city shots

The Chai-Wala in the alley next to my Amedabad hotel made the best chai I've had so far, at the tender age of 8 or so.

These are shot from moving rickshaws through the streets of Amedabad.

Rollin' with the homies.

The mean streets of Bombay or Mumbai depending on who you talk to! Cricket, I don't get it. These kids were an awesoome BMX/B-boy crew. The one in the striped jacket wanted me to kiss him on the cheek so I made him do a bunch of flips and stuff first, then he gave me his phone number and told me to come over for dinner! I thought it was sweet but didn't accept the invite.

Fresh Fruit juice is my favouritest part of India I think. In Canada we pay like $10 for fresh juice, here it's equivilant to $0.75! There's a drink called faluda, it consists of ice cream, fruit and vermicelli noodles and some other mystery ingredient that looks like fish eggs. I haven't had the balls or the stomach to try it yet...

Udaipur Holi Festival

Udaipur, Rajasthan!

HAPPY HOLI! I don't know if that is how you spell it, Holi is a festival where every one goes nuts smearing eachother with coloured powder! The photo of me with green on my face isn't even half of what was to come the following day...I was cleaning colour out of my ears for weeks!

The tall woooden srtucture in the photo below was to be a giant bon fire (example to the left) I have a wicked video of what it took to light the giant fire, where they proceed to shoot fireworks, it almost cause a riot and wound up with the electricity to the town square put out! What FUN!

Photos from Amedabad!

This was an unusual site in Amedabad. A non-functioning well that descended some 100ft. underground. Quite ornate like many things in India. It was situated in the middle of a neighbourhood and seemed that no one paid it much attention. In fact the only other people around were a couple kids who, as me and my Australian friend reached the very bottom, proceeded to hawk loogies, managing to hit the Aussie on the head! Upon exiting the well, we sat under a tree where a bird shat directly on my face. I had to laugh, what else could I do?

Satyagraha Ashram. I found it very well presented (unlike too many of the museums and galleries in India) And I bought half of the English books that were available in their book shop! Gandhiji was pretty cool. He's known as the Father of the Nation, if you don't know why you should read up about it. India has, to this day, a prevalent Caste system. Gandhi spoke out against this system and invited Harijans (lower caste folks) to live freely in the Ashram, which stirred dissent from many of the other inmates, but was quite revolutionary for his time. Caste, however, is still observed in many parts of the country.

I am here

I spent a couple days in Amedabad, Gujarat. Another Australian traveler described it as a hell hole, which sort of matched my experience there. Maybe it was from travel fatigue that I was sensitive and emotional. The worst of it was 2 creepers following me around one night until I managed to lose them (which I had to try really hard to do) The awesomest part of the city ws visiting Gandhi's Satyagraha Ashram. A little piece of amazing history there of which I will post photos soon.
From there I visited Udaipur, Rajasthan. I fell in love with the city and my original 3 day stay turned in a week or so...partly because I got ill...from what I don't know. The guest house where I stayed was lovely and family owned. The people I met were fun and the city is just beautiful with Mountains in the distance and the lake near by. There are lots of rooftop restaurants with spectacular views. I visited a temple in the mountains (the name of which I cannot recall) that was entirely carved out of white marble with something like 1400 exquisite pillars. A week in Udaipur proved to be quite enough for me and it was onward! Sick of being in cities I moped around Delhi for a few hours before boarding a bus for Rishikesh, and I am now in Himalayan heaven! Photos and more to come...

I met very friendly Prachi and her equally friendly but quiet husband on the train. Even though we barely spoke eachothers' languages we got along famously. They invited me to dinner and I accepted (even though many folks warn against that sort of thing.) I got a glimpse an Indian household and community.

The high lights of Aurangabad were the ancient cave temples of Ellora and Ajintha. Very detailed Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples carved out of mountains. Elephanta Island, Mumbai times 100! Flash photography was prohibited so these photos are from the outisde, one at ground level and one looking down from the cliff.