random photos

I have some random pictures that I don't think I've ever posted before, with a few random facts thrown in.

This is a child's school bus! A lot of times you'll see a cart go by with children locked in a cage, on their way to school. Doesn't sound quite safe to me. I like it that this one is called "Jingle Bell."

You see people carry the most random things on their scooters, bikes, rickshaws, you name it. Last night I commented to some friends that I have a funny picture of a man carrying a computer on a scooter. At least 2 others piped in, "I have a picture like that too!" Here's mine...I was wrong though, he's on a cycle rickshaw.

The largest m0sque in the country is in our city, and we visited it last year. Here is a picture from it. The construction was completed in 1626, and can hold 10s of thousands of men at the appointed times.

Most auto rickshaw's will have stickers on their windshields. Sometimes you'll see Bollywood stars, sometimes pictures of their favorite g0d(s). This one sadly lumped in ours with it - he's trying to cover all the bases.

Every now and then, you'll see trees with marigolds and pictures of g0ds up against them. I'm not sure why these particular trees get w0rshipped, but they do. This one is on our street.

And lastly, as many of you know, this culture is very modest. No kissing in movies, and definitely no kissing in public. So many times, young people will sneak off to gardens alone together. Yesterday, Andrea took our family to these cool old ruins to take some family pictures. (she ROCKS!) Anyway so we caught these two there together (and it was before 10am!!). I guess they also go to the old ruins to make out? I guess if you're gonna disobey the parents, you should do it in style? :)

old city shopping

Andrea and I went to the old part of the city yesterday. It was lots of fun! We didn't just stay on the main road either, but went into "the bowels". The old city is FASCINATING! I love going there...without baby, of course. It's way too chaotic for me to walk and protect baby from all sorts of vehicles. Not to mention it was 102 yesterday, and wearing baby also means I wear sweat.

I wanted to go because I need a new sari and the old city is where they are super cheap. Andrea found the sari bazaar in a little map book since we are both extremely directionally challenged. Extremely. I can't emphasize that point enough. I'm going to do a blog tour of our day. To get the full effect, you'd need to go sit in the middle of your busiest street with a hair dryer blowing in your face.

First, we were dropped off on the main road and then hopped on a cycle rickshaw (not pictured). He seemed to know where the sari bazaar was.


He didn't, but we got a cool tour of all the small roads and alleys.


Finally he found the sari bazaar, which was pretty much where he picked us up. This is a more main road of the market.


We walked into a connecting alleyway. Even as narrow as this path was, there were still scooters, carts, and cycles going both directions, not to mention people. And probably cows too.


I have never shopped for a sari before, so I started out pretty intimidated by the rows and rows of shops. If you've ever shopped in South Asia, you know how much variety there is, and how easy it is to succumb to indecision. Andrea finally encouraged me to just pick a shop and go for it. This was the first shop. We took off our shoes, sat down, and told this man what color sari I was looking for. Then he would pull out a sari and toss it at me. I'm a horrible photographer, but somehow caught the toss in action in this picture. (sidenote: most of these pictures are Andrea's, that's why they are so good!)


He didn't have what I was looking for, so we went to several more. One shop let me "try on" a couple saris over my clothes. I was looking for a double shaded sari with black and gold. I already have black and gold jewelry, so I needed one to match that. Like I said about the colors here, it was pretty difficult to find a sari with black in it. Lime green swirls, hot pink dots, bright orange silks, and turquoise beading, however, were all at my fingertips.


This is the sari I ended up buying. This man's shop was so small we could barely sit down, let alone try on the sari. So he offered to try it on for me! I told him he was looking very beautiful. He didn't laugh though.


Here are a few more pics of the old part of the city. Make sure to notice the ear cleaner!

bandh, bus, and baby

A 7 week old spices up life quite a bit! I know that's the truth for everyone, and I believe it's just as true for us tourists. Especially in Asia!

We took baby on her first flight and trip abroad yesterday, and arrived in the Himalayan country north of our current home. The purpose of this trip is to receive her visa so we can return, and our tickets are for this weekend. Baby was wonderful on the flight, which somehow gave us false hopes of a delightful and problem-free stay and a smooth governmental process all the while gazing at the Himalayas surrounding the valley city we're staying in. I don't know where that gazing thought came from, since we had to circle the airport for close to an hour waiting for visibility. I was a wee bit over-optimistic.

