iphone pics from India

 Old Aunt Becky living it up on the international flight with her tiny bottle of wine.

In Dubai, they have roundabouts.  They are nearly as fancy as Carmel, but people actually slow down when they are driving inthem.  Actually, all drivers in India terrified me except in roundabouts because they also slowed down. I could have taught them a thing or two about putting your car on two wheels.  That's probably why my tires are getting worn out on the right side of the car.

A person really lets their guard down after traveling for 18 hours.  I can't believe I had the whole thing.  Now, I will only eat Mc Donalds in Dubai.

Got us a beer (3.2%) to celebrate Dan's 30th birthday in Kolkata.

Me and Aunt Mary on the way to the wedding cermony.

This one has been posted before but I think its a great picture.

Beautiful ladies at the reception walking the red carpet.

Humanian's Tomb in Dehli.

A wedding and two Birthdays!  It was full of celebration!  Happy Birthday Christina!

Me at the Red fort in Dehli.

This is horrible.  I can't believe that I posed for this picture.

Me and AB at Taj Mahal  at sunset.

The white people all out on their own.  We found a great Bengali resteraunt to enjoy our last night.  Thank you India for a truly life changing experience.

Last Days in India

Eventually, we had to think about ending our memorable tour and loading up the tourist bus and heading home.  Not before taking in the morning on our terrace just outside our rooms.

Despite John walking around brushing his teeth like he owns the place, I could get used to palatial living.  But we loaded up and headed back to Kolkata for a few last days.

Our Indian family must have had enough confidence in us (or was tired of us) that they set us loose on the city for the whole day.  One whole day of a group of white people navigating ourselves around not speaking any Hindi.  And we did it!  We bargained for taxis, had tours thrust upon us without asking, rode the subway, ate street food, found Churches and pit toliets all on our own.  We found a Jaan Temple that had a nice garden and beautiful tile work.

There was lovely mosaic work everywhere.  I couldn't possibly take enough pics. At this point, I kind of put the camera away and let Aunt Becky and Dan to take pictures for all of us.

We visited the Victoria Memorial.  A massive building the "Indians" built to honor the Queen.  It was pretty and nice gardens.   A little lacking in public restrooms.

What they don't lack in is whimsical trash containers. 

This was the offical Second To Last Day--eat anything that could give you dysintary.  Becky an Dan started with Papri Chat--Indian Nachos.

Who's that guy?  An excited tourist.

This may be the best meal they ate all week!

We found ourselves a Catholic Church.  It was quite nice and open for prayer.  They had a small gift shop.  Aunt Becky bought us votive candle holders.  When we returned to the US, the price tag sticker was very hard to get off.  With some goo-gone, I got it all off and then threw it in the dishwasher to get the goo-gone off.  When I got it out of the dishwasher, the screen print of the church had dissolved.  Oh well.  At least it was a charitable donation.

The last day in town, we vowed not to leave our street.   We walked around and did our shopping and lunching close to Kingkini's parents.  Not many people in India drink, but a crazy number of them smoke.  This is a picture of a tobacco stand where you could also buy a snack (like a mini 7-11?)  I liked how the bags off snacks were all together in a line for display.

this is the nice quiet street that Kingkini's parents lived on.  It was just across the street and down the block from our hotel.  It was an easy walk. 

Here's the elementary school at the end of the street complete with a school bus.  All the kids wore uniforms.

We had our last leaf of paan.  We were first introduced to it on our second day in India by Kingkini's uncle.  Then we had it again at a restaraunt.  We decided to have it one last time from a street guy.  Turns out paan is full of tobacco and other sorts of natural addictive drugs.  It also makes you feel great so there is probably some meth in there too.  Who knows? 

One last look at our hotel before we left.  The staff was amazing there and we were sad to leave them.  They were probably sad to see us go as we provided them much entertainment.  For example, Christina wanted to buy a beer (for the 4 of us to share) and they tried to talk her out of it. But she insisted so 2 of the bellboys carried it up to the room for her and opened it.  Those Americans with their loose morals.

More Jaipur

So we took the elephants up to this palace over Jaipur.  I don't really remember the specifics of the palace.  Lots of stone carving, kings, wives, etc.  It was all starting to run together in my mind and I was really thirsty.

Beautiful Lady in fresco alcove as we enter the palace.

Gigantic Lady in alcove.

The frescos have held up  well over the years.

This is the room where people would trade goods--silks, spices, etc.  The whole place was covered in mirrors and glass so it was very reflective. 

There was some restoration work going on at this palace.  They were regluing the mirrors and tiles.  We were impressed by this steel scaffolding as most scaffolding we had seen up to this point was made entirely out of bamboo.

Since this palace was up on a hill, there was the pesky problem of getting water to where it was needed.  A system was devised to collect rain water and also to pump it up from the man made lake at the bottom of the hill.

Looking up from the palce to the 2 forts beyond.

I think this is the only picture I have of our entire group together.

We spent some time hanging out the windows like dorks.

Looking down from a terrace, these were the pots to make curry for all the servants--500 servings at a time.  it was bigger than a hot tub.

One last look at the fort with the giant cannon that we didn't get to see.

Instead, we saw this lovely palace that was built and then a dam was built to create a lake around it.  Yes, this was on purpose.  First for security and second for the cooling lake winds in the summer when the mountain palace got too hot.

Then we went to an astronomy/astrology plcae that was used to determine the earth's placement in the solar system. It was also good to use for time of day and seasons of the year based on the stars in the sky.  Completely functional to this day.  It was pretty interesting. We had heard the entire trip that Jaipur was the place to shop so I had the itch to go spread my rupees around.  I did get some stuff for the kids and a pair of uncomfortable shoes.  Then, back to our palace hotel and to bed.  We were heading back to Kolkata for 2 more days before departing to the US.