I'm Here!

Believe it or not, the flights to get to India weren't too bad! It flew by (how does about 20 hours of travel fly by? Perhaps with unlimited 'sparkling wine' and movies of my choice)! We landed in Delhi and easily found my driver to take me to my hotel. I'm staying in Delhi at a hotel called Uppal's Orchid <http://www.uppalsorchidhotel.com/>. It's quite lovely! It's not very close to anything so we have to hire a car to take us places. For those of you that don't know, I'm traveling with two other colleagues that will be training associates for our company for another client of ours.

We decided to hire a car yesterday (Saturday) to take us to a market. If you can't find it there, you don't need it! They had it all! We ventured into a place that sells saris and shirts, etc. The fabrics are absolutely gorgeous!! Since our host was not willing to bargain much, we decided we could go on to the next! I am happy to report that I have procured my first purchase!! A scarf that I can wear with some of the clothes I brought with me. I want to "blend in" you know. However, I'm not sure I'm going to do very well with that.... my laugh doesn't blend in very well with much.

Today, Sunday we hired a car to take us to Jaipur. It's about 4 hours from Delhi. We left around 5:30 this morning and returned around 10:30 pm. Our poor driver - he was so tired (and understandably so - driving in India is nothing like you've ever imagined). I offered several times to help with the driving. Thankfully he declined. It's been many years since I maneuvered a stick shift. I think he wanted to get home safely. I swear they laid more pavement while we were gone. It took forever to get back.

What was fascinating to me was that the states were visibly different. When we left Hiryana and entered into Rajistan, we could tell right away. At home, when we drive into Indiana, we won't necessarily know that we're in Indiana unless we see the sign that says "Welcome to Indiana!" Literally when we crossed the state line into Rajitstan, folks were wearing different style clothes (men were basically in all white with a matching white turban). Women regardless of what they were doing be it walking down the road or in the field, they were in a brightly colored sari that most likely had some "sparkle". I typically keep the glam for special occasions and rarely wear sequins to work in my garden. Not here! At first, camels pulling carts were rather thrilling - it's a normal site in Rajitstan. Elephants walking down the street... same thing, normal. We did come across several men herding no less than about a billion goats! They were everywhere! I was scared we were going to hit something - a person crossing the road, a bicyclist, a dog, a cow, another vehicle, something. We didn't... I'm still in shock!

Our guide was fabulous! He took us to the Amber Fort, City Palace and Jantar Mahal. From there we could see the Palace of Winds. Quite remarkable. I think our guide was someone of importance in the community. Other guides greated him with high respect. In fact, during the tour at Jantar Mahal one of his "students" joined us. What I didn't know was that astroloy was so important here in India. As we were looking at the differnt Zodiac clocks at Jantar Mahal, he asked me if I was a "twin". He was quite sure that I was a Gemini and was a little disappointed when I told him that I was a Libra. From there on I was curious as to why he had made that assumption. Perhaps I'll have to have my "chart" done.

I've run into a bit of a snag with downloading my pictures from yesterday... so hopefully I can figure that out today.