Days Four & Five in India

Day Four started with a different experience at the Taj Mahal. We left the hotel at 6am in hopes of seeing the sun rise over the Taj. That didn't exactly happen - we were waiting in line to get in because it wasn't open at sunrise. It was okay, though, because standing in line gave us the opportunity to see the piles of colored cow dung burnt down from Holi celebrations. (Colorful cow dung. Contrast much? See what I mean?)

Once we did get into the Taj, it was a different experience than the prior night. We mainly played and took silly pictures. It was nice... and still beautiful as ever... and I was glad to get some energy out. (Being a morning person, I was pretty hyper and convinced Ryan to run back to the bus with me.) I'll post pictures once I'm back - but most of them are cheesy high school shots or pictures of me & my friends jumping.

After another large breakfast buffet, we celebrated Holi. Sang & I took the less crazy route, skipping the street celebration and just going outside the hotel with Angie. I think standing in big white protective garments, and being American, made us good targets. A group of women in saris came up to us and rubbed powder on our faces and shook our hands, saying "happy holi." then a group of teens on motorcycles came and did the same, but then insisted on taking our pictures with them. It was fun, my face was colored in paints, and I felt like that was good enough. :)

At about 1pm, we boarded our bus back to to Delhi. It was really interesting to watch the roads... watching people covered in paint from Holi, seeing the array of sites, and mainly noticing that even though we were on "highways" there was always something to see. It's nothing like the US at all.  (I should mentioned that Rohit & I played two rounds of Scrabble. I won both. :))

Then we arrived at the local Delhi airport and took an Air IndiGo flight to Ahmedabad. From there we took the bus to the Marriott Courtyard - which I should say is by far the nicest Courtyard I have ever seen in my life - and I promptly conked out at about 11:30pm.

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Day Five started early at the gym - I have to work off some of the breakfast buffet calories! After breakfast, which again was massive and amazing, the group took off to Amul, which is the largest dairy in the country.  We were given a presentation about the White Revolution, and then a tour of the Amul factory. It was pretty interesting, and my favorite part was seeing the part where they made the ice cream. :) I should admit that I couldn't hear much of the tour, and I was getting really tired, so I will have to catch up on the White Revolution more when I get back to the US. We stopped at the largest Amul Cafe for lunch (which ended up being a cup of mango yogurt, to compliment my earlier Amul treats of mango yogurt and mango lassi!)

Then we went to Ghandi's Akshram, which he lived at from 1915 to 1930. I think. Again I need to look it up. It was really nice, although again I wish I had known more so I had a better appreciation of being there.

And that leads me to now. A quick blog update, and then we are heading out to the markets and to a traditional dinner. Which Rohit will be buying thanks to my two Scrabble wins. ;)

I will say that Ahmedabad is much different that Delhi or Agra - it's clean, it's less noisy, and it seems like people here are just different. Perhaps because this was where Ghandi was from, or perhaps it's because it's more business-y and commercial. It's good to see a difference in cities. Mumbai should be very interesting.