We dressed in record time for the wedding, since we were running a bit late. We met up with Tracey, and flew downstairs to grab a Tuk-Tuk. We couldn’t find a driver who knew exactly where we were going; they all gave us the Indian head bobble (wikipedia link). Which generally means ‘no problem, I understand’.  But in our experience, understanding and actually knowing where to go are two different things. This guy was no different; he stopped a few times for directions, but only did a little turning around, and eventually got us to the wedding (only 15 minutes late).

In approximation we were reasonably dressed. Most men who were wearing traditional garb were wearing white/creme/beige, while Eli was wearing blue, and most women were wearing saris, while I had the dress on. But it was obvious we’d made an effort, and no one said anything. None of the women were in Western garb, so I’m glad I got something more traditional. When we arrived, we all sought out Hiren’s cousin’s wife for a fashion consult, and the others (Tracey, Jamie, Rose) got their Sari’s re-tied (I took copious notes). The secret appears to be safety pins; we thought they were held up with magic and skill.

We didn’t take many photos at the wedding, since Hiren’s friend Jon (who we know from Cornell) had a Nikon DSLR and took many many photos we can get later. Here’s what we took. The first is of the party plot, with the platform in the center where they performed the ceremony (which was about 3 hours long, after a day of prayer ceremonies).

Jon got dragged into the ceremony with no warning right before it started; I guess the equivalent of being a groomsman. Rose and Eli traded off taking pictures with his camera during the ceremony. We couldn’t really hear what was going on (and wouldn’t have understood anyway), but there was obviously a lot of tradition involved. From what we understand, it’s a patrilineal ceremony, with customs from Kinnari’s father’s home region. While the ceremony was going on, most of the guests ate and mingled; it’s not expected for the guests to actually watch the ceremony. We watched some and did a little munching, and mingled and chatted right around the ceremony platform.

Hiren, his brother, and Jon on the platform during the ceremony.

Hiren and Kinnari during the ceremony.

The ceremony was full of repetition; the same action happens many times. We all participated near the end, when they make four circuits around the platform and we all threw flower petals on Kinnari (except for one joker who was throwing whole flower heads directly at Hiren’s face…)

The best part was after the ceremony, where Hiren honored us by having us sit for dinner on his family side of the table (this was around 9pm), and we were all served a dinner. It was good to have them there to tell us what was safe to eat, so we didn’t have to worry about getting sick. They have to be as careful as we do, since they live in the States. It was great to get to talk to Hiren and his folks a bit before we left. They’ll probably have a reception in the States next year, so we’ll get to see them again (and have an excuse to wear our Indian garb again! I’ll wear a sari this time.)

We got an early start, thanks to Tracey, and were ready for our tour of the sights of Ahmedebad at 9am.  We hired a Tuk-Tuk driver for the morning, to drive us around. The Tuk-Tuk was a blast; we crammed into the back seat and our driver skillfully weaved in and out of traffic to get us to our destinations, stopping for directions when necessary, or for more chewing tobacco/cigarettes.  Below is a picture of our Tuk-Tuk and driver, near the ‘no honking’ sign near a religious site… people were honking constantly, of course.

Our first stop was Gandhi’s Ashram, where he lived and taught his beliefs to others.

We saw this guy fishing in River Sabarmati while touring the Ashram.

After the Ashram, we hopped back in the Tuk-Tuk and headed to our second destination, the Dada Hari Vav, or stepwell.  It was built in 1501 to catch the monsoon rains during the monsoon season so they’d have water available during the dry season.  The groundwater table has moved since then, so it’s now dry and open for tourists. There are very intricate carvings in the stone walls, carved by Hindu artisans.  Here are a few pictures of it, and there are a lot more on our website: http://wildsprite.com/gallery/v/honeymoon/India/

Modern technology has seeped into India everywhere, as we see in the next picture, with the stone tower being used as a power line!

After the stepwell we went to our final tourist destination, the Sidi Saiyad Mosque.  It was built 1573, and has some amazing stone carved screens on either side of the central isle. Of course, being a mosque, women are not allowed on the premises. I didn’t bother entering, as the guidebook says the screens are the only noteworthy thing in the mosque. If you zoom in on one of the pictures, you can see the sign barring women from entering the grounds.  Only two pictures for you, more on our site!

After our sight-seeing, we took a walk along the street our hotel was on.  We stopped at a great place for lunch, Murch Masala.  We had lots of tasty dishes that we all shared, and my first fresh lime soda. They squeeze fresh lime juice into the glass, then give you soda water to fill the glass with.  I’m addicted!