When we arrived yesterday, we were supposed to have a bus waiting to take us to the hotel. This was when we found out that the city transport workers are all striking against gas prices. Absolutely no transportation was available, and people were burning tires in the roads, which kept even private transportation to a minimum. Since there were no taxis or buses available for anyone at the airport to reach their hotels, a police bus had to take all the tourists to their respective hotels. It was complete chaos. Men carried suitcases on the bus, under the bus, out of the bus, as people tried to push their way on as well. Luckily, the passengers were very sympathetic as soon as they saw us with baby in the Snugli. A Frenchman immediately jumped up from his seat and offered for me to sit. I took it gratefully, and James was offered the seat next to me as well. Baby began to get fussy because she was hungry. A local man laughed and said, "He is hungry. Feed him." (I've begun to notice South Asians just refer to strangers' babies as 'he') Nearby passengers also laughed, and I relaxed. Husband and I were both so grateful these people understood that yes, babies do fuss sometimes. She did quiet down when I "fed him."

On the crowded bus, I was reminded of our year in the Himalayas, and pretty glad we didn't have to travel that way anymore. Well, present week excluded.

Apparently, the strike (bandh) is still going on, and worse today since not even residents can drive anywhere, so we are stranded in our hotel for the time being. This means we also won't be returning this weekend. Oh the joys of being a tourist in South Asia! At least our room has a view and we can imagine the Himalayas beyond the fog.

guest blogger - Mimi!

I arrived to visit daughter, son-in-law, and mostly beautiful new grandbaby 2 weeks ago. I have to admit that I was somewhat nervous about this trip. Not that I'm afraid to visit places that are on other continents, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect where daughter lives. I have had a wonderful visit and sadly, today is my last day and I will be leaving at the stroke of midnight tonight. So, I thought I would share some of my observations while here.

First of all, the driving and the traffic. I had been warned ahead of time about this phenomenon. Most of you who know me know that I am the world's absolute worse passenger in a car. However, on the way home from the airport, we came to an intersection that had a red light. Our driver slowed down, looked both ways, honked his horn, and kept right on going. It seems that after dark, red lights are optional. Interesting law. Second, the amount of traffic/cars on the streets at one time. I sat by a man on the airplane over here that lives here. He warned me about the amount of traffic and cars and said that the philosophy is to use every bit of the concrete space as possible. If that means putting 5 cars where 3 are suppose to be, then so be it. No one seems to care. Because there is so much traffic and frequent traffic jams, you usually never travel faster than 20-30 mph and that is only for a short distance. On the ride home from the airport and since it was so late at night, our taxi hit several areas where he was able to drive 30-40 mph. Since most people in my hometown travel at 50-70 mph, the taxi did not seem to be travelling all that fast. I thought it interesting to hear son-in-law say that the taxi ride was making him very nervous because we were speeding through town.

The next thing I observed was shopping! You know I had to go there. Daughter took me to a market and on the way there she told me what a nice market this was. I didn't have my expectations high, but when we got there and were walking from the parking lot, down the street and to the shops that she needed to visit, I realized that I had taken daughter's words too literal. I'm thinking to myself, what is she thinking???? However, when you walk into the shops, you are totally transformed. They are very nice, very clean, and best of all, very CHEAP! There's nothing better in my way of thinking than a bargain. I would like to say that we went back to that same market about a week later and I'm thinking to myself, this is a nice market. My how our perceptions change. One of the funnest (is that a word?) shopping experiences was shopping for shoes! O.K., I know that none of you are surprised that I was shoe shopping. :) You know how when we shoe shop in our hometown, our salesperson goes to the back and finds our shoes in our size and brings the boxes out to us. Well, they don't do that here. The shoes are kept in the attic. Yes, I did say attic. And, there are usually 2 openings in the ceiling that reveals the attic. You tell your salesperson what shoe you like and your size. He literally yells up to a guy that stays in the attic and he THROWS down your shoes. If they don't fit or if you don't want them, the salesperson throws them back up. I found out that the "attic guy" is working his way up to being a salesperson. Now, I know most of you will find this hard to believe, but I tried on so many pairs of shoes that daughter and I learned the attic guy's name. Before I finished shopping, attic guy was throwing down shoes that I had not asked to try on but he thought I might like and as I would try them on, he would comment on how nice they looked or that the color was very nice, etc. I'd say he was already practicing being a salesperson. We also went to a market where you bargain for prices. Daughter has this down to a science. She speaks the language here which is a novelty to the residents. Daughter looks nothing like the people that are native to this area so when she opens her mouth and starts rattling off the language, the people are totally fascinated. Nevertheless, I got some good bargains on some nice things because of the art of bargaining. Too bad I don't have a bargaining market at home. Just an fyi, but a new mall has been built here and you step out of your taxi in an atmosphere of the native country and step into the mall which is like stepping into my native homeland. The prices are the same as stepping into my homeland too.

