharana Udai Singh II, the founder of the city. It later became a conglomeration of structures including 11 smaller palaces. An original structure was extended by various maharanas. In one area ’there are eight arches on the left to commemorate eight times maharanas were weighed here and their weight in gold or silver was distributed to the lucky locals.’

As we entered there was a staff member checking tickets and he

had a most magnificent moustache. I asked him how long it took him to make it look like that. He starting telling me the entire process including what substances were required. It takes 30 minutes every morning but what an authentic look. Many of the portraits of the maharanas sported similar moustaches.  There were beautiful tiles throughout the palace as well as other artifacts. There was mirror work that was unbelievable. At one point Ron took a photo of our portrait in a mirrored wall. Some rooms had every inch covered with mirrors. There were courtyards with wonderful views of the lake on one side and city on the other. There were exquisite mosaics of peacocks, a favorite bird in Rajasthan.

Afterwards we stopped at a café on the grounds and enjoyed people watching  while cooling off under a large umbrella with pleasant breezes and chilled water that cost almost eight times the normal price. Ron and I went back to the hotel to rest before lunch. 

After a rest we dashed back into town and ate a quick lunch before meeting up with Rahul and heading to the Bagore-ki Haveli. This gracious 18^th century home of a prime minister sits on the edge of the lake. There are 138 rooms. The haveli has been partially restored but after seeing the palace it seemed dowdy. There was a large room with scads of puppets and my favorite was a turban room filled with examples of many types of turbans made of various materials and various styles of wrapping. Turbans can represent caste, religion, and social standing. The room contained ‘the world’s largest turban’, 100 ft long and I forgot the weight but I think is was 60 lbs. It looks an awful lot like a coiled boa constrictor to me.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped by two restaurants to look at their breakfast menus. I noticed two hand pumped wells where people came to get their water. I have not seen this in Ahmedabad but it may be that this is a smaller older part of the city without regular water services. Once again I got my dander up when I saw a cow eating paper off a display of paintings on paper outside a shop. .

Again we rested then the three of us took a tri-shaw to the ‘rope way’, a cable car that takes us up a steep hill for sunset pictures and terrific views of the area. Rahul had never ridden in a cable car/funicular but seemed comfortable with the experience. When we arrived there was a line to get on the cars. Rahul seemed impatient and asked about the line. It only took 20 minutes to get to the front. Once it was our turn to line up for the loading of the car Rahul wanted to go to the other side and had an argument with the staff. He turned to Ron and said ‘I don’t think this is a good group to be with’. He was talking about others who were moving to get ready. It surprised both of us that he objected. It wasn’t as though they were dirty or poor or whatever but he didn’t want to be in the same car. As it turned out we had two Koreans who are working for a large Indian firm in our car and one Rajasthani man with his daughter, all very nice folks.

Once up top there was a large flat surface for viewing the 360 degree views. Ron and Rahul took photos. We had a wait for the sunset but again there was great people watching. Ron got some great sunset photos and we came back to town via another tri-shaw. 

We decided to go straight to dinner rather than going back to the hotel. We have decided on a place earlier in the day. After we walked to it we discovered it had closed and the owner retired…wish he had taken down all those signs that pointed to his restaurant .but we still wouldn’t have known it was closed until we got there. So we walked around looking for our second choice. This took some doing with lots of up and down lanes before we finally found it. Bummer, they were having some special event with the red carpet laid out with the traditional marigolds all along the edges and we were told we could not dine at their restaurant that night. No riff raff I guess. Damn, I was tired and hungry. We opted for an outdoor simple café on the water’s edge near our hotel. The meal was cheap and the food was mediocre. Hey I feel anytime we can travel, eat and not get sick we are doing well!

Home to bed and the next day we got up, had breakfast at another café this time over looking the lake from the rooftop restaurant. We had delicious espresso drinks, toast and fried eggs. Rahul wanted to stay and clean the car while we took in the Crystal Gallery above the famous Durbar reception hall that is part of the palace.

We took a tri-shaw there and back and the greatest part of that is we avoided all the touts! We couldn’t see the hall and gallery the previous day as there was an event in the hall. OMG. This restored hall is one of India’s most impressive halls. The reception hall had three chandeliers that weighed a ton each, beautiful paintings, portraits, textiles, etc. Then we went upstairs to the Crystal Gallery. In 1877 Marharana Sajjan Singh ordered this rare crystal from the Osler Company in England. He died at 25 before it arrived and it was stored all packed up for over a century. This incredible collection includes beds made of crystal, crystal tables, chairs, sofas, and lamps, dishes glasses etc. It was mind boggling and a feast for our eyes. We have travel extensively and have never seen a collection like this one. No photos were allowed; we even had to turn in our cell phones and cameras before entering. Although there was a relatively steep charge to see this it was well worth it.

Before leaving I bought one of the metal sculptures in our room. I loved that I didn’t have to go into a shop. We left at 10:45 and arrived home at 4:00, stopping for petrol and for lunch. 

We often spied overloaded vehicles carrying way too many passengers making the vehicle unstable. At times there would be 20+ people in a vehicle designed for eight passengers.

We asked Rahul to take a day off this week to compensate for being with us all weekend. He gets Sundays off normally. He refused saying he didn’t want to cause Ron any inconvenience. We said that Ron taking a tri-shaw one day wasn’t a problem but he is stubborn working for two stubborn people and refused to do as asked. He also said that he would never have the opportunity to travel like this and to see these sights given his income and his financial obligations. He said he really enjoyed being able to travel with us.