We then walked up the street and did some shopping. I got a petticoat for my sari (which the folks who sold it to me didn’t mention), and a few other things. We spent some time in a gold shop looking for a chain for Tracey’s mother. The price of gold here used to be cheap, but with the head-line grabbing peak in gold prices, it wasn’t any more affordable over here (to my dismay!).

Then we skedaddled back to the hotel to get changed for the wedding.  More on that later!  Now, we’re off to the pool and dinner.

I feel like we’ve been in India many more than 4 days, so some of the details are a bit fuzzy…

Eli posted about or trip to the hotel, which we woke up in at a reasonable hour the next morning, when they very nicely buzzed us to tell us our paper had been delivered.  We got packed up, and went shopping within the gated, enclosed commercial district that our hotel was within.

It was a very positive experience.  I’d been worried after our trip to the hotel, but all the people were very friendly and willing to help.  We went into a wholesale sari shop, and the men who ran it (all the shops were run by men with no female employees) spent about an hour pulling out sari after sari and laying them on the table for me to examine.   After the first hundred or so saris, I was getting overwhelmed.  I picked up a few to use as home decorating fabric, and one to potentially wear to Hiren’s wedding.  I also picked up two premade shirts, since my hiking clothes didn’t exactly blend with the native culture.

My general observation of the dress here is that almost all of the men in the cities we’ve visited wear western clothing, while nearly all of the women wear saris or native ‘pantsuits’, which are comprised of a loose colorful top and long scarf worn over solid colored pants.

Our next shopping stop in this market was a mens clothing store.  Eli was much quicker than I was, and found his formal wedding outfit quite quickly, and a linen top to potentially wear around.

We then just wandered around, taking in the atmosphere of the marketplace (and trying unsuccessfully to find an ATM). I really wanted to purchase one of the pantsuits I kept seeing the women in, but they are usually custom tailored, and no one could make me one in the time we had in any one place.  Then while we were on our way back to the hotel, we stopped by one last shop that had some ready-made in the window.

Here’s me with the proprietors.  Behind us, you can see how the shops here have their merchandise; they have a few items out as examples, then tons and tons of different fabrics to choose from, all expertly folded and packaged in plastic.  They let me lean over the counter and point out the ones I liked, then pulled out more that they could suggest based on that.  They were quite helpful, and worked with us for a while.  I ended up with a pre-made suit for the wedding, so I wouldn’t have to bother wrapping a sari (and it was quite affordable), and I also got a premade pantsuit in green that’s very nice (I wore it today, on Day 4, and got complimented by two Indian ladies).  Unfortunately, the pants wouldn’t fit over my feet and calves, so I wore my new black long underwear instead (which was pretty close to the style of the pants).  Pictures over the rest of the trip are me in the clothes I bought.

After shopping, we had lunch at the hotel.  Tandoori chicken, chicken masala, and naan; it was quite tasty.  Then we got a ride to the airport from the hotel, and found out our flight had been delayed.  So we read in the airport for a few hours (Indian airport bathrooms are not my favorite experience), and hopped on our jet to Ahmedebad.

After a short and not un-pleasant flight, we made it there.  The Ahmedebad airport was much more pleasant than the international Mumbai airport; we found a driver easily and traveled about 30 minutes to our hotel on the other side of the city.  This hotel was much nicer than our first Mumbai hotel; the room was larger, with a seating area, and plenty of clean storage.  We met up with Hiren’s friend Tracey from Exxon, and got room service and made a sight-seeing plan for the next day.  It’s good we met up with her; she’d been backpacking around the country for the past three weeks, and had a much better idea of what to do than we did.  As usual, it was then quite late, and we passed out in our nice, clean hotel bed.  zzzzzzzzz.

We’re safely back in Mumbai, 11:45pm local time (plane delays on domestic Indian flights are apparently incredibly common), and a lost taxi driver (this is also very common).  But it was worth it, since this is the nicest resort we’ll probably stay in for a long while.  Gated, with drug-sniffing dogs, and tighter security than the airport to get in.  Gorgeous resort with several restaurants, a shopping area, spa, gigantic pool… and our room has a whole wallsized window overlooking the city from across a giant lake.  And the best part, it’s super clean.  The other places we stayed were very nice and clean by India standards, but this place is stellar by US standards, except the bathroom (which is about as clean as most hotels in the US, and about 20x cleaner than any other bathroom we’ve seen in India).  And there’s ample toilet paper!

So we’re going to order some dinner from room service and enjoy our view while our pictures from yesterday upload (an estimated 2 hours).  Then we’ll post about the week when we can… after the massages, shopping, sight-seeing, and gluttony!  Now, time to snooze.

