Last night we were in our hotel room watching a movie. I commented to Bruce about the unusual music and noise out in the street. I said that something seemed to be going on outside so we went up onto the rooftop and saw a celebration happening in the courtyard opposite the hotel. We decided to go and have a look. A brass band dressed in white uniforms sported drums, saxophones, maracas and horns and were eagerly dancing and playing their instruments with great passion beckoning on the wedding festivities about to take place. It was a hive of activity out on the street. Word got around, it seemed, that we were out in the street watching.....women in beautifully gold woven decorated saris and amazing gaudy jewellery came out of the courtyard in droves to chance a glimpse of us. They were smiling and waving, excited to have us there watching. The Brides father sent a friend out to invite us to watch and follow the ceremony. We were very embarrassed as to how we were dressed/ presented. (I had a pair of 3/4 pants and a fairly ordinary top on whilst Bruce hadn't even combed his hair since we quickly went to see what was happening in the dark outside of our hotel)......we weren't exactly prepared for a wedding invite. Drums, chanting, dancing...I could feel it building to a climax. The official photographer arrived with a spot light that would blind you from a kilometre away I'm sure. Out of the lane way appeared a Cinderella coach covered in jewels and complete with two white horses in all their finery, sure to satisfy any little girls obsession of a fairy tale wedding. The Groom appeared and climbed into the coach along with his Mother, Sister and a few children. The wedding procession began. It was so exhilarating to see the joy on everyone's faces. Ladies with electric light hats on their heads walked beside the carriage strung together by electric cable attached to a generator being pushed behind the carriage by a man as the procession of followers danced and sang to the deafening music. People came from all around to join in the procession....the beggars on the street even participated. We spoke to locals not unlike ourselves just wanting to see the joyous occassion unfold. The procession wound around the lane ways for about an hour and a half before reaching the original courtyard once again where the Groom disembarked from his well lit Cinderella carriage and joined in dance with his family and friends. Fire Crackers were ignited and shot into the night skies. The smell of gun powder rich in the air and the noise echoing to and fro off the surrounding buildings made for an exciting atmosphere. The Groom was hoisted up onto the shoulders of family members and carried around before being carried into the courtyard. We didn't catch a glimpse of the bride at all.....not sure where she was. But what we experienced was magical and for these opportunities, I am extremely grateful I am here in Incredible India!
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This morning Bruce & I ventured into Old City Town of Vadodara....the old, the raw and basic of basic Indian Bazaar. After negotiating with the auto rickshaw drivers for a suitable fare and determining by photograph where in fact we wished to go (it is quite a distance from where we are staying), we boarded our auto rickshaw and headed to the less popular side of town for Westerners. It is humbling to be able to visit and experience such a bazaar.....it's something you've only seen on SBS documentaries or on the movies, free from tourists and touts. Westerners rarely visit here and during our 3 hours of wandering the tiny lane ways and alleys, didn't see any westerners other than ourselves. I had visited this area on my last visit here, however it was a first for Bruce. I am becoming quite comfortable with living here and culture shock seems to be evading my thoughts and scences now. I go about my business not giving a thought that I'm 'different' to those around me. Every now and then I become conscious that people stare but generally it's far from my thoughts. Along with becoming comfortable with living in India....your scences begin to return heightened to how I remember living unbothered in Australia. Every corner you turn a new unusual sight unfolds, the smells (good and bad) are rich in the air. The smell of crushed rose petals, burning incense, the smells of cooking street foods and the sounds of Indian life grace your ears. Little girls pat your arms to feel your white skin...their hands dirty but soft and innocent. The store vendors are glad of a smile and a friendly wave or a slight exchange of a greeting. 'Namaste' is the Hindi greeting word and it now rolls of my tongue easily. On our return to the Alkapuri area where our hotel is, we walked up to a popular cafe for the locals. The stairs are broken and rough, the door is heavy and large. The cafe is dark, we are greeted by three waiters dressed in suits and sandels. As we sat and perused the menu, we decided on Paneer Korma and 2 garlic Naan. The food was amazing and the Naan bread was the holy grail of Naans believe me! I am enjoying sharing my experiences with you but only wish I could share the smells and sounds that excite me each and every day. Enjoy my photos..........This is Incredible India! We've had such a busy and hectic lead up to the move to get over here to India, we haven't actually chilled out together for probably 6 weeks at least. We are here and there's an available weekend off for Bruce to relax. After a late breakfast in the hotel restaurant followed by a visit to the hotel rooftop to check out the days activities of the locals below, we took a stroll to our new house location about 10 minutes walk away. As we've not before orientated ourselves to the conveniences to our new home, we took a good look around on foot, checking out the in's and outs of whats close by. It