At the halfway point

Well,

We are two weeks into our trip here, and we have been at a hotel the past two nights for our mid trip break. The rest comes at a good time, as Whitney and I were getting over colds, and while we were here Renee got food sick. Also, we are very good sports, but being 'on' for two weeks straight, with our days stuffed full of activities, is exhausting mentally and physically. It's been tough as well meeting so many new families, just getting to know them and then having to say goodbye, only to start over in the next town.

We have a good internet connection here, so I figured I'd take a minute to upload some good pictures from our stays, and talk a bit about what we've covered so far. We started of in Rajkot, and saw a number of factories that made bearing races, rubber gaskets, auto rickshaws and stainless steel products. We visited a few temples, a meditation center, and ate a lot of food! We were still very naive about India, and hadn't stopped counting cows yet. A great example is this photo.

The family in this house would bake bread for the cows every morning, and they were clever enough to congregate at the correct time to chow down. We couldn't get enough of this and were such tourists, snapping away with our cameras while our hosts rolled their eyes.

Our next city was Porbandar. We spent only 2 whole days there, so we didn't get to know our hosts as well, but we had a great time. We visited the birthplace of Gandhi, which was very cool. We also visited caves that played an important part in the early life of one of their gods, a large concrete factory, and viewed the sunset from a mountaintop shrine that was hundreds of years old. Very spiritual.

I was also a big hit with the kids! I'm a little loath to post this photo, as it will ensure that the rest of my trip will be the equivalent of a human jungle gym. The kid on the left is my host's child, Math (I think that's how they told me it was spelled, but pronounced like Mech).

As you can tell, I'm having some issues with layout, can't get the photos and text to work right, but hopefully you get the idea. Next up was Bhavnagar. We spent 3-4 days here, and were here for the national kite flying festival on the 14th.

Later that evening, Devang got a call from his cousin, and said that one of his colleagues was throwing a party for his one year old grandson. Although I was very tired, we went to the party as it was supposed to be something I would regret missing. This thing was huge. There must have been 3,000 people there, and about 3 acres fenced in, carpeted, the perimeter was lined with catered booths, there was a huge sound stage, and the Punjabi pop band Deler Mohendi was playing. The family must have spent a small fortune. It was also proof that a lot of people around the world dance like white people. Truly an amazing site, and I got to experience Punjabi music live, which I enjoyed thoroughly.


As I mentioned earlier, we were here for their national kite flying festival, so that whole day was spent flying kites. There were kites everywhere, and every roof and terrace was packed with kite fliers. It's a form of play combat, as anyone who has read The Kite Runner may be familiar with. The strings are coated with glass particles, and it feels a little like sandpaper. You fly your kite and dive and swoop at an opponents kite, and right when you cross strings, you let out a lot of string so it's like a bandsaw cutting across the other string. I had a lot of fun, despite being such a rookie, and finally got the hang of it near the end of the night, cutting my first kite. I had cut one earlier, but it didn't count as it was on accident, and it was my terrace-mates... Oops! You have to tape your hands up to not get cut, but I still manage a few battle wounds.

After Bhavnagar was Wadwancity, and it's twin Surendrenagar. We were only there for a couple days, but we saw some very interesting things. In one stop that was very cool on many levels, we visited the Little Rann of Kutch, a wasteland made so by the yearly flooding of ocean water during the monsoons. It's a protected habitat of the Asiatic Wild Ass. As funny as it is to say, and hear them say it, we kept trying to tell them we usually call them donkeys. :-)

The main reason we visited was the salt farms that were mentioned in a previous post, and the region was so desolate that it made for some beautiful, and heartbraking, photos. Here is one of the salt rakers. They rake the salt crystals to encourage their growth, and the windmills save so much money on diesel, that it may allow the farmers to send their children to school instead of having to eke out an existence in the dessert. Very moving, and a direct way to improve the lives of these poor people.

My host Bhavin, seen here at his bearing factory, showing me a disassembled bearing, was kind enough to take me to their Rotary corporate cricket fundraiser to watch an entire match, which was just eight overs a side. It went faster than normal because one batsman had 5-6 sixes in the span of 4 overs and pretty much won the match single handed. I've been learning the game after an extensive teaching in Rajkot, and must confess to enjoying it more than Baseball!

After leaving Wadhwancity, we headed for Ahmedabad for some sight seeing before checking in to our hotel here near Anand. We visited Adalaj Wav, a 500+ year old step well used for collecting water in this arid region. It's five stories deep and very ornately carved. It was pretty amazing.

Later, we arrived at Gandhi's Ashram, where he stayed from 1915 to 1930, before departing on his famous salt march (hopefully my facts are correct). It was pretty touristy, but I found this quote writ large on the wall to be pretty moving.

We are still having a great time, and are looking forward to the last few weeks we have with mixed emotions. We welcome the new friends, but realize that every day brings us closer to the end. I have to wrap it up to get ready for our next Rotary meeting where we will give our speeches talking about us, our families, and our lives. We have all improved our public speaking so much, and the progress is evident. It's been a welcome break from our hectic lives back home, but we also can't wait to get back home to see our friends and family!

Hopefully you enjoyed the photos. I had at least two dozen more I wanted to put up, but I just don't have the time to do it. I'll have to do a separate post in the coming days of just humorous photos.

Take care,

Blake