We’ve had no internet access, and I’m currently typing this from a public internet cafe in Ahmedabad. The wedding was very very foreign (big surprise) but a lot of fun. We’ll have more time for details and pictures when we get to Mumbai tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Eli edit: this started as a short “we’re here” post, but has gotten extensively longer. Mel’s done most of the writing up ’til this point, as I’ve been exhausted and catching up on months of lost sleep basically any second we weren’t doing something else.

Well, we woke up this morning at 3:30AM Paris time, caught a Noctilien (night bus) near our hotel. The Noctilien is a Paris-wide free night bus service, which (as far as we could tell) transported working stiffs and drunks around the city. A guy got on the bus with a half-full cup of some sort of party drink. He was utterly sloshed, and the driver yelled at him briefly, opened the side door, and said (as best I could make out) “Either you or the cup can go back in the street, or both, its your choice”. The guy tossed the cup and slumped into his seat. He would shout out the name of every stop in time with the automated announcer, which made everyone on the bus laugh. The bus didn’t exactly go where we needed it, but it dropped us about 2 blocks from Gare Du Nord.

We dragged our stuff to the station, and got totally confused about what RER B line train to take. The online schedule said one was leaving at 5:00, but we followed the signs and ended up at one leaving at 5:30, and arriving at CDG1 (DeGaulle airport) at 6:00… no good for a 7:00 plane flight. There was a young French woman there as well, and she kept looking at the schedule posted and wandering around, muttering to herself. After the third time she did it, I asked her if she was headed to CDG. She said yes, and she was confused. We were in the same boat, it seemed. I left her and Mel with the luggage and ran up to the main schedule board. Turns out, the train we needed was one another track, and had ZERO signs pointing that way, we just had to find track #36. I ran back down and informed the lovely ladies of the situation. We all ran to the correct train, and boarded just as the chime sounded and the doors slammed shut. We shared our ride with a couple from L.A. who were in Paris to party, and were headed to Dublin for more of the same. Bon Voyage!

Anyhow, we cleared security at CDG, and sat down at the SwissAir terminal. The flight to Zurich went off without a hitch, we even got to see the sunrise over the Swiss Alps. Quite a view. Zurich airport is a nice place. We were in Terminal E, which overlooks the runway. Again, the Alps in the background, and spotless Swiss efficiency with regard to luggage-loading and handling. Our flight from Zurich to Mumbai was long, but very much better than our Philly->Paris flight.

LX (Swiss Air) is a great airline. If you ever get the chance to fly with them, by all means do it. The difference between U.S. Airways and SwissAir was marked. First of all, the check-in woman greeted us with a warm smile and “Bonjour, hello.” Second, one of our checked bags was slightly (1KG) over the 20KG limit for free baggage. She didn’t give it a second glance. They had an entire rack of magazines for free, including The Economist, which I grabbed. They also don’t hesitate to feed you, give you a blanket or pillow. The piece of Swiss Chocolate at the end of every flight is a welcome touch too. They also give out the headphones for the seatback entertainment system, which played Tetris, Sudoku, and a bunch of other games. It also had first-run U.S. movies for free, and some TV shows. Needless to say, we were entertained the entire time

When we landed in Mumbai, the weather was 29 Degrees C (85 or so F), and “thick smoke and haze”. They aren’t kidding. We cleared customs and passport control, and exchanged $150 of US into over 6600 INR (rupees or Rs). The exchange rate is ~50 INR to $1. We paid for a cab ride (250Rs or about $5, it would have been 200Rs without Air Conditioning), and paid off the porters with our spare Euro change (about $8, which is a king’s sum). I had forgotten to do my homework on how much to tip, and the exchange rate is so out of whack… I left the cabbie another 250Rs, which was (now that I’ve done my homework) about 10-20x as much as I should have. Oh well, thats a cup of Starbucks coffee to me, and a week’s pay to him. Hopefully he’ll feed his family with it.

A short note about our cab ride. The cab was a small 4-door car with a rear-mounted engine. I’m not familiar with the make, which isn’t surprising considering where we are. Our large suitcases went on a roof rack, with just their own weight holding them down. We got in the back, and AWAY WE WENT. Dear god, I’ve seen the traffic in Mumbai on TV, and real life, at night, confused, with a cabbie that speaks about 15 words of English, in a loud, no-seatbelts car, with no clue where you are going makes it much more crazy and awe inspiring that no one gets run over (and they don’t).

Mumbai is, in a word: dirty.