looks very convienient to everything so we're very pleased about that. We found our way up onto the rooftop of our house also. Indian houses all have rooftop areas.....it's a feeling of freedom and you can see for miles (well at least as far as the smog allows...). The bird life is very abundant with huge eagles gracing the skies waiting to swoop and clutch an unsuspecting squirrel for its lunch. We called into a little bakery & sweets shop to have a look at what unusual wares they vendored. The shopkeeper insisted we taste test his Indian sweets, so I'm really not sure what we were eatting, however they were tasty and opulent looking. He was telling us they had crushed flowers in them. You don't see sweets of that sort in Australia..... We wandered the streets and found Indias answer to Max Brenner....'The Chocolate Room'! We didn't indulge ourselves but many were sipping on the thick hot Choc drinks served in the typical egg shaped China mugs. We weaved the lane ways then successfully negotiated the hectic midday traffic of the main road taking us back to our hotel. Sitting at the writing desk in the hotel room looking out onto the street hived with activity of late Saturday afternoon in Vadodara, I chance see a sight too good not to excite my electrician husband by extreme lack of work place health and safety....a long and lanky Indian shimmying up the electric lamp post to change an expired light bulb, swinging off electrical wires as he went. This place is so exciting.....if you snooze you lose! Tonight we have a dinner date with another expat couple who arrived here in India on the same day as us. They are French Expats who work for another company here in Vadodara different to that of Bruce's. I met the woman Andree a few days ago so think we'll be doing quite a few things together over the upcoming months. We've had such a busy and hectic lead up to the move to get over here to India, we haven't actually chilled out together for probably 6 weeks at least. We are here and there's an available weekend off for Bruce to relax. After a late breakfast in the hotel restaurant followed by a visit to the hotel rooftop to check out the days activities of the locals below, we took a stroll to our new house location about 10 minutes walk away. As we've not before orientated ourselves to the conveniences to our new home, we took a good look around on foot, checking out the in's and outs of whats close by. It looks very convienient to everything so we're very pleased about that. We found our way up onto the rooftop of our house also. Indian houses all have rooftop areas.....it's a feeling of freedom and you can see for miles (well at least as far as the smog allows...). The bird life is very abundant with huge eagles gracing the skies waiting to swoop and clutch an unsuspecting squirrel for its lunch. We called into a little bakery & sweets shop to have a look at what unusual wares they vendored. The shopkeeper insisted we taste test his Indian sweets, so I'm really not sure what we were eatting, however they were tasty and opulent looking. He was telling us they had crushed flowers in them. You don't see sweets of that sort in Australia..... We wandered the streets and found Indias answer to Max Brenner....'The Chocolate Room'! We didn't indulge ourselves but many were sipping on the thick hot Choc drinks served in the typical egg shaped China mugs. We weaved the lane ways then successfully negotiated the hectic midday traffic of the main road taking us back to our hotel. Sitting at the writing desk in the hotel room looking out onto the street hived with activity of late Saturday afternoon in Vadodara, I chance see a sight too good not to excite my electrician husband by extreme lack of work place health and safety....a long and lanky Indian shimmying up the electric lamp post to change an expired light bulb, swinging off electrical wires as he went. This place is so exciting.....if you snooze you lose!
Tonight we have a dinner date with another expat couple who arrived here in India on the same day as us. They are French Expats who work for another company here in Vadodara different to that of Bruce's. I met the woman Andree a few days ago so think we'll be doing quite a few things together over the upcoming months. This is the treat we're in for next week. One of THE main festivals in The State of Gujarat, the International kite flying festival. Kites do battle all over the skies of Vadodara and the last kite flying is the winner! The idea is to have your kite string so strong and some are coated in crushed glass to cut the opponents kite strings. It's 'cut throat' stuff....literally. Scooters and motorbikes are all wearing protective wires so kite stings glide over their heads so as not to decapitate. There has been many fatalities in previous years of people riding motorbikes during this time. Guess coming across a fallen kite string covered in glass wouldn't be a good thing riding your motorbike at 60km. We've been invited to a gathering that day at 4pm. When it gets dark, lit lanterns consume the day for hours to celebrate the kite festival. Today Bruce went to work (poor soul)....whilst I flitted about on my very first expat wife socialising event. I was picked up by Renkas' driver who also assisted me along the way with buying credit for my Indian phone number. Always good to go with a local.....you get the best deals cos they do all the talking.... On our way to Renkas' home, we stopped, wound the window down and grabbed a full bag of fresh flowers for 20 Rupee (30cents) which Renka put in beautiful bowls at the front door to welcome guests to her home. They were fragrant and offer good luck to those entering the house. The brunch gathering was quite large and thankfully the house is enormous. About 20 women and one man joined in to welcome me and another woman into the expat community. We talked for