Some miscellaneous things that were unique to me are included in this paragraph. The apartment complex where daughter lives, has security guards. I use that term loosely. These guys walk around at night blowing whistles and banging sticks against the metal fencing. Evidently, they are scaring away the "no good doers" before they get close to them. Either they don't want the confrontation or they are scared of the bad guys. But, this happens all night long. I went from listening to airplanes come over my house to listening to security guards blow whistles and bang sticks. I've watched a Bollywood movie and actually liked it! I went with daughter to have her hair cut and highlighted. Each person has their own specific thing that they do at the beauty shop. She had about 8 people standing around her and doing things to her hair at once. It looked more like she was having an operation with a team of doctors standing around her than having her hair done. Speaking of that, everyone here has a specific occupation and they are the only ones that do that. For instance, there is a guy, 3 doors down, that is a press "walla". He stands outside all day, everyday, with a huge metal iron, hot coals, and a big counter. When you need something ironed, you take your clothes to the press walla and he irons it for about a penny per piece of clothing. Yes, that's correct, a penny. I have definitely decided that every country, every state, every town, every neighborhood, every house needs a press walla. There is also a guy who sits outside with his big sewing machine and does mending. There is a trash walla who collects the trash. You get the idea. There are animals everywhere and they just kind of roam freely. The pedestrians here do NOT have the right of way and WILL get hit if they don't get out of the way. However, the animals will sit in the middle of streets because they know that drivers would never dream of harming them. Oh the quality and value of human life.

I will say that this is a very male dominated society. Women are not respected and they are treated and talked to a lot different than men. It doesn't matter where the men and women are from, if they are native or foreign, the men are treated better than the women. Daughter has grown weary of this fact and has become spunky in some of her dealings with men here. She has become more vocal to them and as I mentioned before, when she starts speaking to them in their native tongue, it surprises the heck out of them! I want to say, you go girl! Of course, it isn't something that she can change but it makes her feel better. I wonder where she gets that trait from?

Overall, my trip has been great. However it would have been great if all I had done was sit in the rocking chair and rock my brand new beautiful granddaughter and visited with daughter and son-in-law. But, it has been an adventure. I can't wait to see how the ride back to the airport will be tonight!

rules of the road

The rules of driving in this country are a bit...different than those of American roads. I'm sure so many of you from my hometown have received that forwarded email about the rules of driving in that big city. It's funny, and it's so true. I know I can't contend with that author's creativity, but I thought I'd post a few of the rules of the road in case you lost your mind and decided to visit us and take a rental car out for a spin.

Wrong Turns: In case you take the wrong "exit" off of a major road, there is no need to panic. Simply put you car in reverse, dodge the traffic coming at you, and back your car up until you reach the correct road upon which you want to travel.

U-turns: Similar to this are u-turns under freeways, or flyovers as they are called here. Even though the u-turn is physically designed for only one-way traffic, if you are wanting to save time but are on the opposite side of the u-turn it is perfectly okay for you to drive through it as well. Of course then it's not really a "u" but that doesn't defeat the purpose. Don't forget to honk though, that actually is important.

