I am back!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. Several factors have conspired to keep me from updating: 1) my holiday (see below) 2) our ultra-dodgy Internet connection went down for a whole week 3) I’ve developed an addiction to a computer game that is eating up all my free time. Do not start playing World of Warcraft unless you have very strong will-power.

I’m sitting writing this entry in my brand new rocking chair. It rocks! (*snigger*) I bought it in a very non-whitey part of Hyderabad, surprisingly close to our apartment. The driver first tried to fit it in the car, but there was no way that was happening. After much to-ing and fro-ing, the shop owner agreed to bring it in his little mini-truck. I was standing by my car the whole while, standing out like a big white thumb. At a nearby food-stall there was a little girl sitting by her mother. She stared, aghast, and pointed at me. She poked her mother and clearly said something like “what is that?” Her mother was very amused, and I looked at both of them and grinned. The look of disbelief was so sweet. She must have kept pointing for at least five minutes. But, you know, it’s an interesting thing about India: you get quite a bit of amusment and interest and just plain awe, but it’s all extremely good-natured. I’ve felt more unwelcome in parts of Europe than I ever have here.

So the holiday was wonderful. As I said, we didn’t go to Delhi. There were five of us, and some people weren’t comfortable going there after the bombing. It worked out well though, because the trip we did do was so packed, I’m not sure many of us would have had the energy for Delhi. We went to Jaipur (this time to the city itself) and Agra. Our hotel was great, except the breakfast. We only tried it once. C and I bit into our pancakes and at exactly the same time said “don’t eat the pancakes” or rather “momth eaf fe phamphaketh”. They were rank. Imagine eating an oily dish-sponge, and you have some idea what these pancakes were like. The toast was only slightly less disgusting, so breakfast for me was a glass of juice.

We spent the first day doing the sites of Jaipur and saying ‘no’ to hawkers. C got very good at that, by the end of the day. We hadn’t expected to have a guide, and I hadn’t expected to be shuffled through a bunch of forts. (If we fell behind the unexpected guide actually clapped at us, and said “this way”. That’s not the way I like to see sites.) But it was enjoyable. He brought us to two different shops, and the contrast between them was amazing. The first was like a huge warehouse where we were guided around by a man with a horrible voice. It was hugely over-priced, and there was no way we could browse; the attendants were ready to pounce at any sign of interest.

The second shop was inside the city palace of Jaipur. They still have a Maharaja there, though he doesn’t have any actual power. But he has set aside one area of the palace for artists to sell their wares. The quality was much higher, the price was much better, and as a special bonus you didn’t get the sense that everything you were looking at had been produced by small children in a dark factory. As I said, the contrast was stark.

That first night was Diwali, a really big festival all over India (many of the festivals tend to be quite local). We went to the Bazaar in Jaipur and just walked around. There were so many people, and so much light (Diwali is the festival of lights). We took an autorickshaw back to the hotel. I’ll post a short video soon.

We spent the second day driving to and from the Taj Mahal. It was a long way to go. It is pretty amazing, but it’s sort of too large to grasp, if that makes sense. I felt like I was looking at the Taj Mahal on TV most of the time. The marble work really is incredible though.

Photos are on http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaigs/

Now, back to World of Warcraft ….

Tg