I was prepared for it, but its still shocking. We got to the hotel, and things were much better. All marble/stone floors, solid wood furniture, a decent bathroom that’s surprisingly clean for what I was expecting. We got a 24h internet card at the ripoff price of 900Rs ($18), but whatever, I needed to do some research and didn’t want to mess around with a 2 hour card for 350Rs. We’ve ordered 4 bottles of sealed water, and are planning on using it for basically everything, washing our faces, drinking, brushing teeth, etc. The first thing I need to do tomorrow is exchange some of my 100 and 1000 Rs notes into 10’s and 5’s. These are much more appropriate to tipping and general use. We know that we’ll get ripped off wherever we go, but we can try and limit it as much as possible by using small bills. Mysteriously, no one has change for anything.

Mel has already noticed that basically no one will speak to her or engage her in any way. She can carry luggage past a porter and he won’t move, but as soon as I touch it, he’s at my elbow trying to help. Its going to be a big change for her, thats for sure.

Anyhow, its past 3AM Mumbai time, and we should be getting off to bed. We’ve been watching MTV-India, which is interesting, and confusing.

More when we get back from shopping for clothes tomorrow. Sorry, no pictures for now.

Oh, and as its now 4AM on Thursday here now, Happy Thanksgiving! No turkey for us.

After we saturated ourselves at the D’Orsay, we hopped on the Metro and had lunch in the Latin quarter; panini and cheese hotdog and our first carbonated beverage of the trip, cherry coke with REAL sugar.  Then we hopped back on the metro and went up to Cite de la musique to the music museum.  Many of the exhibits had a number on them, and you could dial it into your headset and hear either an excerpt played on the instrument, or some history about it.

They had cases of instruments, with examples of the instrument’s evolution through history.  The old lutes are amazing, and some of the old guitars had very intricate designs on the inside made out of layers of parchment.  We ran through the evolution of the recorder and flute, and checked out the bassoon evolution.  We also checked out the double-reed ancestor of the saxophone, before they wimped out and went to single reeds.

The pictures aren’t fabulous, because the light was low, and everything was behind glass.  Plus, I got chastised in French for using my flash. Oops! I’ll photoshop them when i get home.

We checked out a display of these cool instruments.  We should start up a fund to get one of these for the FCPO! I think we could jam this in the back of a civic, which would save a lot of hassle over moving the harpsichord!

Laura, here’s what we need to look for in our next instruments!  You need a violin with a head carved at the top (ignore the 3 extra strings), and I need an English Horn with a serpent head as the bell!! (I’m sure that won’t affect resonance in the slightest!)

I know the French Horn is hard, but how about this horn from 1820? It has some interesting valve work AND holes!

Instruments for unique individuals.  The man with two extra arms for those extra lute necks, and the inverse hunchback, for the curvy oboe d’amore.

Eli was thinking about taking up the bass, but this looks big even to him!

Flutes made of glass.  I guess schoolchildren learn on the wooden ones first, until they outgrow the clumsy stage.

That’s parchment inside.  I wonder if those designs did anything acoustically, or were just decorative…

Then we went and looked at the oboes again and I took more pictures.

I need to look this one up later… a double chambered oboe?

Mel with the case of old oboes.

And that concluded our music museum tour.  We took tons more pictures, and have some more on our picture site, and lots more on our computer (will upload later).

Now getting our snooze on.  Alarm set for 3am so we can catch the bus to the train to the airport for our 7am flight to India!

Au Revoir for now.  We may not have internet connectivity in India, so will be back on as soon as we can!  Our itinerary is at the link at the top right of the screen, so you can track where we are.  Night!

Note: click on any picture to see it bigger.  There will be a dropdown option with size choices.

We got a bright and early start (at the hour of 10am, since Eli’s still recuperating from sleeping too little in the last two months), and began our morning at the Patisserie, with chocolate croissants.  We then hopped the Metro to the Musee Rodin, which is primarily a garden with statuary amid some lavish botanical displays (although I’m sure they’re more dramatic at their full glory in the spring/summer).

Hil and Laurel, this next one reminded me of that time at the beach with the huge waves!  (although we were more clothed at the time)

We then walked over to the Musee D’Orsay, which is in an old rail station built at the turn of the twentieth century.  It was turned into a museum in 1986.  Enough with the history, and on with the pictures!  We only put a few here, the rest are on Mel’s website (link below, or click on any picture!)

http://wildsprite.com/gallery/v/honeymoon/Paris

More from this afternoon’s trip to the music museum after I download the pictures!

