Bombay to Aurangabad to Bombay
Oh my gosh - it was so nice to get comments from everyone! I should have turned that comment thing on earlier! My grandma! My sweet Aunt Netti! The always lovely Amelie! The always witty Joel! Hee hee hee! I miss you all so much! :)
So Josh made it safely and even on time! I was so shocked to see how tall he is when I first saw him, it took me about 24 hours or more to get used to it - ha ha ha! I was looking at his legs wondering how they are so long! I am normal height here and Josh is quite abnormal. I had grown used to 5'7" as being a tall height for men.
We stayed 2 nights at the 5-star hotel, which is so nice! We went to Aurangabad for 2 days and now we are back to the Bombay hotel for 2 nights - leaving in the morning for Jaipur in Rajastan. I brought my caretakers over here before Josh got here and we had tea in my room. They had fun being here - before they came over, Aalam gave me a lecture about wasting money, but once they were here, they enjoyed themselves. They said they want to be my servants in America - ha ha! I'm trying to talk them into coming over and swimming in the pool today with the new med student that's here - Kyle.
We went out with Kyle last night and had a nice meal and a few drinks and we made a stop at one of the Ganesh altars in the streets. We walked up to the altar and I placed a few rupees in the box. Young boys offered us some bananas. They were men sleeping there, groups of men playing cards, and men just generally hanging about - no women though. When they celebrate this festival which lasts for 10 days, they push a Ganesh (the elephant god of wisdom) altar on a cart through the streets and a few young men who are very talented percussionists play a fervent drum beat and a lot of men, mostly young dance around together almost "moshing" at times and all of the women follow behind wearing all of their brilliantly colored sarees and salwars. I have some great photos of this which I'll post later. The climax of the festival is this Sunday when 100's of 1,000's of people gather at the beaches to place huge Ganesh statues in the sea which are made of a dissolving clay, so no environmental damage is done. We will miss this event because we'll be in Rajastan at that time. I'm almost scared of a crowd that size though, so not sure if I'd have the nerve to attend anyway.
In Aurangabad, we walked around gorgeous stone caves carved by Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain Monks from 200BC - 600BC(?) - the natural scenic beauty combined with the man-made ancient beauty of the cave sculptures and paintings gave us chills. We had a really great experience in Aurangabad. We climbed up an ancient fort/castle/mountain and hung out with monkeys. We saw a camel on the street. We visited the government dental hospital where the head of the department gave us an amazingly educational experience showing us x-rays and photos of really dramatic cases. He hasn't had the panoramic xray machine since 1991 and the clinic really needs one - he asked us if there was anyway we could help, so we will look into it when we get home. We had really good paan with our driver. We saw a few tombs and a water mill thing and the ancient gates and walls which surround Aurangabad (52 gates).
I'll post again later and put up some more photos and write about Rajastan.
Thank you again for all of your wonderful comments and for reading!
peace and love
So Josh made it safely and even on time! I was so shocked to see how tall he is when I first saw him, it took me about 24 hours or more to get used to it - ha ha ha! I was looking at his legs wondering how they are so long! I am normal height here and Josh is quite abnormal. I had grown used to 5'7" as being a tall height for men.
We stayed 2 nights at the 5-star hotel, which is so nice! We went to Aurangabad for 2 days and now we are back to the Bombay hotel for 2 nights - leaving in the morning for Jaipur in Rajastan. I brought my caretakers over here before Josh got here and we had tea in my room. They had fun being here - before they came over, Aalam gave me a lecture about wasting money, but once they were here, they enjoyed themselves. They said they want to be my servants in America - ha ha! I'm trying to talk them into coming over and swimming in the pool today with the new med student that's here - Kyle.
We went out with Kyle last night and had a nice meal and a few drinks and we made a stop at one of the Ganesh altars in the streets. We walked up to the altar and I placed a few rupees in the box. Young boys offered us some bananas. They were men sleeping there, groups of men playing cards, and men just generally hanging about - no women though. When they celebrate this festival which lasts for 10 days, they push a Ganesh (the elephant god of wisdom) altar on a cart through the streets and a few young men who are very talented percussionists play a fervent drum beat and a lot of men, mostly young dance around together almost "moshing" at times and all of the women follow behind wearing all of their brilliantly colored sarees and salwars. I have some great photos of this which I'll post later. The climax of the festival is this Sunday when 100's of 1,000's of people gather at the beaches to place huge Ganesh statues in the sea which are made of a dissolving clay, so no environmental damage is done. We will miss this event because we'll be in Rajastan at that time. I'm almost scared of a crowd that size though, so not sure if I'd have the nerve to attend anyway.
In Aurangabad, we walked around gorgeous stone caves carved by Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain Monks from 200BC - 600BC(?) - the natural scenic beauty combined with the man-made ancient beauty of the cave sculptures and paintings gave us chills. We had a really great experience in Aurangabad. We climbed up an ancient fort/castle/mountain and hung out with monkeys. We saw a camel on the street. We visited the government dental hospital where the head of the department gave us an amazingly educational experience showing us x-rays and photos of really dramatic cases. He hasn't had the panoramic xray machine since 1991 and the clinic really needs one - he asked us if there was anyway we could help, so we will look into it when we get home. We had really good paan with our driver. We saw a few tombs and a water mill thing and the ancient gates and walls which surround Aurangabad (52 gates).
I'll post again later and put up some more photos and write about Rajastan.
Thank you again for all of your wonderful comments and for reading!
peace and love
posted by mavis | 6:52 PM
1 Comments:
i have sooooo enjoyed what you have shared here! all my love, rebekamaizeymitten*
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