Cooking with Auntie

This evening we had a memorable experience.....we cooked with Auntie (who we met yesterday). Auntie offers cooking classes to young girls and women around town, so that they can learn to cook. She agreed to do the same for us. She taught us how to cook 4 dishes - Dal, Chana, mixed vegetables and paneer masala. All of them turned out awesome, and I look forward to cooking them when I get back home (if I can remember!). It truly was a delight to meet with them and get to hear about them. I learned so much from Uncle about India, its culture and its future.

Upon leaving their house, we felt a sense of welcome previously unexperienced on our trip. Here are these people who are pratical strangers who open up their home to us, feed us, teach us to cook, show us around. They treated us as members of the family - not as guests. This truly was a delight and an inspiration. It reminds me of what is truly important in life.....friends and family. You are a collection of many things, one of the most important is the people you know and the relationships you form. These interactions make up your life and shape you into who you are. Sometimes we forget this, but the hanging with Auntie and Uncle reminded me of this. Not only from their hospitality, but they way they talked, acted and showed respect. Ok, enough gushing.

We also did some shopping today along with seeing the Amber (pronounced Amer) Fort. It was the best fort we have seen but pailed in comparison to our evening.

No pictures can be uploaded today, sorry. But we will head to Bombay tomorrow to meet Ritesh's folks.

Jaipur

Last night we arrived in Jaipur, and its a much nicer city than Agra. Its a lot cleaner, and there is way more to do. Also, its not quite as hot. So this morning the first thing we did was straighten out our train ticket from Darjeeling to Calcutta. Its always a chore going to the rail station, as there are tons of hassles. But from there, we did a bit of shopping. We bought ourself a nice throw for our bed, along with two silk pillowcases and a shirt for me. We also had some lunch. Ashley has grown terribly fond of fresh lime sodays (thanks Rebecca).

From shopping, we headed over to Rebecca's host family during her stay in Jaipur. Auntie and Uncle Singh along with their charming daughter Rose. Wow, what a treat. I consider it the highlight to our trip to India so far. We visited with them and had some tea (I love Indian Tea, very flavorful if not slightly sweet). Then Uncle drove us around and showed us Jaipur. He took us up into the hills near town and showed us this area with tons of monkeys. We must have seen 500 monkey (see flickr)!!!!! It was absolutely crazy. It gets even better as Uncle invited us over for dinner. What a fabulous meal! It was our best meal in India, not only for the food but also for the company.

Cows, Monkeys, Camels Oh My!

Cow update- there are TONS of cows in Agra, all over the place! But I was talking to this nice guy on the train to Agra about the cows in Delhi and I said I thought they looked pretty healthy and he told me they are not. That when one cow in Delhi died they cut open his stomach and he had 59 undigested plastic bags in his stomach! So now I am not as totally excited when I see cows, but it is still pretty cool to see them just sitting in the middle of the road!
Monkeys- we saw this large (in number) monkey family at the Red Fort in Agra yesterday...so stinkin' cute! The babies were being bad! Then this Indian family with a kid throw down a cracker to them and about 3 of them scaled the walk in NO TIME FLAT and were coming towards us to get more food!!!- Michael and I high-tailed it out of there, as our drs. scared us both with talk about rabies before we left America.
Saw our first camels in Agra...should see lots more in Jaipur, we head there tonight via train.

India is amazing! Some things I of course don't like...like all the sickly looking street dogs they are EVERYWHERE, but I am loving so much other stuff about it! life in America seems like a B&W tv show compared to India which is in techno-color with surround sound!!!

Taj Mahal

Yesterday, we visited the Taj Mahal. It was absolutely amazing....one of the most memorable sights I have ever seen. We got up early to beat the crowds....around 6:30 am. We wanted to get up early enough to watch the sunrise, but that just was not going to happen. But we arrived at the Taj around 7:30, well before it was crowded. We walked out to see the Taj, and both Ashley and I were taken aback by the beauty of it. It really is an imposing figure, and what a testament to love. For more details on the story behind the Taj, check out the wiki page. But basically the Taj was built by an ruler of India as a testament to his wife that died giving birth to their 14th child.

