The Old Harbour Hotel

The Old Harbour Hotel was just the kind of place I'd like to stay in all the time. I never really know how to explain my aesthetic preference. We did not stay at this hotel.

more wedding photos

Day Three India - The Wedding!

The wedding day was a full day affair (they're often 5 days long or more in the North) including breakfast, lunch and dinner. The hall had three levels, lower leverl with a dining hall with long thin tables and a kitchen in which they made everything from scratch. I know because I wandered around the kitchen. The food was amazing, served on banana leaves for lunch and tin plates for breakfast and dinner. At breakfast and lunch men walked by with buckets of food doling each person out their portion and dinner was a buffet. The ground floor was where most of the ceremonies were held and the second floor had a row of stark private rooms with a walkway overlooking the ground floor. We were given our own room for resting which was great because I got tired out again unfortunately the girls did not nap on this day. Like I mentioned before, the family treated us very well. There were several hundred guests and only a few private rooms.

All the women wore the most beautiful saris. I got to wear one too! They're so stunning - anyone who wears one looks like royalty.

The wedding ceremony was very beautiful and filled with rituals. The bride and groom were dressed like ancient king and queens and had two major outfit changes with a lot of adornment. For the first outfit the groom wore a turban. We were invited to join the family photos as well.

Note: Obviously I'm behind in posting our India trip. I am in the middle of planning a trip to Vietnam. We leave Sunday. In planning for India using a travel agency as much as I did was a mistake. I figured we'd pay a little more and avoid being scammed at the airport. In the end I felt like we paid a lot more and were also scammed by the people we'd already paid. The taxi drivers are known (as per Lonely Planet) to take you to the stores at which they get commission. It became a struggle to explain that we didn't want the products their store was selling. We had to be firm and yet we had to spend the rest of the day with this hired guide/driver. In one case we had gotten an auto-rickshaw in Delhi that took us way out of our way to a store with a similar name to the store we'd asked to go to even though we'd provided the street address. We ended up getting out and walking. Also, the tour company in some cases set us up at hotels that were not appropriate for tourists (in a business hotel in a business district - or worse in another case, didn't pay the hotel on time for our arrival so we waiting and fussed in the lobby while the girls were hungry, tired and soiled. It was only after a lot of complaining did they offer to "upgrade" our room to accomodate us (where formerly they said they had no room at all). The room was - needless to say - not upgraded. I could go on but I know this is a bore - the long and short of is that we agreed that we wouldn't use a travel agency again unless it came highly recommended. So now I'm planning this trip to Vietnam. I ended up having to go to an agency to get flights because nothing was available for a reasonable price. I agreed to let them propose some hotels for comparison purposes and nothing they came up with was inexpensive. I even asked them to call everything available in the Lonely Planet and they said that nothing was available. When pressed they said that either nothing was available or the hotel didn't want to deal with an agency. We're going to try out a few guesthouses and see how that goes. Currently our plans are to fly to Danang to go to Hoi An where we will have some tailored clothing made. Then we'll go to Hanoi and use that as our base to go on a two day junk boat trip in Halong Bay and then later to stay with some villagers in Mai Chau. We'll see how it turns out.

Tomorrow is a public holiday - Deepavali. We've been invited to join Chandrika & Kumari - my friends that I met at Ananda Bhavan.

Day Two in Bangalore

The next day we rented a taxi and Roy happily joined us once we'd asked. Rob had the driver take us to a store called Fabindia. I've seen this label before - one of you purchased something for Lula from here. The fabrics were so beautiful and it was expensive by India's standards but everything was made of the finest fibers; silk, cotton or silk & cotton. I bought one item for each of us and a few Christmas presents.

In the afternoon we went to Fun World for Lula.

We also asked to go to some slums and we drove by an area of men dressed in sari's. Roy insisted on taking my photos for me as I would have stuck out too much and unable to sneak photos. Also, it wasn't easy to explain that part of the fun for me is being the one to take the photo not just to have it.

On more than one occasion I saw children Lula & Maya's age wandering around by themselves and squatting in the street to go to the bathroom.

***

The guidebook says not to wear sleaveless shirts in public. Geetha's family said no problem, that's of the past. Chandrika gave me a sleaveless punjabi suit. I did not see anyone in the streets without sleaves - just in magazines. I imagine its a little like having a bare midriff in the states but I'm not completely sure.

Modesty outside of the home is much higher and modesty inside the home is lower. While taking a shower with Maya in the shower room (a large room with shower head and buckets, Geetha knocked and came in to get some of her things. I took it as a sign of intimacy and acceptance into their family.

To India! Bangalore

We planned our trip to India to start in Bangalore in order to attend the wedding of the niece of the headmaster at my daughters school.

Geetha's family picked us up a the airport along with beggars in obvious need. This was a surprise to me because I though that Bangalore being the technology base of India, would be very wealthy. It may be a wealthier part of India but that did not mean that there weren't still problems of poverty.

We arrived at the house and were shown to our room. This room was made available at the expense of other family members. It was a three bedroom house with two bathrooms, a small yard and a prayer room. Upstairs was a similar apartment inhabited by more family.

The family really took care of use and treated us not just like honorary guests but also like members of their family without the burden of chores.

Right away we went upstairs to join the bride to be and her family for Mehndi (temporary henna tattoo) application. The henna mud-like substance sits on the hand for about an hour until it dries and flakes off. Most common is to put it on the palms and later people put it on both sides of the hand. For practical reasons I chose to put it on the back of my hands only so that I could continue to hold the children while it dried. Geetha's husband Hari wrote his name on his hand. Someone joked that perhaps he should put his wife's name on his hand. Everyone joked in English kindly for our benefit.

In the afternoon we hired a taxi and Roy, the 16 year old boy of the family was our guide. We drove all over Bangalore. One very interesting place was a Hare Krishna temple. We left our shoes in the car and walked through the parking lot to the temple. Once on the grounds there was a very long line with raised square stones. On each stone before moving to the next we chanted:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Despite my training to be resistant to the Krishna followers having experienced them only at airports I felt calmed by the rhythmic cadence of the chant and began to feel less rather than more irritated by the long slow line. Additionally, it was so loud that protests and screams from the children didn't embarrass me in the usual way.

It was all very beautiful and too long and circuitous for me to remember everything. At the end there was a heavy sell to buy things and donate money. We were all offered a free bowl of seasoned rice to eat.

I was so tired at the end of the first day I was so tired that I went to sleep without dinner shortly after the girls went to sleep.

At a hotel in Jaiphur

An Ashram

On the road from Jaiphur

Heavy Loads - India