Vol 87 India Part 3

Here I am with Cindy and her sister in the middle and my hostess Anu on the left. After breakfast I called my next couchsurfer and asked her if it was too soon for me to come stay with her. She said "No way! Come on over!" So I said my goodbyes to Sanjay and Anu and my fellow CSers and hopped in an auto rickshaw.

Here's more photos from the auto rickshaw.

Crappy crap everywhere.


I like this one.

Dental office.

Garbage bins.

Here's something I saw a lot of. People living on the sidewalk in makeshift tents. The slightly luckier people get to live in a slum. Sorry no slum photos.

Imagine! Living in a tent on a sidewalk.

This photo has a sidewalk tent and the next thing I want to talk about. How much weight can be hauled on a cart or rickshaw or bike. Look at the size of the load that poor little donkey has to carry!

Bunches of handmade brooms on a scooter.


This was the worst case I saw of hauling too much. These are bicycle rickshaws, 3 of them , and they are each loaded down with God knows what. The guy in front has 5 bundles and the 2 behind him have 4 each. They were struggling to pedal.

One-legged rickshaw driver.

Napping rickshaw driver. By the way, I cannot ride in a bicycle rickshaw because my legs are too long. I simply cannot get into the seat. Funny, huh?

This guy was picking recyclables out of garbage bins.

Women is saris ride side saddle on scooters. I did this with Priyanka, my next CSing host, one day when I was wearing a skirt.


From the back seat of an auto-rickshaw.

I arrived at my next hosts place and was I ever happy. Priyanka was wonderful. So lovely and kind. Her husband came home with their older boy, Dhruv. Very nice guy. They fed me samosa's and juice then invited me to have a nap.

Here is Priyanka with the younger of her two sons, Arjun. I showed Priya the fabric I had bought and she took me to her tailor nearby to have it stitched into a traditional salwar suit. That's not it.

On our way out we came across this dude in the parking lot. He is re-tinning pots. Wacky. When a pan gets old and thin they re-tin it instead of throwing it away.

We went to Priyanka's family home, which happens to be a hotel. There were quite a few people there when we arrived and more arriving constantly. You see, this was a big week for the family. Their youngest daughter, Priyanka's sister was getting married!

No, I'm not kidding. I got invited to stay with a Hindu family in India the week of their daughters wedding. I was Priyanka's first CouchSurfing guest and I felt so honored to be invited to the wedding. Again, imagine! Would we invite a stranger to stay with us the week of a family wedding? I was nothing but grateful and happy the whole time I was with them.

As an added bonus, this was a vegetarian family. Again, not kidding. I thought I'd died and gone to vegetarian heaven. It was a a giant Indian, veg food fest. And they loved me because I ate and loved everything. A western woman who loves spicy Indian food.

Shortly after we arrived lunch was served. Dal, veg masala (curry) and roti. Unbelievably good. Wow good.

The only down side was I was not allowed to help. They have a staff of older women and young guys who do the cooking, under the supervision of Priyanka (the eldest of the 4 daughters, and so the one with the most family responsibilities) and her mother.

Here is one of the house maids in the tiny kitchen.

And another. This one is rolling roti, an Indian flat bread.

She cooks them over an open flame.

Priyanka is a talented artist. Her paintings were all over the hotel/house. This was my favorite. The hotel was closed to guests as they needed all the rooms for the family arriving from out of Jaipur.

This is Prithy, one of Priyanka's sisters, with her son asleep on her lap. They sit on the floor alot.

After lunch Priyanka and one of her Aunts and I went to do some quick gift shopping. They were looking for baby clothes (the 3d sister had recently had a baby girl) and I was looking for a wedding gift. I asked their advise and they steered me towards blankets so I bought a nice bed set. Sorry, no photos from the shopping excursion.

When we returned home it was time for tea with sweets. Indian milk tea has become a big favorite since I arrived in Oman. It's Lipton tea with condensed milk and sugar. Sweet and creamy and good. Indian sweets are quite different to western sweets and I dare not try to describe them other than to say they are often made with milk and something of an acquired taste. Luckily, I had already acquired the taste for them living here, where the Indian population is so great that we have Indian restaurants on every corner.

Then it was time for dinner. Potato masala, veg masala and roti served with a mango pickle to die for. So good.

Every Hindu house has an altar of sorts. Here's some of the little boys eating dinner while facing the altar room.

Couldn't decide if I liked the photo that showed the room better or the boys better.

After dinner we went outside and the women started singing songs to Sweetie, the bride, to tease her. She's the one in the back with the flower on her sleeve and the green scarf. That's the Mom on the left. She led the singing and played the drum.

The older ladies sat on chairs.

The men watched. That's the Dad in the back.