Some other thoughts....
- Its intriguing that the national symbol of India (or at least what we perceive it as) was built by Islamic leader and has a mosque. Since India is majority Hindu, this just seems odd.
- Because its built on this marble base, it appears to float in the sky. It is just there.
- Agra is really hot, like absurdly hot. Plus, there are intermittent power outages. We wish we had day tripped it here, as opposed to staying two nights. Plus its really grungy.
- We had a great train ride to Agra, we sat with two lovely young people. One worked for a NGO and gave some insight into Indian life and what their challenges are in development. We also discussed American Politics, and its good to get outside perspective....but are not surprised at their comments - they dislike Bush and think he is an idiot.
- Both Ashley and I are having sinus troubles. Congested with sore throats.....Ugh!
- Our hotel in Agra had English speaking channels, so we watched a lot of TV since Agra sucks and we are sick. Even "Home Alone" is good in a pinch.
- Two sets of people have asked to take photos with us. The first time it was a little boy who dad asked us. Then it was a group of male teenagers. Strange, I guess we are a freak show.
- Finally.....photos are posted!!!! Not a lot due to our limited connection time in India, but we got some up. We had to upload them from an internet cafe.

Holy Cow

I was so happy yesterday to see 4-5 (i can't remember exactly b/c i was so excited i lost count) cows walking down a busy Delhi street yesterday, they looked really fat and fine! Also yesterday while we were in Old Delhi (crazy, crazy, crazy place!!!!) we saw a whole bunch of monkeys playing on the overhead electrical wire and one of them was holding a baby monkey- too cute!
The food has been wonderful. Very spicy- wondering how I will be able to handle Thailand. The weather has been hot, really hot and really humid. BR cannot hold a candle to Delhi for the humidity- i am sweaty the minute we walk outside. We cannot seem to drink enough water. Really enjoying our time here so far...

India is Crazy, but we love it

So, we spent our second full day in India today and I have to admit that we are starting to get enchanted by it. It surprises us at every turn, and while not all surprises are good ones we are falling in love. Today, we had a great day. We started out by buying the train tickets we didn't get yesterday.....it was easier this time. During the process, we met this wonderful Brit named Jody who hung out with us all day. It was great to meet such a nice person, and have an English speaker to do things with. She had just arrived in New Delhi also....so we were on the same level when it comes to understanding India.

First off, we went to the Red Fort. On the way, we stopped and had a smart lunch at a local joint. It was more in line with the prices I expected for food compared to yesterday. Our meals ran about $.75 a piece and they were better than average. From their we trekked over to the red fort and saw the sights. Its a beautiful set of buildings, built by the same emperor who built the Taj Mahal. We spent most of the afternoon there and then headed over to see a Mosque. We think we got ripped off by some con artists, but it was only for $2 so no worries. It was a beautiful mosque, but we only had 10 minutes to see it due to afternoon prayers. From there, we headed back to the metro station through Old Delhi. Old Delhi was intense. The streets are more narrower, there are more touts (hagglers) and beggars. It was intense, but we made it to the metro station after a long walk and several wrong turns. We took the metro to near our hotel and had dinner. Nice meal...now we are home to clean socks and underwear.

Some other thoughts (there are so many going through my head!)
- Its hot. Really hot, like full body sweat hot. Its almost unbearable, but supposedly you adjust.
- At times, I can't believe I am in India.
- We are totally paranoid about cleaning our hands with hand cleaner and are extra cautious about what we eat. (totally inserted for Pickle). For some reason (I think the humidity), I feel very grimy all the time. It might take some time to get used to it, but my days at LSU should prepare me.

Frogger New Delhi Style

The scariest part of India so far is without a doubt- crossing the street! It is like that video game Frogger. Cars, bikes, motor scooters, etc.- they all have the right of way and are going a million miles per hour all over the place (there are lanes, but nobody seems to use them!) Many times today I didn't think Michael and I were going to live to do another blog post, thank heavens they are honking at you the whole time!!!
Haven't seen any cows on the roads yet, but tons and tons of stray dogs in the roads, they seem to be much better at navigating crossing the roads than Michael and I are.
Happy to be back in our peaceful hotel for the evening.