Horn Usage: Speaking of honking, it is an integral cog in the wheel of traffic flow here. Since driving in lanes is optional here (despite the roadsigns that encourage "Lane Driving is Sane Driving"), it is important to honk. A lot. This way, you can tell all the other cars, "Hello. I'm here." And the other cars do the same, and awareness of others has reached a level of utopia - albeit a very loud one.

Light Usage: Another way to be aware of each other is found in the mountains. If you are driving at night in the mountains, you don't always know if another car is going to come around the curve. So the method of choice is to just simply turn off your headlights. If you can still see some lights, then a car is coming. Luckily, I don't have the answer to the question, "What happens if both cars use this method?"

Right-away: No need to watch out for walkers. Pedestrians don't have the rightaway. They will watch out for themselves. Same goes the for the hundreds of cyclists on the roads. They know to watch out for themselves. Basically, if a vehicle is smaller than yours, you don't need to pay any attention. Only drive carefully around those vehicles that are larger than your own. Obey the size dichotomy of the road, and you will do just fine.

Beware the Bovine: There is one exception to this rule, and that is the cow. Now, your car may be bigger than the bull, but the animal in question doesn't understand these rules of the road, or he has learned through experience that he will be safe no matter where he walks. There is no need for an "I Brake for Cows" bumper sticker, because everyone does that already.

Or...Pretty Much Beware All Animals: There are other animals to watch for as well, but still not near as common as the cow. Last weekend, husband and I were on our way home from dinner when we saw another large animal in the mix on the roads...an elephant. Our friends who were driving their car stopped and let us take pics of the elephant, whose driver graciously posed for some pics before taking off. Where he was headed, we don't know, but I do know one thing - even the man driving an elephant knows and obeys these rules of the road.

mister car wash

We just got back from another trip to Ctown. While there, our friend Kyle was driving us around, and he was pulled over. Kyle told us that was the 6th time in 4 days he had been pulled over. Talk about racial profiling! Well the policeman pulled us over to tell Kyle that he needed to wash his car.

The next day we went to a car wash in a gas station. It was exactly like they are in the states - behind the shop with a little area that you drive into - except that there was nothing mechanical. It was a bunch of men that washed the car. The car in front of us got the deluxe wash, meaning the inside of the car was washed. And when I say washed, I mean fire-hosed down. They took out the seats of the car and just hosed the interior. Needless to say, we opted out of the deluxe wash.

what the heck

We've had a very interesting couple of weeks! We left for the capital almost 2 weeks ago because the team leaders of our 6 week summer students had arrived, and we did some orientation for them. Then, we all headed off to a city that has not much more than one of the 7 wonders of the world, but that's definitely enough for me to go visit. All of the students arrived by this time, so we did some more orientation, and then headed back home, this time with our 2 students in tow. We'll call them MTs, short for Mountain Trailblazers. and my shift key just broke, and i'm too lazy to start learning to use the one on the right now, so the rest of this post will be all lower case letters until husband fixes it. :) anyway, two days ago, the day we made the journey back up the mountain, would win the prize for the most interesting of those days. here's why.

we took the train from the capital to ctown, 4 hours south of us. then our great friend, kyle, drove us to the bus station for us to catch a bus back up. upon dropping us off, he was nearly fined, mainly because he's white, but fortunately came out unscathed. then we waited on husband to get the hill sickness pills before buying the tickets. he arrived about 4 minutes before the bus pulled out, so we bought our tickets for this bus. now, normally, we take the deluxe bus, which means it's about $4 instead of $1.75, and has a/c and your own seat, and room under the bus for luggage. but the timing was off, so we decided what the heck, let's just take the regular bus. as it turns out, what the heck is not the best reasoning tool. but it did lead to a busride we'll never forget.

first, there was no room on the bus for our small suitcase and MT's big packs. so husband just climbed the ladder on the back of the bus to put the luggage on top with the help of several south asian men. in the meantime, i boarded the bus and saw to my chagrin that our seats were on the very back row, meaning we had less leg space than everyone else, and no overhead shelf. one of the hazards of purchasing a ticket about 4 minutes before departure time. another such hazard is that although south asia is not a time-driven society, somehow the transportation is very punctual, and the bus started to pull out before i noticed husband on the bus. luckily he was climbing on and not still on the roof, but that was enough to scare me. we made it, though, all 4 of us squeezed into the back row with 2 other men, and smaller backpacks with laptops and other too-valuable-for-the-roof items. i was squished next to the window, which was bringing in a small breeze that i was so thankful for. at one point, i noticed that the seats actually weren't joined, but separated, so i could see that each individual seat was about as wide as my shoulders. and i also noticed that the 4 us were pretty much squeezed into 3.5 seats that once again, were not big enough for the 3 western guys. but after what the heck is decided, there's not much you can do with your luggage strapped to the roof of the bus and the wheels in motion.