We headed back to Priya's apartment where I had a chance to talk to her about what her life is like, as a woman, in India. Women are encouraged to educate themselves now and then work, but once they marry they are expected to stop working and take a more traditional role in life. Priya and her 3 sisters were all well educated and successful before marriage. But Priya and her 2 married sisters were frustrated and bored with being "just a housewife". Sweetie's fiance had told her she can continue to work after they're married. Theirs was not an arranged marriage, as is the norm, but a love match. They met at work. An exception was made in allowing them to marry.

Priya and her husband gave up their bedroom for me, sleeping with their sons in the other room. I was able to log into Messenger on their laptop before going to bed so I got to chat with Mom across the world. Gotta love that internet!



The days video. There aren't many family photos of this day as I was trying not to be an obnoxious Westerner in the house. Priya's family had disapproved of her joining CouchSurfing so I had to win them over before I could stick a camera in their faces.

That all changed the next day.....

Vol 86 India Part 2

When I got up the next morning this happy lady was at the front door. She was selling plastic bags of chat (snack) mix. Anu bought a couple of bags from her and off she went. I went into the bathroom, took a shower and when I came out, Anu's housemaid was sweeping the floor in front of my room. After getting dressed I recounted my money. My wallet was untouched. My money belt was not.

I had purchased 4 bundles of 500 rupees notes from a currency exchange place at the Muscat airport. The bundles come with one bill wrapped around the rest to hold them. One of the bundles in my money belt was missing 2 500 rupee notes and the note wrapping the remaining notes was askew. It was pretty damn obvious.

What to do? Clearly, I had been stolen from. But by whom? Only Anu and the cleaning woman were home. If it was Anu then I should say something. But if it was the cleaner, who could blame her? I had left money unattended in my room while showering in a country full of ridiculously poor people. I had done what every India guide book warns not to do. I did not want to get her in trouble. And 1000 rupees is only about 23 dollars.

But what of the 500 rupees I suspected were taken from my wallet the night before? The cleaning woman was not there at that time. IF that money was taken then it had to have been Anu. But I was not sure. I wanted to talk to Cindy and her sister, the other couchsurfers staying in the house before acting.

While waiting, Sanjay and Anu's daughter came home and walked me to the corner store. Of course I took my camera along.

These little goats were hanging out on the sidewalk just down the street.

India really is as poor as I'd imagined.

Everywhere, there are people just hanging out on the streets and sidewalks.

Or sleeping.

These kids were picking through garbage, pulling out the recyclables. This is a common way to make a little money.

I bought some sodas and returned to the house to wait. Snapped this from the deck. It was weird to be around Anu. Did she take my money?

Wouldn't it be kinda nice if there were still street vendors in North America? Bringing fresh picked vegetables to your neighborhood every day?

Cindy and her sister returned from their walk and we went into their room and discussed what to do. I decided to say nothing about the theft and we decided to avoid Sanjay and Anu for the rest of the day. I had another place to stay but I did not want to impose on them until the following day. More about why in the next post. We told them we wanted to go shopping and off we went.


I have lots of blurry photos taken from auto-rickshaws. This is a tailor on the right and some sort of food on the left.

Another sidewalk scene.

These guys had just finished bathing and were hanging around to dry. Later we saw a naked (gorgeous) man squatting on a busy sidewalk in a market area bathing from a bucket. Not something you see every day in North America. I was so stunned I didn't take a photo even though I was carrying my camera in the "sneaky sneak" position.

This was the one attractive building I saw in Jaipur but it was closed for renovations. I know there are more attractive buildings in Jaipur I just never saw them.

More scenes from the auto-rickshaw.

Now we are approaching the city wall/gates. Jaipur is called the "Pink City" in all it's tourist brochures because a butt-load of years ago some royal person or other was visiting and many of the buildings were painted pink in his honor. I'm guessing that was pretty nice back then but by now all the paint was faded, cracking and peeling.

There's Cindy and her sister in the lower left corner. And there's the city gates. These are kept in nice condition.

Detail of the gate.

We headed into a market area and browsed around a bit.

Crumbling buildings are normal in Jaipur.

Lots of people ride bikes. That thatch hut is a place to get water.

More of the market area. Looks good from a distance.

When you get closer you can see the decay. That's a little bakery specializing in something or other.

Again, cows really can be anywhere they like. Every one just moves around them.

A spice shop.

Some kind of rice/puff/pastry things.

The flower market. I couldn't decide which photo I liked better, this one....

....or this one so I'm including them both.

Don't know why but I love this photo. Perhaps because it was so cool looking in person.

We went to a restaurant that was recommended in our guide books and then headed back to Anu and Sanjay's house.



The day's video. Sorry, pretty crappy stuff from auto-rickshaws. Notice how much honking there is. You can never escape the honking.