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.