There are stairs everywhere in Paris; no wonder the people here can eat such good food and still stay skinny.  Several flights for every trip on the subway (we made 7 trips today, most of which included a transfer and thus, more stairs).  Then there were the 400 steps up and down Notre Dame.  To top it all off, there were ~250 steps up and down the Arc de Triomphe.  Jeesh.  My feet are quite sore right now, and taking a much deserved break.

After Notre Dame we came back to the hotel and uploaded some pics and played with camera settings.  Then we set back out and walked around the Eiffel Tower.  It was raining, so we didn’t stay too long.  Then we took the Metro to the Arc, where we climbed up and surveyed Paris from up top (and there was a break in the incessant drizzle so we could enjoy it!).  From there, we Metro-ed to the Musee de l’Orangerie, which has good impressionist works, including oval two rooms entirely covered with Monet’s water lilies.  (This was Mel’s favorite; she had no idea there was more than one of these).

We were planning on re-visiting the Pompidou after this, but were bushed, so we headed to the Latin Quarter for some dinner.  There were so many tasty looking options that we opted to mill around the streets window shopping and munching on food from street vendors.  We had the tastiest salami and cheese panini (toasted!), then after a bit more wandering we had a nutella and banana crepe.  After a bit more wandering, Mel’s shoe decided to attack her foot, and we decided to call it a night.  On the way back, we stopped at the market and got some wine, cheese, marmalade, and bread, and munched on these back in the room.  Now it’s late and we’re bushed.  Time for sleep (it’s almost 10 here!).

Here’s some pics from the back half of the day (more online).

Yes, that is a wall-size Monet, one of 8 we saw today.

More pictures from Notre Dame!

Mel has this thing for gargoyles…

Of course, we had to have Eli emulating the ‘death by electrocution’ sign, although I don’t think he replicated the scream of terminal agony very well 🙂

Finally, us at the top of Notre Dame, before descending those 400 stairs.  That’s the cathedral spire sticking up there behind us, in case you can’t tell.

Best laid plans… the plan: to get up at 7 and go up Notre Dame.  The implementation: wake up at 9, and leisurely make our way over to the island, walk around a bit, grab a delicious breakfast (tea, croissant, crepe w/nutella).  Then we checked out the inside and climbed the tower.  The views were amazing, and there weren’t as many stairs as I was fearing (Eli counted 392 on the way down, although I think 402 is the official number).

Gotta run!  This afternoon Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, dinner, and Pompidou part deux.  More Notre Dame pics later, and PM pics.

We changed the resolution on the camera to shoot raw and max res jpgs, so they take forever and a day to upload now.  So it’ll take me longer to get them all up, but they’ll get there eventually. (Mel really liked the gargoyles, so lots more gargoyle pics!)

We went to sleep at the quite reasonable Parisan hour of 9:30pm.  However we got a bit of a late start this morning, since Eli’s internal clock reverted to EST, and he slept until 11am Paris time (or his completely normal work wakeup of 5am EST).

Despite the late start, we had a full day.  We started with Lunch near the Eiffel Tower at Cafe Francis.  We had delicious Croque Monsieur (toasted ham and cheese sandwiches), which were hot, gooey goodness.  

We then walked along the river Seine until we got to the Place de la Concorde, which has a stolen Egyptian Obelisk.

Then we frolicked through the gardens on our way to the Louvre.  Mel emulated some silly French signs (do not sneak!), and sat on an abstract statue.

Then we spent the rest of the day at the Louvre.  Yes, we did see the Mona Lisa (on our way out), and yes, it is quite underwhelming.  We spent most of our time elsewhere, looking at sculpture, ancient artifacts, objects d’art, Napoleon’s apartments, and lots of other stuff. Eli’s final impression with most of the French objects: “Wow, those people were really really rich.” There were tapestries 20’x30′, with at least 25 colors in them, meaning that there were 25 colors of thread running the length and width of the entire thing, and someone (or bunch of somoenes) spent weeks or months or years weaving it, just so some king/baron/lord/duke could hang it on their wall commemorating their hunting season.

Hil, when I saw the above, I immediately thought of you.  This is a piece of bath equipment intended for serious bathers only!

We took more pics of art we liked, and we put these and some more on our honeymoon photo website.  We’ll keep adding photos there, since only a small number are up so far!

Oh, then we tried to eat, but apparently Parisians don’t eat out on Sunday nights.  Finally found a place pretty close to the hotel, and Mel had yummy goat cheese on bread and salad, and Eli had cheese plate. We shared chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert (it was a cafe, so no serious French desserts).

Oh, and we got some watercolors of Paris from a street vendor guy who we watched painting before it started raining.  Score!

Sleep, then lots more museums tomorrow.