it didn't take long for sweat to become our constant companion, and one of our MTs looked at his thermometer and noted that it was 98 degrees. i started wondering how if our bodies are that temperature, why 98.6 degrees isn't the perfect weather tempterature. i mean, it's what our bodies are already used to. this is probably one of the many reasons why i didn't do too hot in science.

back to the bus ride. we began what has been dubbed the '4 hour s-curve' drive upward at speeds no old rambling bus should take. we're beginning to thank husband profusely for those hill sickness pills, but one of the MTs can't stop worrying about the luggage on the roof. then, after one particularly fast curve, we hear a noise and the MTs look back and see something black in the road. they yell 'stop!' and the driver reluctantly takes his foot off the gas. the 3 guys take off running, and i sat on the bus with the glares of several south asians on me. soon, we see the guys running back, empty handed, and there is a unanimous groan heard throughout the bus and the glares grow heavier. i laughed, because i do that when i'm nervous. husband raced up the ladder again to check the luggage, which happened to all be there, but they took that opportunity to re-secure the bags even tighter. a few moments later, we're rambling down the road again.

eventually, we made it back to our town, and miraculously, i was even able to sleep a bit on the ride. the boss's grace, i'm assuming. when we stopped, husband climbed up on the roof of the bus for the third time to retrieve our bags. before he was off the roof, the driver began to drive away, so i had to yell 'stop! no! there are men on top!' and the driver stopped and everyone laughed. husband made it off, and we made it back home, with everything but our dignity in tact.

if we didn't learn anything else from this trip, we did at least take away that the difference of $2.25 will buy you peace of mind, and that what the hecks should be avoided at all costs.

cruising day

"I get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog."

Today husband and I took Betsy for a spin. Betsy is what husband calls the scooter (or really, pretty much anything…guitars, stray dogs, nothing is safe from the nickname). We cruised for a couple of hours, checking out nearby villages and the beautiful scenery.

Can you see the snow-capped mtns in the back?
Check out our way serious helmets

A couple times, Betsy needed to rest because, well, the girl’s old. At one of the rests, we decided to head back, and fortunately the road back was downhill, because Betsy wouldn’t start. We coasted and hoped for the best. Right when the road was too flat to go on, there was a mechanic, so we left her with him, told him we’d be back tomorrow to pick her up, and hopped on a bus to get back home.

Halfway through the bus ride, husband remembered that our house key was still with the mechanic, so we got off at our stop, and got on another bus back to the mechanic. We arrived, after quite a hike and a bus switch, and the mechanic, whose name means ‘Carpenter’ in this language, thrust some tea at us and walked away. Of course, we had to drink it, so we did so as fast as we could, and then had to track down where Carpenter had run off with our keys. The owner of the shop started pointing us where to go, but since we had already been down several shops to ask where Carpenter had gone, we didn’t want to go alone again, so we told the owner to show us. Well in this society, menial tasks such as this get handed off to the guy with the lowest status. So these 5 workers began arguing for several minutes about who had to show us where to go, and finally, the youngest was chosen, and then he walked us the mere 200 yards or so to where Carpenter was. Carpenter was in a hurry at this point, and handed our keys to us and told us to follow him back to the shop to negotiate price. Turns out the head gasket is messed up, or the piston, I’m not sure if they ever decided which one needed work, and our town probably doesn’t have the part, and hey, did you two crazy white folks realize this scooter is too weak to be cruising through the mountains anyway? We finally made it back to our house, over 2 hours after we dropped the scooter off at the mechanic’s. I think today may have been my first and last ride on ol’ Betsy. She belongs on safer and flatter pasture.



Poor Betsy