hours and I picked their brains on various subjects of uncertainties. I've had numerous offers of coffee dates and 'walk about the street' buddies to introduce me to the Indian Groove. Tomorrow I've been invited to visit a temple about an hours drive from here with a French family. Stay tuned for more exciting stuff!! We think we've beaten the jet lag with the gigantic sleep we had yesterday and last night. This morning Bruce went off to work for his first 'real' day working in India. He did do 3-4 days whilst we were over here on our orientation trip but today marks the beginning of his contract working in India. I wandered down to breakfast around 9am where I was greeted by a familiar waiter from our last visit. It blew me away that he asked as soon as I walked in if I would like my usual omelet choice of masala with extra chillie. He had a grin on his face stretching from ear to ear when I exclaimed the fact that he had remembered how I liked my omelet from 7 weeks previous. Guess it's a mark of a good waiter... I phoned my expat friend Renka today and had a chat. I'm being picked up by her driver tomorrow morning to do brunch with her and her friends at her home. I'm really looking forward to it. I went for a walk around the streets of Alkapuri (the suburb which we are staying in). I spoke, smiled and waved at locals......they are all very inquisitive and stare. The staff in the shops love to talk. One pair of Bruce's business pants had their hem coming down so I took them to the tailor across from where I'm staying in a little tin shed with a sewing machine on the floor and had the hem taken up. Cost me 10 Rupee which equates to approximately AUS 15 cents! Why would I bother to thread the needle when it cost 15 cents... Not only did I get the pants restored to their original state for 10 Rupee, the man gave me a quick Hindi lesson on how to say ten Rupee.....das Rupee with a roll of the tongue on the Ru....he had me repeat it das times until he was satisfied. He was really happy he taught me some Hindi. Tonight we have been invited out to dinner with Bruce's boss and his family. Looking forward to it. After a 23 hour plane trip with four connections we have arrived in Vadodara Gujarat India, on Tuesday the 6th January 2015 at 6:40am. THIS is the day that starts our Indian Adventure! On arrival in Mumbai, we cleared immigration and continued to the baggage carrousel to collect our bags. I had seen both of our bags being loaded on the plane in Bangkok from the comfort of my business class window seat so felt confident that they would both arrive in Mumbai. (Bruce lost his bag last trip so it's always at the back of your mind until you see it gliding slowly towards you on the belt at which point you give a sigh of relief knowing your possessions have made it to the intended destination). My bag spat out of the dispatch shoot and plummeted down onto the slowly turning belt followed by a few other bags. Patiently we waited...minutes passed...I could see Bruce getting fidgity. I tried to calm him but he said "why does this happen to me?....it's happening again" with his hands firmly planted over his mouth and a look of terror washing over his whitening face....we waited until the carrousel was exhausted of bags. There didn't seem to be a lost baggage desk but there was an information desk with official security guards with guns operating it. As Bruce was by this time in a bit of a state, I enquired as to where we may ask about lost baggage. They directed us to a counter where two nice gentlemen assisted us by wobbling their heads as Indians do and making phone calls. After about 40 minutes Bruce's bag was located. It had been loaded onto another flight out of Mumbai that was about to take off. The bag was retrieved in the nick of time and shot out onto another carrousel belt miles from where we were in the international terminal. I waited on a seat with our luggage while Bruce took the long journey to hopefully reunite with his wayward bag. After about 15 minutes, I saw a happily grinning husband approaching me with the said bag. We cleared customs and were then transferred by bus squashed like sardines in a can to the domestic airport about 5km away. We had about a three hour wait until our flight to Vadodara so sat patiently and people watched in the prehistoric departure lounge. Upon arrival in Vadodara, the temperature was quite different to that of five weeks previous....we sat on the transfer bus taking us from the plane on the Tarmac to the passenger arrival hall with teeth chattering...a cool 6 degrees greeted us along with the familiar smell of India and the orange glow of sunrise. As we walked into the arrival hall we saw a familiar face grinning as he approached us. A staff member from the Hilton Hotel with who we had good relations with last visit raced up to us from his Hilton Hotel airport stall all excitedly asking "Remember me?, Remember me?"...a shake of each other's hands from old friends reaffirmed the fact. It was nice to see a familiar face on arrival. Bruce also saw a fellow he had met last visit when he visited a factory to view supplies....sort of put a welcoming spin on our arrival even though we were extremely mentally fatigued. We arrived at the Hotel to four beaming familiar Indian faces eager to check us in. We showered once in the room and gladly cleanned our grotty furry teeth before retiring to the most comfortable cloud like bed. We slept all day on and off until Bruce woke me at 7:30pm to go and have something to eat. During the course of the day, a parcel was delivered to our room from one of the expat wives I'd met last visit. She had sent me a beautiful box of the finest butterscotch sweets India produces and a card welcoming and inviting me for brunch at her place on Thursday with some other ladies. Very inclusive gesture on our first day of arrival in a foreign country. |